"if CCP decide to nuke our assets, we nuke theirs, eye for an eye, simple as that" YOU WISH TO RUN OUT AND CHARGE WITH HIM? YOU'RE THE XVII ROBERT THE BRUCE BECAUSE THE XVI BEFORE YOU DIDN'T CHARGE, AND SURVIVED TO PASS THEIR LANDS AND TITLE TO YOU. UNCOMPROMISING MEN ARE EAST TO ADMIRE. HE HAS COURAGE. SO DOES A DOG. BUT IT IS EXACTLY THE ABILITY TO COMPROMISE THAT MAKES A MAN NOBLE. --Sorry for the Braveheart quotes, but it is so appropriate here. We Are talking about politicians here and they are weasels.

I agree, CCP leaderships are not stupid enough to nuke us. The #1 priority for CCP is to enslave Chinese people as long as they can hold power, a nuclear exchange with United States does NOT fit their interests.

The following site claims to be able to demonstrate, roughly, what the effects would be of a variety of different nuclear detonations (size, altitude, distance) near your home. Thought it might be relevant or interesting. http://science.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=nuclear-bomb.htm&url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/blastmap.html

Slowball made the following comment: "Chinese military equipment / installations / communications are more vulnerable to EMP affects than US equipment and worse, the warhead would detonate at low level within 50 miles of China's shoreline. This would cripple China and leave them vulnerable to a subsequent US attack." With which I am inclined to disagree. 1. U.S. military adv is largely technological, esp satillite command and control, GPS guidance and navigation, and various computer technologies, all of which would be heavily affected by an EMP. A HANE, high altitude nuclear explosion, would destroy our world wide civillian satillite grid and cripple our military satillites (see SciAm May 2004), and have terrible impacts on our computers, most of which would be inadequately shielded. 2. As a) the aggressors and b) a less technologically sophisticated nation, the Chinese would be better prepared for and also less affected by EMP. 3. An attack 50 miles off the Chinese coast intended to destroy a carrier task force could be of relatively low yield (? navy guys, how close are the escorts to the carrier?), and would not be at an altitude sufficient to create a powerful EMP; most of the energy would be thermal. 4. Any communication disruptions would favor the attacker, since his plans would already be distrubuted to his commanders. It would be the defenders/ responders who would suffer more from the disruption (assuming ChiCom's would allow to their commanders to make decisions w/o supervision, which perhaps isn't likely [but that's what political officers are for, anyway])

At that point the US would be the attackers--attempting a landing on the mainland. A low yield warhead would destroy the CVBG. As you said, the EMP would not be that widely dispersed, therefore our satellites would not be affected nor would the rest of our global assets. My assumption was that US has developed better hardening against EMP--but that info is surely classified (ssshhhh). Chinese forces would be worse off because even their low tech stuff is susceptible. Thoughts????

Well to address your points 1) Satellites are indeed vulnerable to EMP, but this isn't just US sats, but virtually ANY sats in the area. A 1 megaton EMP detonation by a foreign country over any US held territory or assets in high atmosphere (say 62 miles up or higher) can't be interpreted as anything BUT an attack. Of course BEFORE that attack can be made a missile has to be launched to get up there. THAT particular item is trackable, even a THEATER ballistic missile needs between 10 minutes to 20 minutes to hit is target and it pops on a lot of radar screens when they light up. Essentially what you get is a nuclear counter-response...no ifs ands or buts again. You use nukes at any level and at any numbers and the response is basically a whole load of nukes sent back to essentially wipe you out, theres no proportionality in this game. And as an aside to slowball, if we're talking about theater assets against a CBG you're right the president wouldn't know about it until after an attack was attempted, however all CBG command authority personel know that if someones launched ballistic missiles at you, you can't take a chance that they simply have conventional warheads on them, thats calls for a preset response which I'm pretty certain is a tac nuke retaliation at some level at the least and quite possibly more depending on just what kind strike we're looking at (btw this scenario has been played out at many different levels both on this board, other forums, and most definitely within the navy itself) 2) Eh not really true. EMP hardening and redundancy is expensive to do. HPM hardening is in some cases even more difficult. If you go the first route then you get a response like in #1, nuclear counter-response and proportionality thrown out the window. Its much harder to get EMP capabilities at local battlefield levels without involving nukes, however lets say instead high powered microwave weapons were used instead. The difference there is the effective range (and the fact that these weapons dont leave the tell tale signature of a nuclear explosion), which is usually about 600 meters or less I believe. 3) If any CBG is at 50 miles away from shore during hostilities I would be EXTREMELY surprised at the incompetence of the CO of that group. For the most part CBGs tend to stay out of the EEZ (economic exclusion zone) of a nation that could be any potential threat. Thats a 200 mile limit and still gives more than enough buffer range for strike craft from a carrier. Again that just increases the time for any TBM to hit the CBG while said CBG gets any responses online, and I'm not even going to get into how difficult it is to target a carrier battlegroup unless you got forward recon assets I'll just merely state is very very difficult. 4)As far as any communications disruptions go, well if its on a big enough scale (say isolating or jamming an entire CBG) that CO is gonna go into whatever contingency plans are on hand and assume an attack is being effected against the CBG. Each contingency plan is different but each assumes the same thing in a communication disruption of that kinda magnitude (namely that you are under attack).

