4 ms·

You should look at the stockpile sizes. Unless Russia gets involved it would not be a balanced situation at all.

ethbr0 6y ago
Seriously. We're talking about horrible things, here. But if it came to a nuclear exchange, China has ~300, and the US and Russia ~6,000 each. Total yield numbers are harder to come by(?), so those are +/- considering tactical-scale inventory. Historically, this was because China's nuclear doctrine was to limit their stockpile to a minimal deterrent. Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. Either you stand for something, or you don't. And China doesn't get to claim modern territory by dusting off historical documents. Hong Kong was untenable, but Taiwan should be a line. If its citizens don't want to be Chinese, they get to make that choice. PS: Russia would probably care less about a strike on China, unless China negotiated their support via treaty. That ship sailed in the early 60s.
- dalyons 6y ago
  > Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom What? That doesn’t make sense. If the US triggered nuke slinging over Taiwan the Taiwanese would be ash, not free.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    Why would China nuke Taiwan?
    - baq 6y ago
      out of spite. they'd get glassed anyway, so why not use those nukes for something?
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        Because that's literally the land the hypothetical war would have been started to capture? Because the casus belli to their public has been that it's (PRC) Chinese land by historical and cultural right? Because the entire domestic and international point of provoking a Strait war would be to demonstrate China's strength? It's a pretty bad look if your "winning" looks like "killed millions of people and rendered the land in question uninhabitable for a decade+." (To say nothing of the potential non-Taiwan collateral damage)
  - unixhero 6y ago
    And retalliation would be immediate and dooming. Mutually assured destruction
  - Der_Einzige 6y ago
    We can shoot down some of those nukes. Maybe china has to fire 20 on taiwan before one of them gets through our anti-ICBM weapons on our naval ships. Means that we might come out of a war with china with only a few cities lost. Might actually be worth it.
    - FpUser 6y ago
      >"Means that we might come out of a war with china with only a few cities lost. Might actually be worth it." How generous of you. Hopefully you'll be in one of those cities at the moment.
  - Leary 6y ago
    Better Dead Than Red is alive and well, hahahaha.
- comte7092 6y ago
  It’s not “dusting off historical documents” it’s official government policy on both sides of the straight that there’s “one China”. One could argue that the only reason why the ROC hasn’t declared independence is because they’d fear that it would provoke an attack from across the straight, but the reality is that independence is not a cut and dry issue in Taiwan. Take some time to actually educate yourself on the issue before advocating for nuclear war.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    Taiwan has been Dutch, Han, Qing, Japanese, and ROC. Any appeal to history is nine^H^H^H^Hten dashes of propaganda. > it’s official government policy on both sides of the straight that there’s “one China” That's an oversimplification. The KMT / Pan-Blue believe there's "one China" in the sense that they believe the PRC is an illegitimate government, currently occupying mainland Chinese territory that belongs to the ROC. The DPP / Pan-Green believe there are two Chinas, with Taiwan as an independent entity from the mainland PRC. Their current official position is that this state of affairs already exists, and therefore there is no need to make any declarations or changes from the status quo. So in summary, about one half of Taiwanese political power considers the communist government as illegitimate, and the other half considers Taiwan independent. Which I would guess is fairly different from what the PRC defines "one China" as.
    - comte7092 6y ago
      This is the nuance I was calling for. Yes, there are different definitions on both sides of the straight. And while the independence side has gained strength in recent years, the official stance has been that China and Taiwan are a part of one country, however defined, and, to my knowledge, no official government act of the ROC has been promulgated to the contrary. As I stated in my original reply, independence isn’t a cut and dry issue. To assert that these claims are “dusty” historical claims in light of what you’ve written here is disingenuous. Edit: I should add that there is only one government in Taiwan, the ROC. The stances of the individual political parties cannot be taken as synonymous with the stance of the ROC itself. To do so would be as ludicrous to say that there’s no right to an abortion in the United States, because 1 of the two major political parties opposes it. The most that can be said is that both abortion in the US and independence in Taiwan are controversial and delicate political issues within each respective jurisdiction.
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom." Personally I'd support the US never letting people with this kind of thinking anywhere near decision making. Let them play stocks.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    All insistence in international politics has risk. If you can't tolerate risk, you'll get pushed around by those who are willing to.
    - FpUser 6y ago
      Respond with overwhelming force if being pushed. If however you are the one starting pushing you are just a bully or in this particular case fuckin' war criminal.
blackearl 6y ago
The stockpile is a ridiculous measurement. How many would it take to have mutually assured destruction? A dozen? One of the most worthless dick measuring contests in history.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > How many would it take to have mutually assured destruction? In case of China, or Russia, thousands.
- lainga 6y ago
  What leads you to the estimate of a dozen? Very few modern warheads have multiple-megaton yields, it's less efficient than many small-yield warheads.
- jjk166 6y ago
  A 100kt nuclear warhead airburst will cause moderate damage to an area of 33.5km^2. Beijing has an area of 16800km^2, 501 times larger. China has 160 cities with over 1 million inhabitants. Even if they were all used against major population centers (which they wouldn't be) and all of them made it to their targets (which they wouldn't), thousands of nuclear warheads would still not be enough to destroy a large nation.

