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Not so fast. The US, having absolute dominance in conventional weaponry, has no reasons to start using nukes first. Only an underdog needs to resort to nukes. B
by credit_guy 4y ago
Not so fast. The US, having absolute dominance in conventional weaponry, has no reasons to start using nukes first. Only an underdog needs to resort to nukes. But China does not have enough nukes to attack America. America has ballistic missile defense, it's not perfect, but enough to make a first strike by China a pretty nonsensical idea: it would not result in mutually assured destruction, only in self-assured destruction.
- v3ss0n 4y agoA Chinese spy balloon with enough payload for a nuke enters the chat
- red-iron-pine 4y agoChina has more than enough nukes to end the US in any meaningful way. A study from the 1950s Britain concluded that hitting 5-10 coastal cities -- which also have most of the population and most of the shipping -- would effectively end the economy and annihilate the population. Most of China's population would be vaporized in retaliation; most of the US population would just starve to death. There has been a lot of work in alternative massive destruction techniques. Detonate a few nukes off the coast and cause a tsunami -- how's missile defense going to stop that? Satellite weapons -- "rods from god" -- are probably a thing to some degree. Or as mentioned, balloons. And who needs nukes when $50 worth of rail road derailing tools can cause a multi-million dollar catastrophe that will poison an entire water table?