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Subject: Will Taiwan drag U.S. and China into an all-out nuclear war?
whoami    9/2/2005 5:25:34 PM
Will Taiwan drag U.S. and China into an all-out nuclear war? At least to me, the chance of this happening is not small. Taiwan declares independency. China reacts with missiles and bombs. U.S. sends carriers. A few are sunk by Chinese nuclear war heads. U.S. retaliates with more nuclear war heads…
 
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Zhang Fei    US doctrine in response to a nuclear strike is the nuclear annihilation of its adversary   9/2/2005 8:29:42 PM
The Chinese know this. This - and not because the Chinese are great humanitarians - is why they will not launch nukes against American carrier battle groups. They understand that the potential nuclear annihilation of the PLA and the Communist Party, combined with perhaps 600m to 700m Chinese, followed by the end of China as a sovereign state, following a carve-up by its neighbors, is too risky for them to consider using nukes against American forces.
 
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whoami    RE:US doctrine in response to a nuclear strike is the nuclear annihilation of its adversary   9/3/2005 1:49:43 PM
Are you sure Chinese will not use the nuke? Chinese think that if they start a war with Taiwan and lose, China as a country will immediately reduce its size by 23 million (Taiwanese), and other 4 or 5 provinces (including Tibet) will follow the path. Their motherland will be divided up / carved up inevitably. What is more to lose by nuking U.S.? U.S., on the other hand, may think twice even if one or two carriers are sunk. There is no guarantee that U.S. can eliminate all Chinese war heads in one strike. Therefore, will Pentagon gamble with millions of American lives? Or will U.S. just cut the loss and leave the table?
 
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displacedjim    RE:US doctrine in response to a nuclear strike is the nuclear annihilation of its adversary   9/3/2005 4:37:11 PM
"U.S., on the other hand, may think twice even if one or two carriers are sunk. There is no guarantee that U.S. can eliminate all Chinese war heads in one strike. Therefore, will Pentagon gamble with millions of American lives? Or will U.S. just cut the loss and leave the table?" -- Whoami ---- Anyone who thinks that we would react to the destruction of several thousand Americans and several ships in an initial nuclear attack at the start of a war by saying, "Oh, crap, they're serious, I guess we'd better leave before we really piss them off" doesn't know jack about America. There is no question but that such an attack would only ensure that we would become far more involved in the war than we had been before the nuclear strike. Displacedjim
 
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Zhang Fei    The US has 10,000 nuclear warheads. It can destroy most of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.   9/3/2005 5:32:06 PM
More importantly, it can destroy the Chinese chain of command for triggering a Chinese nuclear launch. (Local commanders presumably don't have the authority or the launch codes for independently triggering the missiles they administer). Combined with national missile defenses, that's probably sufficient for preventing a Chinese nuke from reaching American soil. The other aspect whoami has ignored - which the Chinese government won't - is that the US will *have* to retaliate with nukes - the failure to do so would be an invitation to every nuclear-armed adversary of the US to attack the US with nukes without fear of retaliation. And if the US is going to retaliate, it might as well minimize the chance of a Chinese response by wiping out its cities and military bases with thousands of missile-launched nukes, followed by 24-hour air attacks on any areas where Chinese forces appear to be coalescing or generating military-related signals traffic. Uncle Sam will own Chinese airspace after China's cities and military bases are burned to the ground.
 
