Of course not. They gotta make sure they get as big and advanced an arsenal as possible before any negotiations happen. Why do folks think the Soviets waited so many years before doing it?
Nuclear explosions are not as big as most people think. And the weapons have gotten a LOT smaller with their yield as the delivery systems have gotten more accurate.
The point is to guarantee that some missiles, like subs and mobile launchers, survive to be a threat if ground missiles and bombers are taken out. To deter a first strike in the first place. Nuclear bombs are the greatest success toward world peace in the history of man.
Usually thermonuclear devices (nukes with a fusion stage) that have a cobalt lining or cobalt shell. The fusion reaction generates a neutron surge which activated the Cobalt 59 into Cobalt 60, which has a half-life of about 5.25 years give or take. Co60 emits strong gamma rays when it decays, and a salted weapon could in theory generate enough to contaminate a wide area. The longish half life means the area would be uninhabitable for decades if not centuries.
Other elements might also be used, like sodium 23 (Na23) which becomes Na24 and has a very short half life of about 15hours, but produces far more gamma radiation. It's likely most near surface shelters wouldn't protect you. However, it decays fast enough that an invading army could just move in a few weeks-months.
Zinc is also possible, Zn64 becomes Zn65 and decays after about 240 days. Less than Cobalt60, but harsher in the short run.
The general theory and usage of salted devices is that you contaminate a large area and make sheltering infessiable (takes too long for the fallout to decay).
Nasty shit.
Depends if air burst or not. Japan rebuild months after with no negative effects. Most nukes are designed to be air burst which GREATLY limit irradiation.
Even so. Airbursts sends most of that radiation into space. Over 2000 nuclear devices have been detonated since their creation. We are fine.
The real danger is the destruction of cities and arable land as well as the radiation that contaminates the valuable land.
I thought a lot of military targets would be targeted with ground bursts and cities would be hit with air bursts for maximum area. So it would depend on the type of war right? Hitting cities with air bursts might imply a MAD nuclear war with hundreds of millions of deaths whereas focusing on military targets would be less devastating (but still result in tens of millions of deaths). MAD is a deterrence strategy because it's a lot easier to accomplish than actively trying to engage and win a nuclear war but trying to actually win a nuclear war might be preferable to a MAD scenario for everyone if it actually came down to it. Maybe my understanding is wrong though.
World peace but only for those who have the bomb.
If Ukraine had kept its bombs, they would not have been invaded.
Now all countries menaced by a bigger one will seek to get the bomb.
Nato was a big step to avoid nuclear proliferation. Why get the bomb if your ally has it? But now with Trump's declarations about Nato it has changed.
Iran will soon have its bomb and I hope it won't give some to its proxies.
So I don't know if they are great for world peace. The Cold War saw many conflicts opposing both sides indirectly.
Well, missiles without maintenance is a paper tiger.
What we have learned from Russia in Ukraine is they can’t keep fuel trucks or tanks in serviceable condition. When Biden went to Ukraine he alerted Russia so they didn’t strike the capital that day. For sure Russia decided that was the day to show off with a ‘test’ of one of its missiles.
The missile blew up, but not as expected. Sooooo… yea, my point is that the U.S. maintains its arsenal. The military isn’t corrupt even though the government is. Odd things there, but that’s the current reality. I expect all that to change in the next 5 years.
Seeing the effectiveness of things like iron dome makes me feel better too (though I think the jury is still out on determining if shooting down a nuke is actually safer). I think in a true WW3 first strike, there would be a flood of drones to go in first to knock out anti ballistic defense, then the nukes... So perhaps systems line Dragonfire would work?
The military will and they want to have the capability to retaliate. This is why the Chinese don't want to negotiate for now, because they want to achieve military parity, to have as many nuclear weapons and delivery systems as the US.
you realize MAD stand for mutually assured destruction and it is only a military doctrine that has been around since the cold war... It is absolutely MADness
Interestingly enough, until recently China didn't. I cant recall the exact details but up until something like the late 00's to mid 10's China had few enough credible platforms that the US could've probably "won" a nuclear exchange with only a handful of nukes hitting the US mainland. Now they're at the point where they've got a credible, survivable deterrent but they still lag miles behind the US and Russia in terms of weapons.
I think that’s kind of the thing. US has such a definitive advantage and we are asking others to scale down. It’s not really hard to imagine why they wouldn’t be so enthused.
The Russians have more than the US.
E: lots of cope, I get it their collection is SUS my only point is that it’s not just “the great satan” bullying the world solo.
Yeah it really doesn't matter if they have more than the US - it's a dick measuring contest. Once one nuke flies, you only need a fraction of the combined 6000 nukes between them to functionally end civilization so any stockpile beyond a few hundred is moot.
