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"Limited nuclear war" (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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I recently read this article from John Bellamy foster where he mentions that the US strategists think they can engage in "limited nuclear war", that is, use nuclear weapons on "tactical" targets and keep nuclear war at a "low" level.

Supposedly, the idea is that the US moves up from low level targets to more important targets, and that at each stage, the Chinese will not escalate because escalation would be top costly for the Chinese (since the Chinese only have ICBMs, their only option of escalation is MAD).

Aparantly, this strategy has also become part of official US doctrine.

My first thought on this is that this strategy is completely insane, because China will not allow it to be played out. If 1 nuke goes off all of them go off.

My second thought on this is that I have no idea what the actual Chinese nuclear policy is, other than their statement to never use nukes in a first strike capacity. Does anybody know of any sources that go into detail on this?

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[–] 666@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You don't need to use tactical nuclear weapons to respond.

You simply strike chemical facilities, nuclear facilities and critical industry full of toxic materials. Why drop a big-bomb when you can poison the enemy's land for generations? I genuinely think with how rural and sprawled America is; China's response to tactical nukes would simply be striking nuclear facilities with non-nuclear ICBMs or depending on the severity/number of tactical strikes it could just straight up escalate.

[–] Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That's a good point. People tend to forget that non-nuclear payloads can still be used to take out strategic targets. Like, in a war over Taiwan, China could deny the west critical minerals and parts (Literally already happening and the western panties are in a twist). They could blockade western trade routes. They could launch devastating cyber attacks and even create mass panic.

[–] 666@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Looking back on this now I feel like I grazed the lathe.

[–] Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

The immortal science grants access to foresight some consider supernatural.

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 days ago

They've already shut down US pipelines before, and they're already inside US cellular networks.

A war wouldn't just be nukes flying around, critical infrastructure would also be heavily targeted, and the US has not been maintaining their assets at all. There are power plants that have been running for nearly 100 years at this point.