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Zhang Fei    Losing Taiwan vs losing 600m dead and all of China are two different outcomes   9/3/2005 6:01:59 PM
Here's what happens if China doesn't use nukes in an invasion of Taiwan and loses: China loses 50,000 dead over the course of a few weeks. But that's the extent of the loss combined with some temporary trade sanctions and the rebuilding of China's defense infrastructure. And China can always try again later. (Note that China's intervention in the Korean War was criticized by the UN - does anyone even talk about the matter today?) China doesn't actually own Taiwan right now, in the sense of having physical possession. If Taiwan declares independence, China loses nothing. And Tibet is in no danger of being able to attain independence even if Taiwan does declare independence. Tibet (like southern Mongolia, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other Chinese colonies) is under China's thumb because it is outnumbered and outgunned. That won't change if Taiwan declares independence. No number of abstract principles will help them gain their independence. Taiwan's de facto independence isn't like the separatist yearnings of China's colonies - Taiwan exists as a sovereign entity because of Uncle Sam. Tibet, Yunnan and other Chinese colonies do not enjoy Washington's support. By support, I refer to defense-related support, not the empty verbiage typically slung over Tibet. Here's what happens if China uses nukes over Taiwan and is the subject of American nuclear retaliation involving thousands of nukes: China loses all its major cities and many of its secondary ones. The PLA major bases and the Communist Party are wiped out, for the most part. 600m Chinese are vaporized. The Koreans stake a claim to Manchuria. The Mongols move into southern Mongolia and beyond. The Indians reclaim the parts of Kashmir taken by China and perhaps push into Yunnan. Burma fights the Indians for Yunnan, and perhaps moves into Guangxi. Vietnam moves into Guangxi and Guangdong. Russia moves into Manchuria. The Central Asian states move into East Turkistan and the lands cleaved away from the Uighurs. China will become the subject of the great post-war land rush. China is surrounded by more densely-populated neighbors. We know from the history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the effects of radiation are temporary. In the aftermath of a nuclear war with the US, China should not expect to remain a unitary country, any more than Japan was able to hold on to Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria or its Pacific Islands possessions. And then there's the final option: The Chinese government does nothing and raises the issue of Taiwanese independence every so often to divert the attention of the Chinese population from periods of slow economic growth or revelations of rampant official corruption or incompetence. Not invading Taiwan actually helps the Chinese government because it provides a handy diversion.
 
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GOP    RE:US doctrine in response to a nuclear strike is the nuclear annihilation of its adversary   9/8/2005 11:12:34 AM
>"Anyone who thinks that we would react to the destruction of several thousand Americans and several ships in an initial nuclear attack at the start of a war by saying, "Oh, crap, they're serious, I guess we'd better leave before we really piss them off" doesn't know jack about America. "< Americans have a much different pschye (sp) than most other citizens of different countries. We never give up, and if provoked, we always fight back. The Japanese made the mistake of trying to scare us off and make us give up at Pearl Harbor. We kicked their a**, and China might make the same mistake Japan did. I think it would be wise for the Chinese to study American pychology before they make any sort of attack on the US. It might save alot of Chinese from ending up in body bags or from being incenerated
 
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peaceisgood    don't think so   9/11/2005 2:43:26 AM
I don't think China will use nuclear power in Taiwan strait. If US gets involved and send troops there, the most likely reaction China has is by sending more troops there and possibly start attacking US military base and interest in other regions(Afghanistan? or Korea?). This will drag US into another vietnam war. Of course US is much stronger and China will take huge loss. But in order to win the war US will have to get rid of China's full military potential. This might not be possible. And if China is humiliated to such a level that people see US bombers come and go in the sky everyday, people can lose rational and anything can happen.
 
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sentinel28a    RE:don't think so   9/13/2005 8:37:16 PM
"And if China is humiliated to such a level that people see US bombers come and go in the sky everyday, people can lose rational and anything can happen." Namely a change of government in Beijing. (If the US achieves that level of air supremacy over China itself, there won't be a nuclear deterrent left to threaten the US with.) I don't think China would attack US bases in Afghanistan. For one thing, that would bring them into conflict with a lot of Afghani tribes who hate Chinese thoroughly. They might use North Korean forces as proxies against South Korea, but not Chinese troops (unless the NKPA was being driven back over the Yalu again). The PRC wants to keep the war localized to conserve resources and keep the war manageable--which is a pretty intelligent idea.
 
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rurouni    RE:don't think so   9/13/2005 9:33:39 PM
"(If the US achieves that level of air supremacy over China itself, there won't be a nuclear deterrent left to threaten the US with.)" And you suppose that China will "allow" U.S bombers over their sky before unleashing the nukes--which is a pretty intelligent idea.
 
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Pseudonym    RE:don't think so   9/13/2005 9:39:55 PM
"And you suppose that China will "allow" U.S bombers over their sky before unleashing the nukes--which is a pretty intelligent idea." I imagine the Chinese would be hiding their nuclear weapons in caves and watching us bomb their silo's. Regardless of what is said and what you think, I am sure someone in the CCP knows using nuclear weapons against the USA is a losing game. We might lose a city or two. China will be a radioactive glass parking lot.
 
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