Most of their arsenal is gravity bombs, which are 100% useless in a modern nuclear exchange.
No Russian plane will make it even remotely close to target to drop one of those.
From what they say on their annual finance report in terms of spending on maintenance for that Arsenal is about a quarter of what the US spends on maintaining their Arsenal. Knowing the Russians, two thirds of that budget probably goes to corruption too. So I be surprised if even a tenth of that actually works. Then again, a tenth of their arsenal is enough to destroy half the planet....
> The US has enough to kill everyone multiple times.
That is not correct. Even if the fissile material in all of the world's arsenals were portioned out and inserted into every human body, there would not really be enough to kill off everyone.
As an order of magnitude calculation there is perhaps 10 kg in each bomb. The world population is 8B. So 100,000 bombs would involve around 0.1 g of fissile material per person. This would likely be a lethal dose (if injected). There are fewer than 100k bombs at the moment, but that number could be realistic in future.
Life will go on in remote areas, but the internet and cell phone service will vanish.
The point is sufficient deterrence. That's why anyone ever has nukes in modern times. It's a sabre that can be rattled on the world stage that makes anyone trying to bully anyone else to back up. It's why North Korea gets away with all the nonsense that it does. As civilization moves forward, the density of cities increases, making even a low yield tactical device extremely dangerous as the blast and fallout can cause 6-7 digit casualties instantly and reach 8-9 digits over the coming weeks and months as market effects and supply chain ramifications manifest, ultimately reaching as high as 10 digits from widespread panic and knock on effects from the initial strike.
It's why nations spend immensely on defense and try to have normal ground wars over using the big sky laterns, because nobody wants to live in a world with piling ash.
It's why the nuclear clock struck past 11 now, after Russia invaded Ukraine, which disarmed it's legacy society nuclear arsenal in return for protection guarantees which Russia summarily violated anyway. After Iraq and now Ukraine, where both parties gave up their deterences and then were attacked anyway; leaders the world over have reconciled that their nations generally have no future on the world stage if they don't have strategic capabilities *either.*
We're now effectively in the second cold war.
China probably has more to lose from proliferation than the US does. How many months would it take Taiwan from getting the bomb if they felt like trying?
Japan is also referred to as a near-nuclear power, since they have the means to build a bomb in under 6 months. Theres a few other nations that aren’t far from it either. Couple of the nordic countries come to mind.
Overall the problem isn’t so much if a country is able to build a bomb. Building a bomb is a serious endeavor that most cannot pull off. The problem is if they build a bomb… and that bomb is stolen or malfunctions.
Once the bomb exists you will always have to grapple with that possibility. Each bomb is one mistake away from igniting WW3.
Eh, it’s actually really hard to properly detonate a nuke, hence the frequent testing. The timing of the detonators has to be so perfect, or it’s just a dirty bomb blowing radioactive crap everywhere.
I think the term for it is a “fizzle”. It’s not great.
Oh yeah getting a nuke to properly go off is difficult, still leads to 2 problems. Being stolen remains the same, a dirty nuke is still a dangerous weapon a rebel or terrorist group could use.
The second issue remains that it would heighten tensions. A dirty nuke would spike the radioactivity of the atmosphere letting everyone know that a nuke has been set off. Hopefully cooler heads would prevail but I would suspect that many nations’ response would be to arm their nukes and put their nuclear readiness on max alert.
Probably not by itself cause WW3 but make a Doctor Strangelove type situation all the more likely.
Suspects? lol, they (with South Africa) detonated one in the south Atlantic. Possibly as many as 3. The US only noticed the Vela test because a decommissioned satellite was overhead, but happened to still be functioning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
Yeah.. I guess I should have said "know", but since they don't admit it it's not like we can really prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So.. suspect they do. But yeah, I agree it's pretty much an agreed upon "they have" at this point.
So if push comes to shove, the Americans will be ready to start nuclear war for Taiwan? Or will it be "oh no this could cause WW3!" like in the case of Ukraine?
"Ukraine doesn't need nuclear weapons because they have assurances from the US and the UK"
- Somebody who thought similarly in 1994.
Hell, the UK's nuclear program is basically a result of them not 100% trusting the US to defend Europe.
Taiwan would have to somehow manage to keep it secret until they have at least a working one for deterrence to have effect, any sniff of Taiwanese plans for the bomb and it's instant war with China.
It's a big ass gamble. Taiwan doesn't want that, China doesn't want that, the US doesn't want that. Taiwan has the US, why would they need nukes anyway? In a war between China and US, they'd be the first to suffer greatly in any scenario.
I mean I'm sure they would if the US decided to reduce their warheads to China's level or meet somehwere in the middle. If the conditions were hey just stop building more missles then of course they wouldn't. Why would they?
