Quote:
Originally Posted by ikalugin
Yea, PRC is unhappy. I mean US is developing a consistent first strike capability between the modernisation of nuclear arsenal, ABM and cyber, smaller nuclear powers such as PRC should be even more concerned than established ones.
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What do you define as a 'First strike capability' though? If you mean the ability to launch an attack and then defeat the retaliatory attack then yes, that is a potential scenario for China that the US is developing with its advancing ABM system. If you mean a 'Bolt out of the blue' scenario then that's not so much because China is deploying the Changcheng system which is similar to the Oko system I imagine, or at least somewhere between Oko and EKS. So they'll pick up the IR plume from any land based launches, and indeed sea based ones if the satellite has a wide enough coverage.
The PRC is at a definite disadvantage because of its small SSBN fleet, so retaliatory options would be primarily land based, which THAAD is designed to counter. However, the PRC isn't toothless, it also has ABM systems, let's not forget that it took out an old satellite a few years back, so it has the technology, even though it's fairly early in design, and it has enough missiles that it could, in theory, saturate the US ABM system, just like the Soviet ASM doctrine was to saturate the AEGIS defence with enough missiles that one or two would get through, and it only takes one or two to hit their targets to cause millions of fatalities. Let's not forget, there are no winners, even if the US manages to hit every Chinese population center over 100,000 people, if it loses most of the western seaboard in return then it's a pyrrhic victory at best (although more than a few Americans may celebrate the destruction of California...in fact, I would put money on some pastor in the Mid-West drawing similarities with Sodom and Gomorrah).
and would be a massive drain on the US economy, if not the death knell to it. Although since China would at this point have gone back to warring tribes then it could hardly claim to be the victor in the fight. Of course, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, maybe Vietnam and the Phillipines would also have suffered from the collateral, because if the PRC is going down you can bet that it'll take all of its surrounding opponents down with it, especially Japan. Meanwhile North Korea will probably be in the process of fighting the South because the destruction of China means that the DPRK is next on the target list. The DPRK will lose this fight, but the resulting cost to the South Korean economy and society, especially if a Chinese warhead happens to find its way into Seoul, would basically knock it out for a generation.
Europe though, providing that some nations don't take the opportunity of the US being distracted to settle some old scores, would probably come out of this relatively intact, but the economy of most economically advanced nations would be in the dustbin.