First, on radar and missiles. Ballistic missiles are normally NOT tracked by most radars. Air search and long range surviellance radars do not look for things at the altitudes involved, and today in fact, it is rare to display actual radar data for operators. Air search radars display transponder signals, as a rule. And a theater missile might only need 5 or 6 minutes total from launch to target. Second, if someone launches a missile, it is not at all clear what it is up to. Most likely it is putting a satellite in orbit. You do not be assuming it is an attack. Just saying so will cost you your job. Third, there are lots of nuclear use situations which will not cause a general attack in reply. And a good thing it is too. I recommend you study the declassified summaries of the Strategic Integrated Operational Plan. [You can even read a whole book on the subject if you wish]. The general attack option is pretty nasty - and has us attacking even our allies. [China could get mad at Russia for a Russian attack on the USA - but still we would nuke China. Nice plan.] Everyone with a brain does everything possible NOT to go to execution of a nuclear general attack - especially before it is clear you have no alternatives.

No they won't. And that because we won't be attacking any Chinese cities if they invade Taiwan. In 1954 we let on we might do just such a thing - or at least we might nuke an invasion flotilla. But even then it was a bluff, as Ike had zero intention of actually using a nuclear weapon - he just hoped to win a gambit by bluffing. We don't like what happened - we got a 1955 decision to make China a nuclear power. We don't behave like that any more. It is not policy, nor politic, nor even legal, to be attacking Shanghai with hydrogen bombs because you are upset over an invasion of ROC. And President Ford, as a sitting President, said "It is unthinkable we would actually go to war over a territory we formally admit is already theirs." I would like to think we might go to war today - because ROC is now democratic - which it was not in Ford's day. But a conventional war please. If it goes nuclear, let it be tactical, at sea. WE don't want to lose any of OUR cities, and for that reason we have a mutual standoff in regard cities. Whatever you think of morality, or law, or popular opinion (and it matters to presidents - no one wants to be the one who nuked Shanghai) we won't do it because we don't want to lose LA - paraphrasing a PLA general.

"First, on radar and missiles. Ballistic missiles are normally NOT tracked by most radars. Air search and long range surviellance radars do not look for things at the altitudes involved, and today in fact, it is rare to display actual radar data for operators. Air search radars display transponder signals, as a rule. And a theater missile might only need 5 or 6 minutes total from launch to target." I'd add that at least as important is that also no radars (except those specifically designed as ABM-associated radars) track objects moving that fast as well as that high. Even as a missile big enough to take a nuke a few thousand miles comes screaming back into the lower atmosphere near its target, it still won't be tracked by air surveillance radars because it will be coming in too fast. Certain SAM-associated radars have larger-than-usual velocity and altitude gates sufficient to track short-range missiles like SCUDs, but something like a Patriot or an S-300 is not going to track an incoming CSS-5. Displacedjim

[ I'd add that at least as important is that also no radars (except those specifically designed as ABM-associated radars) track objects moving that fast as well as that high. Even as a missile big enough to take a nuke a few thousand miles comes screaming back into the lower atmosphere near its target, it still won't be tracked by air surveillance radars because it will be coming in too fast. Certain SAM-associated radars have larger-than-usual velocity and altitude gates sufficient to track short-range missiles like SCUDs, but something like a Patriot or an S-300 is not going to track an incoming CSS-5. ] Which is why if you want to drop an ICBM you need to do it at launch before it hits performance velocities. After it gathers its legs is a bit too late.