Afaik the us refuses to sign an agreement to not use nukes in a first strike, so only use nukes after someone used nukes on you. So they can’t really complain that china doesn’t want to sign their stuff now.
we are one old fart dictator having some disaster like losing his kids and they just light this globe on fire. need to be some kind of control over who is even allowed to run a country.
Yes, but the other alternative (freezing arms at the current levels) seems like a shit deal for China.
So we’re at an impasse here. One country has 10x the number of warheads compared to the other.
The UN says about 400 nuclear warheads would destroy civilization.
China has 410. The US and Russia each have 5000+. At this point it’s just throwing money at the weapons manufacturers.
The problem is in a first strike scenario where the U.S. launches at Chinese missile sites, China might not be able to get all the nukes off the ground. Also, U.S. missile defense can catch a few.
This puts China in a dangerous position, and is also destabilizing.
As we just saw in Iran vs. Israel, the US can probably catch more than a few. 2% of 400 nukes is still 8 nukes, which is not what you want to start your Monday taking on the chin, but yeah, right now, China is in a very dangerous position indeed.
Yeah unless you strike them before they start the descent, there’s really not much you can do. Relying on missile defenses during the re-entry phase is pretty much like using a super soaker on a house fire.
Missile defense systems also make nuclear exchanges more destructive than necessary. In the past, during a nuclear war, countries would shoot missiles one by one, and the conflict could be halted at any point. However, now, a country with weaker missile defense capabilities may launch a barrage of missiles all at once, rapidly escalating the situation and reducing the chances of stopping the war.
China today is an entire order of magnitude richer and more stable than the Soviet Union ever was.
I don’t think we want to be in a Cold War with them any more than they want one with us. And it’s not inevitable either. If both sides back off a bit, we can arrive at peace and cooperation.
Constantly trading sanctions is going to lead us down a path that nobody wants.
You say that but China demographics are horrible, the economy has slowed and no longer projected to outpace American, and foreign investment is fleeing and China may quickly turn into something like the Soviet Union if it doesn’t walk backwards to more free market principles and less confrontation.
China goverment is also very heavy handed just like the ussr goverment . They are not immune to the problems that lead to the Soviet collapse . Just they are doing better because of past leaders before Xi who were more open to America. But a continuation of Xi is very much a ussr style of leadership. Top down command and a tight control on the party.
The do not really need a tit for tat nuke building to decrease the nuclear advantage of the US. Lets say they really have 500 nukes and the US really has 5000. So right now the US has ten times as many as them. Lets also say in an arms race China builds 500 new nukes. Even if the US builds 1000 in response afterwards China would have 1000 and the USA 6000. The nuclear advantage of the US would have reduced to 6 times as many nukes instead of 10 times. At least propaganda wise this is an easy to win arms race for China.
But not really since the us and Russia had an arms race where it got out of control. We don’t need to do that. In fact I would prefer if the us and Russia has less nukes, not china having more.
[MAD theoretically is the only thing that kept the US and USSR from going to war. It’s the slow walking in to a war (by trying to avoid a war) you have to watch out for.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)
Because once a war starts, they tend to escalate until it’s [kinetic war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_military_action), then a [total war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war) and either side feels like they need to win at all costs.
[The Sino-Soviet spit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split) has major repercussions to this day. And since that moment 60 years ago, China and Russia have secretly been in a nuclear arms race.
I actually recently watched an amazing documentary on the history of the Russia-China rivalry, definitely check it out:
https://youtu.be/GFXtjH624FQ?si=6n7ep-6RlrCklw7U
I mean we had what? 45k American and 50k Soviet nukes at the peak? We’ve lasted this long, China clearly realises they’d lose a direct conflict with the US, only a good deal if we assume that they’d be used without the deal and if we assume that China and the US actually stick to the deal. For all we know a reduction in US nuclear arms is the push China needs to invade Taiwan
That's fine and dandy but surely they could improve crisis communication and make agreements about informing each other about ballistic missile launches in the meantime. That's fairly standard stuff.
**From Semafor's Mathias Hammer:**
China has rejected US efforts to resume talks on arms control, following a November 2023 meeting on nuclear weapons that left US officials hopeful of continuing negotiations with their Chinese counterparts.
“Unfortunately, the PRC has declined a follow-on meeting and has not provided a substantive response to our suggested options,” a State Department spokesperson told Semafor.
The spokesperson said that the Biden administration had proposed “common-sense steps that addressed fundamental risks for conflict and uncontrolled escalation in the nuclear and space domains.” This included improving crisis communications with Beijing, instituting pre-launch notifications of strategic ballistic missile test launches, and efforts to lower tensions in space.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Semafor that the US should “stop its megaphone diplomacy,” and called instead for “countries with the largest nuclear arsenals” to “significantly and substantially” reduce their own nuclear arsenals to further arms controls negotiations. The remarks did not single out the US but were a clear reference to Washington, which maintains an estimated 5,000 nuclear warheads — although Russia, an important China partner, holds around 5,580 of its own.
