China is a totally different proposition. For starters, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) won’t start a war with the US except in a Taiwan contingency. The US created the Taiwan problem and it’s up to them to find a face saving way for it to re unite with China. The present status won’t hold indefinitely. Once the PLA has reached a level where it can inflict 70-80 percent damage on the US, the Americans will probably let Taiwan reunite with China, but there will be obstacles.

Yes I know technology can change the game. If the US can invent some technology to attack without risking their carriers so can the Chinese. With a population of 1.3 billion, surley there are some geniuses who can change the game. The PLA does not need to have parity or sprint to parity with US forces. They have the means to make the US pause before it attacks China. As one PLA general said, the US intoxicated with its power would think no one will dare attack the US if the Americans initiate the attack.

That, my fellow readers, is a forlorn hope. The PLA is ugrading and modernising. The missile shield may blunt some PLA retaliation but at least ten to twenty US cities will be held hostage or destroyed. I don’t know but any US president must be 100 percent – not even 99.9 percent – sure no missile can reach the US. Maybe the US has the means to obliterate all the Chinese missiles but it is my guess the PLA will have contingency plans to make the US pay for any destruction on China.

Reply: Actually, the Australian Defence White Paper explicitly states that the 12 submarines will not be nuclear (p. 70: “The Government has ruled out nuclear propulsion for these submarines.”). As for the announcement to buy 100 F-35s, that will be a reduction of Australia’s current inventory of approximately 110 F-18 and F-111 fighter-bombers.

Nor does there seem to be any risk of a “cold War between China and Australia.” China is 4,000 km from Australia separated by Indonesia and the Philippines, and unless China begins expanding south or Australia starts operating routinely in the South China Sea I see no risk of a “cold war” between the two. That’s not to say the two countries won’t have issues, that Indian-Chinese issues won’t effect Australia’s policy, or that ANZUS couldn’t potentially be drawn into U.S.-Chinese disputes. The White Paper explicitly points to the “rise of China,” but the outlook is as a challenge not as an enemy. HK

About the NFU, what needs to be asked is that will the Chinese strike first if the US starts winning the conventional war over Taiwan?

Reply: Good catch! What was I thinking? I’ve made the correction. HK

[China's no-first-use policy hardly a credible policy]. Oh please, which country would not use that same policy. Does the writer of the article truly think that the other NACS, who offer up the same garbled nonsense of “no first use policy” would not react the same way if it was their own country at odds with existence?

Don’t blame China for the invention of no first use, they are just following the path of every other NAC who not only have stated the exact same thing but it does give them, much like the others, [an excuse] to continue to hide behind their arsenal until somebody “accidentally” does breech the first use.

The real question which should be asked amongst the NAC’S is: “What is our first reaction after being hit with a nuclear strike?”

It is this answer that deems our fate more than the bogus one that the NACS currently take solice in and one we as a whole, know absolutely nothing about.

Reply: Actually, most other nuclear weapons states don’t have a no-first-use policy. India has stated one, but also said it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against chem/bio weapons. Pakistan recent said it would not initiate a nuclear war, which is similar but still not a declared no-first-use policy. Russia adopted a no-first-use policy in 1982, but then abandoned it in 1993. The United States, France and United Kingdom have explicitly rejected a no-first-use policy.

I’m not blaming China “for the invention of no first use” but think it is fair to ask questions about its scope and limits. It is, of course, a political statement rather than a limit on how military forces would operate in a war. HK

Reply: It is possible, but not supported by anything I have seen, that China has dismantled its nuclear bomb capability. As you probably know, several of the nuclear tests were bombs delivered by H-6 and probably also an Q-5A drop. The Air Force nuclear mission is not spelled out in the paper, correct, but neither is the construction of new SSBNs. If it still exists, the Air Force nuclear mission might be a secondary or back-up mission and therefore not get the same attention as the missiles. If possible, please direct the readers to the “internet comments from China” you mention. HK

Interesting that you do not respond to the rest of my statement. It’s also very interesting – in a low-key-paranoid kind of way – that someone else chose to forcefully re-state my argument, from a decidedly Chinese perspective . I wonder if their choice of nickname was also conscious – 3.1415 is off the mark, but by just a very tiny bit.

I happen to think that the fly in the ointment is the stability of the Chinese government and society. If mainland China were to be invaded, would the people rise as one against the aggressors, or would they go home after token resistance and let the state crumble so they can fight over the pieces later, as the Iraqis did?

How aggressively would the Chinese government respond to a massive propaganda campaign of the kind that the US fought against the USSR and its satellites? What if it were supplemented with trade restrictions? Perhaps the aim of this document is to say that the price of peace is that the US should once again turn a blind eye as the Chinese government steps up its program of societal control?