Seriously. We're talking about horrible things, here. But if it came to a nuclear exchange, China has ~300, and the US and Russia ~6,000 each. Total yield numbers are harder to come by(?), so those are +/- considering tactical-scale inventory. Historically, this was because China's nuclear doctrine was to limit their stockpile to a minimal deterrent. Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom. Either you stand for something, or you don't. And China doesn't get to claim modern territory by dusting off historical documents. Hong Kong was untenable, but Taiwan should be a line. If its citizens don't want to be Chinese, they get to make that choice. PS: Russia would probably care less about a strike on China, unless China negotiated their support via treaty. That ship sailed in the early 60s.

dalyons 6y ago
> Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom What? That doesn’t make sense. If the US triggered nuke slinging over Taiwan the Taiwanese would be ash, not free.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Why would China nuke Taiwan?
  - baq 6y ago
    out of spite. they'd get glassed anyway, so why not use those nukes for something?
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      Because that's literally the land the hypothetical war would have been started to capture? Because the casus belli to their public has been that it's (PRC) Chinese land by historical and cultural right? Because the entire domestic and international point of provoking a Strait war would be to demonstrate China's strength? It's a pretty bad look if your "winning" looks like "killed millions of people and rendered the land in question uninhabitable for a decade+." (To say nothing of the potential non-Taiwan collateral damage)
- unixhero 6y ago
  And retalliation would be immediate and dooming. Mutually assured destruction
- Der_Einzige 6y ago
  We can shoot down some of those nukes. Maybe china has to fire 20 on taiwan before one of them gets through our anti-ICBM weapons on our naval ships. Means that we might come out of a war with china with only a few cities lost. Might actually be worth it.
  - FpUser 6y ago
    >"Means that we might come out of a war with china with only a few cities lost. Might actually be worth it." How generous of you. Hopefully you'll be in one of those cities at the moment.
- Leary 6y ago
  Better Dead Than Red is alive and well, hahahaha.
comte7092 6y ago
It’s not “dusting off historical documents” it’s official government policy on both sides of the straight that there’s “one China”. One could argue that the only reason why the ROC hasn’t declared independence is because they’d fear that it would provoke an attack from across the straight, but the reality is that independence is not a cut and dry issue in Taiwan. Take some time to actually educate yourself on the issue before advocating for nuclear war.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Taiwan has been Dutch, Han, Qing, Japanese, and ROC. Any appeal to history is nine^H^H^H^Hten dashes of propaganda. > it’s official government policy on both sides of the straight that there’s “one China” That's an oversimplification. The KMT / Pan-Blue believe there's "one China" in the sense that they believe the PRC is an illegitimate government, currently occupying mainland Chinese territory that belongs to the ROC. The DPP / Pan-Green believe there are two Chinas, with Taiwan as an independent entity from the mainland PRC. Their current official position is that this state of affairs already exists, and therefore there is no need to make any declarations or changes from the status quo. So in summary, about one half of Taiwanese political power considers the communist government as illegitimate, and the other half considers Taiwan independent. Which I would guess is fairly different from what the PRC defines "one China" as.
  - comte7092 6y ago
    This is the nuance I was calling for. Yes, there are different definitions on both sides of the straight. And while the independence side has gained strength in recent years, the official stance has been that China and Taiwan are a part of one country, however defined, and, to my knowledge, no official government act of the ROC has been promulgated to the contrary. As I stated in my original reply, independence isn’t a cut and dry issue. To assert that these claims are “dusty” historical claims in light of what you’ve written here is disingenuous. Edit: I should add that there is only one government in Taiwan, the ROC. The stances of the individual political parties cannot be taken as synonymous with the stance of the ROC itself. To do so would be as ludicrous to say that there’s no right to an abortion in the United States, because 1 of the two major political parties opposes it. The most that can be said is that both abortion in the US and independence in Taiwan are controversial and delicate political issues within each respective jurisdiction.
FpUser 6y ago
>"Personally? Sitting about 40km from a priority US target, I'd support the US risking a strike to guarantee Taiwan's freedom." Personally I'd support the US never letting people with this kind of thinking anywhere near decision making. Let them play stocks.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  All insistence in international politics has risk. If you can't tolerate risk, you'll get pushed around by those who are willing to.
  - FpUser 6y ago
    Respond with overwhelming force if being pushed. If however you are the one starting pushing you are just a bully or in this particular case fuckin' war criminal.

blackearl 6y ago

The stockpile is a ridiculous measurement. How many would it take to have mutually assured destruction? A dozen? One of the most worthless dick measuring contests in history.

baybal2 6y ago
> How many would it take to have mutually assured destruction? In case of China, or Russia, thousands.
lainga 6y ago
What leads you to the estimate of a dozen? Very few modern warheads have multiple-megaton yields, it's less efficient than many small-yield warheads.
jjk166 6y ago
A 100kt nuclear warhead airburst will cause moderate damage to an area of 33.5km^2. Beijing has an area of 16800km^2, 501 times larger. China has 160 cities with over 1 million inhabitants. Even if they were all used against major population centers (which they wouldn't be) and all of them made it to their targets (which they wouldn't), thousands of nuclear warheads would still not be enough to destroy a large nation.