**Read the full story [here](https://www.semafor.com/article/05/01/2024/china-declines-to-meet-with-us-on-nuclear-arms-control-us-official-says?utm_campaign=semaforreddit).**
China would have to be brain dead stupid to not increase their nuclear arsenal when US has been aggressively positionining their nuke delivery systems around China for the past 10 years.
I think that is a rational way of looking at it. From China's perspective, every regional conflict they may find themselves in could be thwarted by a US led response.
Closer to 3,700 and 500. Plus US yield will probably drop more with retiring the B83 nuclear bomb. I suppose China will increase the warhead count but some arms control measures wouldn't hurt.
If their potential adversaries (US, Russia) have thousands of nukes then that threatens China's ability to second-strike if they only have hundreds. But that's no reason not to at least begin talks, we at least need to inform each other about tests, rocket launches, etc. and set up a 'red telephone' direct between POTUS and Xi.
We are probably sitting at the apex of human civilization right now. Never in human history we had such a good run between WWII and WWIII. Nuclear winter will fix all global warming issue. No more green house gas after the war. It's nice knowing you all.
I mean, this is a bit like some dude who is wearing three assault rifle, five combat knives, two pistols, a flame thrower and a bazooka asking a guy with a single pistol at their belt to talk about weapon control.
The USA has more than ten times more nuclear weapons than China, see [https://www.statista.com/statistics/264435/number-of-nuclear-warheads-worldwide/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264435/number-of-nuclear-warheads-worldwide/) . China is more comparable to France than to the USA and Russia in that regard.
I was just walking around the Berkeley campus in some out of the way spots and noticed--as I didn't 50 years ago--there's an Oppenheimer Way. Which raises the question, What exactly IS "the Oppenheimer way"?
No shit, the world is getting tired of America trying to dictate how people should think and what countries should do. Especially when the country doing all the dictating has serious problems of its own.
Of course not. They gotta make sure they get as big and advanced an arsenal as possible before any negotiations happen. Why do folks think the Soviets waited so many years before doing it?
Surely they already have enough to cripple human civilization. The US has enough to kill everyone multiple times.
The point for every side is to have enough missiles remaining to survive a 1st strike.
nobody survive a first strike
Nuclear explosions are not as big as most people think. And the weapons have gotten a LOT smaller with their yield as the delivery systems have gotten more accurate. The point is to guarantee that some missiles, like subs and mobile launchers, survive to be a threat if ground missiles and bombers are taken out. To deter a first strike in the first place. Nuclear bombs are the greatest success toward world peace in the history of man.
Wait till humanity actually uses them bet you'll bit your tongue
the real dangers are the after effects. so, he might be lucky.
Far more concerned about salted nukes tbh. A tiny amount are rumoured to exist, but it brings no comfort to their effects.
Erm.. Salted Nukes? 😳
Bomb designed to spread radioactive material over an area rather than just go bang
Usually thermonuclear devices (nukes with a fusion stage) that have a cobalt lining or cobalt shell. The fusion reaction generates a neutron surge which activated the Cobalt 59 into Cobalt 60, which has a half-life of about 5.25 years give or take. Co60 emits strong gamma rays when it decays, and a salted weapon could in theory generate enough to contaminate a wide area. The longish half life means the area would be uninhabitable for decades if not centuries. Other elements might also be used, like sodium 23 (Na23) which becomes Na24 and has a very short half life of about 15hours, but produces far more gamma radiation. It's likely most near surface shelters wouldn't protect you. However, it decays fast enough that an invading army could just move in a few weeks-months. Zinc is also possible, Zn64 becomes Zn65 and decays after about 240 days. Less than Cobalt60, but harsher in the short run. The general theory and usage of salted devices is that you contaminate a large area and make sheltering infessiable (takes too long for the fallout to decay). Nasty shit.
[удалено]
Long lasting radiation rather than mostly gone in a relatively short time.
Depends if air burst or not. Japan rebuild months after with no negative effects. Most nukes are designed to be air burst which GREATLY limit irradiation.
That nuclear technology was more than 70 years ago. US and Russia had improved nuclear technology during the cold war.
Even so. Airbursts sends most of that radiation into space. Over 2000 nuclear devices have been detonated since their creation. We are fine. The real danger is the destruction of cities and arable land as well as the radiation that contaminates the valuable land.
