December
19, 2006: While China has had nuclear weapons for four decades now, they have
never built a force that could have much impact on the United States. For most
of that time, China's nuclear missiles were pointed at Russia. During the 1970s
and 80s, relations with Russia were decidedly frosty, and there were several
border skirmishes, that produced hundreds of casualties. Even today, after more
than a decade of better relations with Russia, China only has twenty missiles
that could reach the United States. These are liquid fueled, take hours to get
ready for launch, and spend most of their time off-line. And even if these
missiles were made ready, they could only threaten the Western United
States.
Meanwhile,
the United States has over 800 missiles that could reach China, and most of
them are ready to fire 24/7. How many of those missiles are aimed at China is a
well-kept secret, but China has about 200 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has
over 9,000. Even with planned reductions, and expected growth in the Chinese
arsenal, in the next ten years, China will have perhaps 300 warheads, and the
U.S. will still have about 5,000. By then, China may have as many as a hundred
missiles that could reach all of the United States. This assumes that China
finally figures out how to build a SSBN (ballistic missile sub) that actually
works reliably, and then puts them on patrol off the west coast of North
America.
Perhaps
China realizes that the chances of the United States using, or even threatening
to use, nuclear armed missiles against China are slim to none. In that case,
why should China spend a lot of money trying to match the American arsenal.
