this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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"Limited nuclear war" (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 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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[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 day ago

The US is doing everything in its power to undermine MAD and nuclear deterrence in general. This doesn't surprise me given how many more nuclear weapons the US has to China that they think they can and should use some in a conventional war. The logic being they afford to, it kills enemies that would weaken their conventional forces, and enemy use of the same would undermine their limited stockpile while US use wouldn't matter to their deterrent. Still deeply alarming.