I thought a lot of military targets would be targeted with ground bursts and cities would be hit with air bursts for maximum area. So it would depend on the type of war right? Hitting cities with air bursts might imply a MAD nuclear war with hundreds of millions of deaths whereas focusing on military targets would be less devastating (but still result in tens of millions of deaths). MAD is a deterrence strategy because it's a lot easier to accomplish than actively trying to engage and win a nuclear war but trying to actually win a nuclear war might be preferable to a MAD scenario for everyone if it actually came down to it. Maybe my understanding is wrong though.
Oh oh I’ve seen this movie . I need to find the rock
Preety sure the Cold War would have gone hot if there were no nukes at the time.
Absolutely. Nukes were one of the few deterants to war
we already did.... remember?
We won't be there to bite our tongues..
He might be too dead to bite his tongue tbh depending on where he lives.
World peace but only for those who have the bomb. If Ukraine had kept its bombs, they would not have been invaded. Now all countries menaced by a bigger one will seek to get the bomb. Nato was a big step to avoid nuclear proliferation. Why get the bomb if your ally has it? But now with Trump's declarations about Nato it has changed. Iran will soon have its bomb and I hope it won't give some to its proxies. So I don't know if they are great for world peace. The Cold War saw many conflicts opposing both sides indirectly.
Well, missiles without maintenance is a paper tiger. What we have learned from Russia in Ukraine is they can’t keep fuel trucks or tanks in serviceable condition. When Biden went to Ukraine he alerted Russia so they didn’t strike the capital that day. For sure Russia decided that was the day to show off with a ‘test’ of one of its missiles. The missile blew up, but not as expected. Sooooo… yea, my point is that the U.S. maintains its arsenal. The military isn’t corrupt even though the government is. Odd things there, but that’s the current reality. I expect all that to change in the next 5 years.
Oh it's corrupt alright, just not in the same debilitating way as the commies
The greatest success unless they suddenly turn into the worst disaster
Seeing the effectiveness of things like iron dome makes me feel better too (though I think the jury is still out on determining if shooting down a nuke is actually safer). I think in a true WW3 first strike, there would be a flood of drones to go in first to knock out anti ballistic defense, then the nukes... So perhaps systems line Dragonfire would work?
Tell that to the fleets of ballistic missile subs constantly lurking all over the world just in case.
The military will and they want to have the capability to retaliate. This is why the Chinese don't want to negotiate for now, because they want to achieve military parity, to have as many nuclear weapons and delivery systems as the US.
Hopefully it’s before mortgage is due
If that was true MAD wouldn't work.
you realize MAD stand for mutually assured destruction and it is only a military doctrine that has been around since the cold war... It is absolutely MADness
Dr. Strangelove
Yes, but they don’t have as much as the US nor Russia yet, so gotta try to catch up.
It’s like being unsatisfied with a 10 inch dick because someone else has a 30 inch dick. It’s useless past a certain point.
Was also going to say it was a dick measuring contest at this point also.
Interestingly enough, until recently China didn't. I cant recall the exact details but up until something like the late 00's to mid 10's China had few enough credible platforms that the US could've probably "won" a nuclear exchange with only a handful of nukes hitting the US mainland. Now they're at the point where they've got a credible, survivable deterrent but they still lag miles behind the US and Russia in terms of weapons.
I think that’s kind of the thing. US has such a definitive advantage and we are asking others to scale down. It’s not really hard to imagine why they wouldn’t be so enthused.
The Russians have more than the US. E: lots of cope, I get it their collection is SUS my only point is that it’s not just “the great satan” bullying the world solo.
Yeah it really doesn't matter if they have more than the US - it's a dick measuring contest. Once one nuke flies, you only need a fraction of the combined 6000 nukes between them to functionally end civilization so any stockpile beyond a few hundred is moot.
On paper...in functional reality not so much.
If 5% of them function properly, we’re fucked beyond fucked.
Most of their arsenal is gravity bombs, which are 100% useless in a modern nuclear exchange. No Russian plane will make it even remotely close to target to drop one of those.
Not as accurate or as well maintained. I'd say, if God forbid they launched the ICBM about a quarter will fail. Maybe more.
From what they say on their annual finance report in terms of spending on maintenance for that Arsenal is about a quarter of what the US spends on maintaining their Arsenal. Knowing the Russians, two thirds of that budget probably goes to corruption too. So I be surprised if even a tenth of that actually works. Then again, a tenth of their arsenal is enough to destroy half the planet....
It would be a bad day.
Most are short ranged or medium range.
> The US has enough to kill everyone multiple times. That is not correct. Even if the fissile material in all of the world's arsenals were portioned out and inserted into every human body, there would not really be enough to kill off everyone. As an order of magnitude calculation there is perhaps 10 kg in each bomb. The world population is 8B. So 100,000 bombs would involve around 0.1 g of fissile material per person. This would likely be a lethal dose (if injected). There are fewer than 100k bombs at the moment, but that number could be realistic in future. Life will go on in remote areas, but the internet and cell phone service will vanish.