Reply: That for your comments. Again, I have not stated “that China is the only nation to _develop_ new weapons,” as you claim. To quote myself (?): “China is busy deploying new nuclear weapons with new nuclear warheads and is the only of the five original nuclear weapon states that is thought to be increasing its nuclear arsenal.”

I’ll leave it to others to analyze the deeper sociological and cultural reasons for why the Chinese government has the nuclear policy it has. There are certainly many theories. HK

What is your assessment of the India Nuke program..Missiles require a lot of testing and the Agni program is still confusing. In fact only IRBM prowess of the Prithvi can be safely assumed. But the fact remains that India is not seeking rapid development in Nuke technology but is now more possessed of the fact that conventional weapons need to be upgraded.

Reply: It is my impression that the bulk of the US-Chinese adversarial relationship comes down to the issue of Taiwan. There are of course other factors (history, incidents, proliferation, human rights, trade), but Taiwan seems to capture it. I’ll leave it to others to paint a more comprehensive picture.

As for India’s missile program, I recently published a study that some people in India didn’t like. You can find it and some of the comments here. HK

Your example one interprets China’s unconditional NFU as “if an adversary invaded China and threatened the survival of the state, China’s nuclear forces would not be used as long as the invader did not use nuclear weapons.” By sticking to an unconditional NFU, China basically assumes the possibility of a non-nuclear invasion of China as ZERO. This is not too far fetched when one considers the history of China from 1950s to 1970s, when the US and USSR at one point or another threatened but never actually executed an invasion of China. If China was deemed untouchable then, why should China worry now? The possibility is Zero and thus there is no need to degrade the very solemn vow.

Your example two “if the United States staged strikes against China from Japan or South Korea, Chinese nuclear weapons would not be used against U.S. bases in those countries.” If a government in any non-nuclear-weapon states or in nuclear-weapon-free zones allows US to initiate nuclear strike of China from their soil, then these countries would cease to be a non-nuclear weapon state or in a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Thus, China will of course retaliate against both the initiator of the nuclear strike and the accomplice. Since China’s nuclear doctrine is countervalue, it is only logical to conclude that China feels that it can very safely deter the Japanese or South Korean government from allowing US to initiate a nuclear strike of China from their soil.

Although it might be difficult for a non-Chinese to believe the seriousness of China’s NFU, it is, shall we say, a conviction, without any religious meaning, that nuclear weapons are so special to China that they can only be used in a mutual destruction scenario. Any responsible rulers of China who have inherited the ability to impose MAD will not let the ability to degrade, hence China’s effort to modernize its nuclear deterrence. Unless United States is willing to increase its pain threshold (currently guesstimated at the loss of one major city), it is very easy to deter nuclear strike initiated by the US. In contrast, China’s historical pain threshold has been so high that it can tolerate pretty well anything but a nuclear strike before it will use its nukes.

The right question to ask is why the United States doubts China’s NFU while it refuses to do anything to control its impulse to use nuclear weapons. After all, United States bears the unenviable distinction of being the only country that has used the nuclear weapon, twice. Let’s hope that there is not a third time, because that may well trigger our own collective extinction.

Likewise, the pledge to “unconditionally not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or in nuclear-weapon-free zones,” means that if the United States staged strikes against China from Japan or South Korea, Chinese nuclear weapons would not be used against U.S. bases in those countries. In that credible?”

Why, yes, it is credible.

They are probably convinced (with good reason, I might add) that they could defeat any conventional attacks against the mainland using nothing but conventional force, or at least (in the unlikely case of an attack by Russia) bleed the invader long enough and hard enough to reach a negotiated peace.

In other words, they seem to think that the survival of their state cannot be put at risk from the outside unless nuclear weapons are used.

Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for them to have an assured second-strike capability (which is what the subs and the ICBMs are all about) and a matching strategy. It also stands to reason that a conventional attack directed at these second-strike weapons can only be a prelude to an all-out nuclear attack, so…

Otoh, it makes much less sense for them to threaten neighbors with medium-range missiles or an in-theater nuclear capability, as long as those same neighbors remain committed to being non-nuclear. The Koreans and Japanese could roll their own in a couple of years (and/or base US weapons on their soil in weeks) and China doesn’t want more nukes on its doorstep, especially not close to the industrialized and highly populated southern seaboard.

On a side note, your comment about China being the only state to develop and build new weapons is a bit disingenuous – the RRW program (or whatever it’s called these days) is not yet dead.

Reply: Thanks for the comments. I only have one response regarding your last sentence. Regardless of what one might think about the RRW (and I’m not a supporter), it was not a plan to increase the arsenal although it would have laid the foundation for doing so in the future if decided. The Chinese deployment is different because it is being carried out (versus being a plan) and it will probably lead to a slight increase in their arsenal. They’re also phasing out older weapons, so what the net result will be remains to be seen. HK