Posted on 07/06/2021 5:04:55 AM PDT by Onthebrink
We are out of our minds. The only thing we can agree on is that we hate each other. We are ripe for the picking, and the Chinese are not stupid, they know this better than anyone.
A little more time, a little more social engineering of the military and diverting of funds, and it’s possible we wouldn’t be able to mount a counter attack.
The more likely scenario is China is building an intimidation factor to be used in economic negotiations. China doesn’t have a clear win in nuking it’s biggest vassal state.
Fact check: True. Both China and Russia have invested billions in an underground network of shelters, C2 facilities and related complexes that will allow their leadership and other elites to survive the attack, then emerge to begin the reconstitution process. On our side, civil defense is a joke; there are supposed “plans” to evacuate the cities (given enough lead time), but little consideration about how those people are supposed to be fed and sheltered—if they reach the countryside.
Of course, there are schemes to shelter, protect and feed our political class, along with other senior government officials and their families. For years, the feds maintained a doomsday shelter for Congress under the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Nuclear war is survivable if (a) you have a bug-out location not located next to a major city, key military base or ICBM field; (b) you make the needed investments to defend your property, and put away enough food, water and medicine to keep yourself supplied for a period of months, and (c) practice the skills you will need to survive, including bug-out exercises, shooting skills, and growing/storing your own food, to supplement what you’ve already put away.
Fact is: the U.S. government has relegated much of its population to the role of nuclear fodder since the days of MAD. The elites, as always, will be taken care of; everyone else is on their own and the death toll will be in the millions. Russia and China will lose an equally staggering number of civilians, but they will emerge with a functional government and better prepared to pursue their interests in the post-war world.
Oops. Thanks for setting me straight.
No, you were correct. The USA has tested over 1,000 nukes. Russia, almost as many. Not sure where that poster got their data.
They could win. There’s too many of them. They could strike and we could wait a week to strike back.
SoCal-500 explosions? Proof?
Greed is the biggest threat.
In the future it might be nice to have a contributed article’s author cited as “Gordon Chang, contributing editor”, for example, to avoid confusion.
“China Is Preparing For Nuclear War....”
We aren’t.
Maybe India will Nuke them before they’re finished
“but thousands of nuclear bombs have been detonated above ground and we’re still here”
You do realize that where bombs are detonated makes a difference? If one goes off in your neighborhood I doubt you survive.
The more likely scenario is that China, with likely help from Russia, could launch a strike against our bases. When the Joint Chiefs inform that idiot who occupies the White House what’s happening, he will just say, “Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal. Besides, my friend Xi told me what was happening a couple weeks ago, and he told me not to retaliate.”
I threw this out as a hypothetical to see what was biting today.
Hell, the U.S. military might couldn’t defeat the North Vietnamese and their fox hold buddies, the Chinese, in that war.
Now another hypothetical. What, in your mind, would happen if China attacked Taiwan?
And one other thing: Doing all the things you need to do in order to survive a nuclear war...that’s just simply beyond my capability. I’d have had to been doing that for years already, but I have neither the funds nor the know-how to accomplish it.
If the sirens go off, and the EAS is saying there’s nukes inbound, I’ll just go out to my front yard. I live literally three blocks from the fence of a major military base, one that’s big enough that they’ve likely targeted a couple 500-kt warheads on it. I live close enough that when they go off, I’ll be in the zone where instant vaporization is likely. I might see a bright flash...and I won’t feel a thing.
I know it’s rather morbid, but I’m a realist. And I wouldn’t WANT to live in a post-nuke world.
We’ve been “de-nuclearizing” for years, through agreements with Russia (which have never included China) and the aging of our own nuclear triad.
One of the by-products of the Bush Wars was postponement of critical decisions on modernizing our nuclear arsenal in favor of overseas contingency operations. So, we’ve arrived in 2021 with an SSBN force in need of replacement, a small, aging bomber inventory and land-based ICBMs that were in need of replacement decades ago.
How’s the modernization going? We’re working on the B-21 Raider, essentially an updated version of the B-2. Scheduled to fly next year; the Air Force wants more than 100, doubtful the Biden Administration will pay for that many. The rest of our nuclear bomber force consists of the venerable B-52s; around 70 will be modernized with new engines (on top of previous upgrades) and remain in service until 2050, when they are 90 years old. The B-1 (which lost its nuclear capability years ago) and the B-2 will be in the boneyard by the middle of the next decade—at the latest.
We’re also working on the NexGen SSBN, the Colombia class. Navy has plans for 12 boats (versus 16 in its predecessor, the Ohio-class) and no one is sure if that number will hold. First boat won’t join the fleet until 2031.
Finally, there’s the matter of a replacement for our 50-year-old Minuteman III ICBMs. Air Force and Northrop Grumman are working on the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, an updated ICBM that will be based in existing (but modified) Minuteman silos). But we’re already seeing signs that Congressional Democrats (and Joe Biden) want to scrap the ICBM replacement, by cutting NG and forcing retirement of the Minuteman III. The older system is past the end of its service life and can no longer be modified.
Under that plan, we’ll go from a triad to a nuclear dyad by the end of this decade. That means the hundreds of Russian and Chinese warheads long allocated for our ICBMs can be re-targeted on cities and military bases. But don’t worry: Joe and his family will be safe, as will HASC Chairman Adam Smith and other members of our ruling elites.
It’s true China doesn’t want to destroy the North American market. But there are scenarios the Chinese are willing to execute, in pursuit of longer-term goals. Beijing is convinced it would emerge from a nuclear exchange in better shape than the US and be able to dictate the terms of peace.
The poster specified atmospheric tests, of which there were a total of 520, including 8 underwater tests.
Since 1945 there have been 2121 tests of a total of 2476 devices by the nine nuclear weapon states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests
The above linked wiki article has extensive footnotes and a bibliography, for those interested.
“It’s true China doesn’t want to destroy the North American market. But there are scenarios the Chinese are willing to execute, in pursuit of longer-term goals. Beijing is convinced it would emerge from a nuclear exchange in better shape than the US and be able to dictate the terms of peace.”
I can’t imagine the scenario where a nuclear exchange benefits China, even if they do fare better, and I have no doubt they would. I suppose if they could build a coalition that wished to see the US decimated, then it would work. Otherwise, there would be hostility against China from all corners of the world, and it would be a huge opening for Russia to become dominant.
I’m not saying it could never happen, but I just don’t see a scenario where a Chinese first strike would result in a stronger China. China’s economic and cyber warfare will achieve their goals.
Ping
In one afternoon, you have a radioactive country that's been slapped back into the 19th century. No power, no food distribution, no telecomm, no medical care. Good luck learning to survive like your great-great-grandparents did.
It would be over in about ten minutes. Of course the brave defenders of Taipei would fight a geurilla war for a while. The US will show a lot of sad people and there will be speeches given. But in the end, very few Americans have the will to send our troops there.
We will wring our hands as we did about Warsaw and Nanking in the early days of WWII.
China to use EMP weapons is more likely.
EMP and then on ground troops to mop up.
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