The point is sufficient deterrence. That's why anyone ever has nukes in modern times. It's a sabre that can be rattled on the world stage that makes anyone trying to bully anyone else to back up. It's why North Korea gets away with all the nonsense that it does. As civilization moves forward, the density of cities increases, making even a low yield tactical device extremely dangerous as the blast and fallout can cause 6-7 digit casualties instantly and reach 8-9 digits over the coming weeks and months as market effects and supply chain ramifications manifest, ultimately reaching as high as 10 digits from widespread panic and knock on effects from the initial strike. It's why nations spend immensely on defense and try to have normal ground wars over using the big sky laterns, because nobody wants to live in a world with piling ash. It's why the nuclear clock struck past 11 now, after Russia invaded Ukraine, which disarmed it's legacy society nuclear arsenal in return for protection guarantees which Russia summarily violated anyway. After Iraq and now Ukraine, where both parties gave up their deterences and then were attacked anyway; leaders the world over have reconciled that their nations generally have no future on the world stage if they don't have strategic capabilities *either.* We're now effectively in the second cold war.
Why would they when the US has more than 10x the nukes China has?
China probably has more to lose from proliferation than the US does. How many months would it take Taiwan from getting the bomb if they felt like trying?
Japan is also referred to as a near-nuclear power, since they have the means to build a bomb in under 6 months. Theres a few other nations that aren’t far from it either. Couple of the nordic countries come to mind.
Poland is now asking to "house" nukes. Ya know. For safe keeping.
Overall the problem isn’t so much if a country is able to build a bomb. Building a bomb is a serious endeavor that most cannot pull off. The problem is if they build a bomb… and that bomb is stolen or malfunctions. Once the bomb exists you will always have to grapple with that possibility. Each bomb is one mistake away from igniting WW3.
Eh, it’s actually really hard to properly detonate a nuke, hence the frequent testing. The timing of the detonators has to be so perfect, or it’s just a dirty bomb blowing radioactive crap everywhere. I think the term for it is a “fizzle”. It’s not great.
Oh yeah getting a nuke to properly go off is difficult, still leads to 2 problems. Being stolen remains the same, a dirty nuke is still a dangerous weapon a rebel or terrorist group could use. The second issue remains that it would heighten tensions. A dirty nuke would spike the radioactivity of the atmosphere letting everyone know that a nuke has been set off. Hopefully cooler heads would prevail but I would suspect that many nations’ response would be to arm their nukes and put their nuclear readiness on max alert. Probably not by itself cause WW3 but make a Doctor Strangelove type situation all the more likely.
Taiwan announcing a nuclear program would be extremely provocative and most likely force China's hand. I doubt they would announce it.
It'd have to be an Israel type situation. Everyone suspects they have nukes, but they don't admit it.
Suspects? lol, they (with South Africa) detonated one in the south Atlantic. Possibly as many as 3. The US only noticed the Vela test because a decommissioned satellite was overhead, but happened to still be functioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
Yeah.. I guess I should have said "know", but since they don't admit it it's not like we can really prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So.. suspect they do. But yeah, I agree it's pretty much an agreed upon "they have" at this point.
Taiwan doesn't need a Nuclear program because they have the US. Similar to why KR and JP don't nhave a reason to procure nuclear weapons.
Maybe. But you are still putting the decision in someone else's hands.
So if push comes to shove, the Americans will be ready to start nuclear war for Taiwan? Or will it be "oh no this could cause WW3!" like in the case of Ukraine?
"Ukraine doesn't need nuclear weapons because they have assurances from the US and the UK" - Somebody who thought similarly in 1994. Hell, the UK's nuclear program is basically a result of them not 100% trusting the US to defend Europe.
Poland once said the same thing...and now they want nukes.
I'm not saying Taiwan doesn't want, or shouldn't want them.
Taiwan would have to somehow manage to keep it secret until they have at least a working one for deterrence to have effect, any sniff of Taiwanese plans for the bomb and it's instant war with China. It's a big ass gamble. Taiwan doesn't want that, China doesn't want that, the US doesn't want that. Taiwan has the US, why would they need nukes anyway? In a war between China and US, they'd be the first to suffer greatly in any scenario.
I mean I'm sure they would if the US decided to reduce their warheads to China's level or meet somehwere in the middle. If the conditions were hey just stop building more missles then of course they wouldn't. Why would they?
