Posted on 10/20/2023 6:23:14 AM PDT by BenLurkin
China may be accelerating its efforts to develop a nuclear arsenal, according to a new report from the Pentagon, as part of its ongoing efforts to modernize and revamp its fighting forces in order to match American military capabilities.
The latest assessment from the defense department said China had increased its arsenal of operational nuclear warheads from the estimated 400 in 2021 to more than 500 as of May this year.
That figure is still a fraction of the more-than 5,000 warheads the United States and the Russian Federation say they each possess in their nuclear stockpiles (of which under 1,500 warheads are ready to be launched at any time). The Pentagon estimates that China is aiming for about 1,500 total nuclear warheads in their arsenal by 2035.
"And so, that's on track to exceed some of our previous projections," said a senior defense official briefing journalists this week. The report projects that China will reach 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030 and may also be developing non-nuclear warheads that could reach parts of the continental United States.
In 2020, China started intensifying its nuclear weapons program, constructing hundreds of nuclear silos across its northwestern region and speeding up its development of new warheads and launchers.
"It is a complete transformation of China's approach to nuclear weapons," says M. Taylor Fravel, a professor of political science who specializes in security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. China has since more than doubled the number of warheads in its arsenal, according to the latest Pentagon report, "confirming that the rapid modernization foreshadowed several years ago is on track," in China, says Fravel.
The Pentagon's annual report on China began in 2000, and despite current hot wars in both Ukraine and now the Middle East, the Pentagon assessment is closely watched as national security concerns on China continue to drive U.S. defense budgets and training priorities.
The report comes after a year of mounting tensions in the Taiwan Strait. China claims the island as its breakaway province and has vowed to take it one day.
Last August, following former House speaker Nancy Pelosi's high-profile visit to the island democracy, China held large-scale military exercises that encircled Taiwan's main island. Analysts said the move demonstrated how Beijing's military might blockade Taiwan and cut it off from critical energy supplies in the future.
Since the exercises, China's military, the People's Liberation Army or PLA, has also flown more regular sorties of military planes and naval vessels in the airspace and waters around Taiwan.
The Pentagon report noted that "the PLA is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force if perceived as necessary by Beijing," using an acronym for the People's Republic of China.
"We definitely see improvements in their capabilities. Those were demonstrated in certain respects during their response to the then-Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, to President Tsai's transit of the United States," the senior defense official said, but also noted that the "PRC still perceives that they have some shortcomings that they have yet to fully address."
How many does Taiwan have? They have had nuke plants since the 70’s. And, don’t tell me they don’t have the technology to do it.
The way things are going, the Chicoms don’t need nukes to defeat us.
Operational thanks to Bill Clinton, who gave them the missile technology and advanced them 25 years in one fell swoop.
We lifted them out of the rice patties with the intent of creating wage slaves do make us cheap shit and in the process we created a monster. We will pay the piper.
But the Pentagon wants to make sure that those nukes are addressed by the correct pronouns. Glad I was in the military when it was lead by real leaders.
Hey that’s only 10 nukes per US state so nothing to worry about, right Joe?
“New Pentagon report claims China now has over 500 operational nuclear warheads”
I wonder if the NeverTrumpers will claim that China’s nukes are ‘rusty’ and therefore don’t work, as they claim about Russian nukes.
great 500 things they have to pay for and maintain that they will never use, welcome to the club of idiots who pay billions for things they wont ever use.
Make China 1959 again
Last year Russia claimed to have 12,000 tanks. Turns out only about 2,500-4,000 of them were operational or serviceable.
Nuclear weapons are far more expensive and much more expensive to maintain. Given the state of the Red Army in general it is fair to conclude that the Russians very likely have skipped maintenance on most of their nuclear weapons.
China, on the other hand probably has more nuclear weapons than the Pentagon says they do and they’re probably maintained much better than the Russian weapons.
The problem in China is that if there are any major problems with missiles or warheads it’s unlikely that any career officer in the PLA is going to sacrifice himself in order to give the bad news to his superiors or the Politburo. Who wants to be denounced, arrested, and imprisoned for reporting an unpopular truth?
This is the problem with autocracies is the leadership is consistently fed information they wish to hear as opposed to accurate information.
The converse applies in the West where it seems that our defense and intelligence agencies consistently underestimate our abilities and they consistently overestimate the capabilities of our adversaries.
I’ll plead guilty of the latter point because last year I figured Ukraine was doomed and the Russians would be on the Polish border in no more than ten days. Because our media had all sorts of things to say about Russia’s capability and hardly anything at all to say about the abilities of the Ukrainian forces.
In short, whatever the actual state of the Chinese nukes are I’d fathom that China’s leadership has just as much factual information on the subject as you and I do.
And accurate and reliable missiles to deliver them, thanks to Bubba Klinton, but hey, they gave him "campaign contributions".
Harry should have listened to Douglas...
None of this would be happening...
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