The recent news about China's nuclear advancements has encouraged me to collect some thoughts on these developments and put them into a broader strategic framework. I think many of us here felt that this expansion was long overdue, but I didn't appreciate just how much it would improve China's overall position until I thought more deeply about the matter.
First, I'd like to stress that this buildup is very real. Any talk about "wind farms" (other than East Wind farms) or "the Pentagon is just lying to fundraise" and you can see yourself out of my thread. That's useful disinformation to spread around social media, but it has no place in a serious analysis. To anyone who thinks otherwise, I can only recommend that you follow the ethos of the successful drug dealer: never get high on your own supply.
With that out of the way, I'd like to examine the first and most obvious strategic implication: The impossibility of a large American first strike that relies on missile defense to neutralize the surviving remnants launched in retaliation. Having three large fields of missile silos ready to launch at a moment's notice and completing the necessary early warning systems - primarily ground-based radars and infra-red monitoring satellites - means that any first strike won't have the chance to land before China launches a retaliation so obliterating that it deletes the US from existence. If we are thinking about the escalation ladder in a conflict, China has just matched the US at the highest rung of that ladder and removed any option America had of climbing to that rung.
This in and of itself is a very salutary development; by expanding and improving its arsenal, China has stopped the US from posing an existential threat to it. But there are far subtler benefits to be had than just securing China's survival - as I just mentioned, by filling the gap at the highest rung of the escalation ladder, China has removed from the US the option of climbing to that rung. Let's extend that idea and fill the gaps China has in its escalation ladder from the top down...
While the ICBM silos and Mach 20+ hypersonic glide vehicle tests are well-attested, what follows is mostly my own speculation (although still backed by evidence). Suppose China doesn't just improve its strategic arsenal, but expands and improves its tactical nuclear weapons as well. There have been some indications that it's doing this already - namely the dual nuclear/conventional precision strike role for the DF-26 IRBM. This would match the US's tactical nuclear weapons rung of the escalation ladder, which it would be tempted to escalate to if it's losing a conventional conflict. Having a robust tactical nuclear weapons arsenal gives symmetric responses to China should the US escalate to that level, which precisely ensures that it won't.
An important principle to note here is that freezing the US out from escalation to a certain level on the ladder actually opens up coercive options for China at the levels below it. Having a robust, numerous, and diverse nuclear arsenal allows China freedom of action at the conventional level of conflict, free from the fear that the US might escalate to a nuclear level where China would have no response. This technological advancement would even allow China to deter purely conventional attacks on its homeland (for example, bombardment of its military-industrial infrastructure) by threatening asymmetric tactical nuclear strikes on similar US targets. For example, a very accurate HGV armed with a one kiloton nuclear device (very small by nuclear weapons' standards) fired at a US shipyard following a US attack on a Chinese shipyard would destroy the US shipyard without annihilating the city it's in. I foresee a much expanded role for such tactical nuclear warfighting in Chinese military doctrine in the decades to come.
Now, I imagine that at least some readers would have their hackles raised by this. A (albeit small) nuclear first strike on the US homeland? My response to this objection is that we ought not to be too fixated on the physics of the weapons involved and instead look at the more pertinent factor: the scale of devastation. A one kiloton detonation is around the scale of the Beirut Explosion; do you know how many people died in the Beirut Explosion? 218. By contrast, consider how many people would die in a conventional attack that destroyed the Three Gorges Dam. The relevant principle that should guide China's decision on striking the continental US is a simple one: equality of devastation. If the US wants its homeland untouched, what it must do is very simple - extend China the same courtesy.
While operationally extremely provocative, such a doctrine is (perhaps paradoxically) strategically reactive.
Another mission to consider for the ostensible tac-nuke armed HGV (and future Chinese systems like the H-20 stealth bomber) is strikes against the US's missile defense infrastructure. It's often noted that the test record of missile defense systems against ICBMs is spotty at best and that a sophisticated adversary could easily overcome it. Be that as it may, US decisionmakers believe that their missile defense works and so might contemplate escalation based on the false assumption that they are protected from retaliation. That delusion is a dangerous one for them to entertain, hence they should be promptly disabused of it in a serious crisis.
What would the cumulative effect of China closing the gaps in its escalation ladder from the top down as I've outlined be? First, as I've already mentioned, greatly expanded freedom of action at the conventional level. Second, the psychological impact of such a stark change in the balance of power on US allies will be wrenching. The decision a country like Japan would make in joining the US in a conflict (or even maintaining a formal alliance) depends ultimately on considerations of its own survival - nobody is going to tag along with the US on a suicide mission. A US ally like Japan understands that if the US can't escalate to the nuclear level to protect it, China could maul it solely with conventional weapons and the US would have no response. Countries throughout the western Pacific would start to see a security relationship with the US as an ever increasing liability, and it would not escape their notice that the US can ultimately leave the region while they can't. Third, China's conventional buildup has reached such a point that the US is seriously contemplating losing a conflict. What usually happened historically when a state perceived its position so dramatically weakening was it launched a war out of desperation and "now or never" thinking. An expanded Chinese nuclear arsenal and the credible threat of its use prevents the US from launching such a war.
Having said this, I don't believe that a war with Taiwan is imminent or even likely in the next decade or two. The primary reason is that while a nuclear expansion solves the problems of vertical escalation China has, it doesn't address the problems of horizontal escalation. The US has options beyond direct military attacks against China - for instance, it can blockade Chinese shipping or disconnect China from the dollar trading system. These problems require different (and much slower) solutions that I'll touch on here. China can neutralize the threat of blockades by expanding the PLAN (most crucially, the nuclear attack submarine fleet) and basing it in friendly countries along its sea lanes. I have in mind specifically Cambodia and Pakistan, and perhaps others like Myanmar, Iran, and Syria. The problem of trade sanctions can be resolved by developing China's interbank payment system CIPS and its central bank digital currency. More importantly, strategies like dual circulation would reduce and eventually eliminate China's vulnerability to foreign technology, and carbon neutrality would obviate the need for hydrocarbon imports.
Overall, a very significant development that augurs greater things to come.