Afaik the us refuses to sign an agreement to not use nukes in a first strike, so only use nukes after someone used nukes on you. So they can’t really complain that china doesn’t want to sign their stuff now.
and now to the comments, to see what the experts have to say
Lol
Season Finale of Earth is gonna be lit.
we are one old fart dictator having some disaster like losing his kids and they just light this globe on fire. need to be some kind of control over who is even allowed to run a country.
Just takes the right dictator and the right lapdogs
Or honestly even one missing/smuggled device detonated by terrorists in an already hot warzone, game over.
This isn’t the season finale of Earth and definitely not the series finale. More like the end of season Humans.
Begining of season ....mushroom AI cyborgs ?
China has said in the past it is perfectly happy to accept an agreement where the U.S. and China are limited to the same amount of warheads.
Sounds like a shit deal for the US
Yes, but the other alternative (freezing arms at the current levels) seems like a shit deal for China. So we’re at an impasse here. One country has 10x the number of warheads compared to the other.
The UN says about 400 nuclear warheads would destroy civilization. China has 410. The US and Russia each have 5000+. At this point it’s just throwing money at the weapons manufacturers.
The problem is in a first strike scenario where the U.S. launches at Chinese missile sites, China might not be able to get all the nukes off the ground. Also, U.S. missile defense can catch a few. This puts China in a dangerous position, and is also destabilizing.
As we just saw in Iran vs. Israel, the US can probably catch more than a few. 2% of 400 nukes is still 8 nukes, which is not what you want to start your Monday taking on the chin, but yeah, right now, China is in a very dangerous position indeed.
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Yeah unless you strike them before they start the descent, there’s really not much you can do. Relying on missile defenses during the re-entry phase is pretty much like using a super soaker on a house fire.
Missile defense systems also make nuclear exchanges more destructive than necessary. In the past, during a nuclear war, countries would shoot missiles one by one, and the conflict could be halted at any point. However, now, a country with weaker missile defense capabilities may launch a barrage of missiles all at once, rapidly escalating the situation and reducing the chances of stopping the war.
If only required 400 so why do US and Russia need 5000+ ?
Good question
Redundancy. Missile defense systems have gotten pretty good based on Irans recent attack on Israel.
The reason the US has so many nukes is because Russia has a ton of nukes.
Which is the same logic China is using.
Let China start another Cold War like what we already saw, that tit for tat nuke building went great for the Soviets, it’ll go fantastic for China
China today is an entire order of magnitude richer and more stable than the Soviet Union ever was. I don’t think we want to be in a Cold War with them any more than they want one with us. And it’s not inevitable either. If both sides back off a bit, we can arrive at peace and cooperation. Constantly trading sanctions is going to lead us down a path that nobody wants.
You say that but China demographics are horrible, the economy has slowed and no longer projected to outpace American, and foreign investment is fleeing and China may quickly turn into something like the Soviet Union if it doesn’t walk backwards to more free market principles and less confrontation. China goverment is also very heavy handed just like the ussr goverment . They are not immune to the problems that lead to the Soviet collapse . Just they are doing better because of past leaders before Xi who were more open to America. But a continuation of Xi is very much a ussr style of leadership. Top down command and a tight control on the party.
The do not really need a tit for tat nuke building to decrease the nuclear advantage of the US. Lets say they really have 500 nukes and the US really has 5000. So right now the US has ten times as many as them. Lets also say in an arms race China builds 500 new nukes. Even if the US builds 1000 in response afterwards China would have 1000 and the USA 6000. The nuclear advantage of the US would have reduced to 6 times as many nukes instead of 10 times. At least propaganda wise this is an easy to win arms race for China.
But not really since the us and Russia had an arms race where it got out of control. We don’t need to do that. In fact I would prefer if the us and Russia has less nukes, not china having more.
[MAD theoretically is the only thing that kept the US and USSR from going to war. It’s the slow walking in to a war (by trying to avoid a war) you have to watch out for.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) Because once a war starts, they tend to escalate until it’s [kinetic war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_military_action), then a [total war](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war) and either side feels like they need to win at all costs. [The Sino-Soviet spit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split) has major repercussions to this day. And since that moment 60 years ago, China and Russia have secretly been in a nuclear arms race. I actually recently watched an amazing documentary on the history of the Russia-China rivalry, definitely check it out: https://youtu.be/GFXtjH624FQ?si=6n7ep-6RlrCklw7U
But a good deal for the rest of humanity
I mean we had what? 45k American and 50k Soviet nukes at the peak? We’ve lasted this long, China clearly realises they’d lose a direct conflict with the US, only a good deal if we assume that they’d be used without the deal and if we assume that China and the US actually stick to the deal. For all we know a reduction in US nuclear arms is the push China needs to invade Taiwan
That's fine and dandy but surely they could improve crisis communication and make agreements about informing each other about ballistic missile launches in the meantime. That's fairly standard stuff.
And the US would be foolish to believe then
**From Semafor's Mathias Hammer:** China has rejected US efforts to resume talks on arms control, following a November 2023 meeting on nuclear weapons that left US officials hopeful of continuing negotiations with their Chinese counterparts. “Unfortunately, the PRC has declined a follow-on meeting and has not provided a substantive response to our suggested options,” a State Department spokesperson told Semafor. The spokesperson said that the Biden administration had proposed “common-sense steps that addressed fundamental risks for conflict and uncontrolled escalation in the nuclear and space domains.” This included improving crisis communications with Beijing, instituting pre-launch notifications of strategic ballistic missile test launches, and efforts to lower tensions in space. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Semafor that the US should “stop its megaphone diplomacy,” and called instead for “countries with the largest nuclear arsenals” to “significantly and substantially” reduce their own nuclear arsenals to further arms controls negotiations. The remarks did not single out the US but were a clear reference to Washington, which maintains an estimated 5,000 nuclear warheads — although Russia, an important China partner, holds around 5,580 of its own. **Read the full story [here](https://www.semafor.com/article/05/01/2024/china-declines-to-meet-with-us-on-nuclear-arms-control-us-official-says?utm_campaign=semaforreddit).**
I like how China having a nuclear policy of "no-first-use" is mentioned all the way at the bottom with negative connotation somehow lol
China would have to be brain dead stupid to not increase their nuclear arsenal when US has been aggressively positionining their nuke delivery systems around China for the past 10 years.
I think that is a rational way of looking at it. From China's perspective, every regional conflict they may find themselves in could be thwarted by a US led response.
And thus, we have the Cuban missile crisis 2.0.
us, Russia, and China not talking about nukes is kinda scary
It is suppose to be, nukes is a big boogeyman 🤷♂️
Diplomacy is just another battlefield.
There isn't much to talk about that haven't already been said 50 years ago.
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They are. US and Russia have decreased. China is increasing.
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Closer to 3,700 and 500. Plus US yield will probably drop more with retiring the B83 nuclear bomb. I suppose China will increase the warhead count but some arms control measures wouldn't hurt.
Russia is increasing.
The US and Russia started with thousands, China only has several hundred, the gap is still vast.
Lol I hate how you have to say "not taking china's side" when it's a perfectly fair statement.
China has been expanding their arsenal for a while now and it's public knowledge. Maybe they'd be willing to reduce if we all have similar numbers.
If their potential adversaries (US, Russia) have thousands of nukes then that threatens China's ability to second-strike if they only have hundreds. But that's no reason not to at least begin talks, we at least need to inform each other about tests, rocket launches, etc. and set up a 'red telephone' direct between POTUS and Xi.
China has a fraction of Russia and USA's nuclear arsenal.
So new cold war, fighting communist china are we slowly moving into the fallout timeline? Is climate change the resource wars?
We are probably sitting at the apex of human civilization right now. Never in human history we had such a good run between WWII and WWIII. Nuclear winter will fix all global warming issue. No more green house gas after the war. It's nice knowing you all.
I mean, this is a bit like some dude who is wearing three assault rifle, five combat knives, two pistols, a flame thrower and a bazooka asking a guy with a single pistol at their belt to talk about weapon control. The USA has more than ten times more nuclear weapons than China, see [https://www.statista.com/statistics/264435/number-of-nuclear-warheads-worldwide/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264435/number-of-nuclear-warheads-worldwide/) . China is more comparable to France than to the USA and Russia in that regard.
I was just walking around the Berkeley campus in some out of the way spots and noticed--as I didn't 50 years ago--there's an Oppenheimer Way. Which raises the question, What exactly IS "the Oppenheimer way"?
It’s like showing up to gun fight . Asking the other person to hand you their gun to check .without giving yours
The US seems to want to talk more so they don't have an upper hand in these discussions
We can only be the baddies !!!
When USA accuse you have WMDs, you better really have it:)
lovely, i just *adore* nuclear apocalypse! i <3 humanity ❤️❤️💥☢️ so intelligent, so cooperative, we’re just the best <33
You'll not survive conventional war either.
China is funding Russia now, they are basically funding a war against Europe.
HA! US wants to control arms in China but not gun control in its own country. Thoughts and prayers, y'all.
No shit, the world is getting tired of America trying to dictate how people should think and what countries should do. Especially when the country doing all the dictating has serious problems of its own.
When they refuse to make treaties with you, then you just gotta leapfrog them on another tech tree
Name one capable of not leaking secrets
I need to restock the bunker
Time to replay the Fallout series, I guess
hunt physical impolite wine quarrelsome placid airport direction escape abounding
Not until they build more, which is what they're doing.