4 ms·

Taiwan will reveal them at the very last moment when war is imminent. If war is still preventable showing the nukes will just escalate things.

RajT88 4y ago
We periodically park Aircraft carriers there to de-escalate PRC activity. I am sure we have provided them some weapons. Not sure conventional or nuclear.
- mulmen 4y ago
  We also sell (give?) them a lot of weapons. The Taiwanese air force is largely comprised of US airframes.
krisoft 4y ago
> Taiwan will reveal them at the very last moment when war is imminent. Ok, they reveal them. What is next? Nukes are not magic. They are just weapons. What do you think would happen once they are “revealed”? What delivery mechanism are you proposing? Should they be aimed counter-force or counter-value? (Meaning are they trying to shoot the chinese nuclear launchers or are they lobbing them into chinese cities?) How are you protecting the nukes in Taiwan?
- mupuff1234 4y ago
  You detonate one over open waters and tell China to back down. If they do, problem solved. If they don't, at that stage it probably didn't hurt.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > You detonate one over open waters and tell China to back down. Then China detonates ten over open waters, and tells "you" to back down and not go there. The magic deterrent value of nukes (mutually assured destruction) doesn't work if one side can't assure destruction of the other. Even if Taiwan can manage such a show of nuclear force, China can (credibly) threaten to annihilate it if it attacks, but the reverse isn't true.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > The magic deterrent value of nukes (mutually assured destruction) doesn't work if one side can't assure destruction of the other. Even if Taiwan can manage such a show of nuclear force, China can (credibly) threaten to annihilate it if it attacks, but the reverse isn't true. Exactly! China has ~350 warheads, and they play a shell game where they have more silos than ICBMs and they are swapping the ICBMs around the empty silos and nobody knows which one is full and which one is empty. Which means if you are targeting their nuclear forces you need to spend much more warheads to knock out all of theirs. That is a lot of warheads (and delivery mechanism) to “secretly smuggle in”. And even after you somehow knock out all their nukes China has their conventional forces, they are angry and fair to say justified in tearing Taiwan apart. If Taiwan decides to target chinese cities. Do you think China will say “whoohooo, you won”? They will be very angry, the Chinese people will demand the attacker’s head, on top of Tawain just lost significant international support for basically killing civilians by the millions. Of course they can also aim at invading conventional forces, but if China is just a little bit competent they won’t bunch up enough of their troops to make a nuke justified. Meaning that Taiwan would waste a whole warhead and delivery mechanism to sink a single ship, or knock out an enemy harbour. They can do it, but they can also probably do it conventionaly. I don’t think brandishing nukes is going to help the Taiwanese government here.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > China has ~350 warheads... And more every day. I've read they're estimated to have 1000 by the end of the decade.
    - mupuff1234 4y ago
      I just don't think that assumption is true. There probably is a pain threshold that beyond it China won't invade Taiwan as logically it just won't be worth it.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > I just don't think that assumption is true. There probably is a pain threshold that beyond it China won't invade Taiwan as logically it just won't be worth it. The question is, can Taiwan get there? I doubt it, and if it tries and fails to reach the threshold, it will only provoke China (or more specifically, the Chinese leadership). Limited nuclear war is an automatic loss condition for Taiwan, but it's only very costly to China. I believe nuclear weapons in Taiwan is one of China's stated red lines that will trigger war.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > If they do, problem solved. Taiwan can also draw a giant jellyfish in the sand on a beach and tell China to back down. If they do, problem solved. If they don't, at that stage it probably didn't hurt. The trick is that once you demonstrated your capability (either nuke detonation or giant jellyfish drawing) you need to explain to your adversary how this capability is going to cause them pain they cannot bear. This part is unclear with your plan and mine too!
    - mupuff1234 4y ago
      The nuke is pretty self explanatory imo, the jelly fish a bit less so. So why even bother with defending Taiwan if the number of Chinese casualties doesn't matter to the chinese? being a fairly calculated player I believe that there exists some threshold of pain that even china would think twice before shrugging it off.
      - krisoft 4y ago
        Of course Chinese casualties matter. But why do you think a few smuggled-in nukes going to change that materially? What do you propose to do with the nukes? How many warheads do you propose to need to do it? > being a fairly calculated player I believe that there exists some threshold of pain that even china would think twice before shrugging it off. This is not in doubt. It just that nukes are not magic. They are not an automatic “you won” card. The most sensible thing I can think of with nukes regarding the protection of Taiwan is to hit Chinese deep sea harbours. If you can distrupt enough of them then maybe they can’t board their troops. But that is a lot of warheads, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they can restore some semblance of operations even in a nuked harbour.
- simplotek 4y ago
  > Ok, they reveal them. What is next? Nukes are not magic. I'd wager that if you're amassing forces to conduct an invasion and midway through you discovered your target has nukes pointed at you, the very least you'd do is rethink your strategy and put a pause on operations.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    From here on I will call this tactic “stopping a charging rhino with a bubble blower”. It does not have a credible chance of hurting the rhino. It won’t stop the rhino directly, but maybe it confuses the rhino? And maybe the confused rhino stops, instead of stomping on the cause of confusion?
    - simplotek 4y ago
      > It does not have a credible chance of hurting the rhino. I don't follow. What exactly leads you to believe that lobbing nukes at an invasion force's staging area and/or neighboring military bases "does not have a credible chance of hurting" the invader?
      - krisoft 4y ago
        I see your point. Obviously it would hurt the troops the nuke explode over. Then the Chinese send in the next group. Or pepper your cities with their ICBMs. Or both. I hope you will believe me without proper citations that they just have a lot of troops.[1] And there is no reason to think they would need to bunch them up. How many smuggled in nukes are we imagining here? 1: this is the orbat of the Chinese rocket forces from 2020 https://www.aboyandhis.blog/post/mapping-the-people-s-liberation-army-rocket-force https://www.aboyandhis.blog/post/mapping-the-people-s-libera...

RajT88 4y ago

We periodically park Aircraft carriers there to de-escalate PRC activity. I am sure we have provided them some weapons. Not sure conventional or nuclear.

mulmen 4y ago
We also sell (give?) them a lot of weapons. The Taiwanese air force is largely comprised of US airframes.

krisoft 4y ago

> Taiwan will reveal them at the very last moment when war is imminent. Ok, they reveal them. What is next? Nukes are not magic. They are just weapons. What do you think would happen once they are “revealed”? What delivery mechanism are you proposing? Should they be aimed counter-force or counter-value? (Meaning are they trying to shoot the chinese nuclear launchers or are they lobbing them into chinese cities?) How are you protecting the nukes in Taiwan?

mupuff1234 4y ago
You detonate one over open waters and tell China to back down. If they do, problem solved. If they don't, at that stage it probably didn't hurt.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > You detonate one over open waters and tell China to back down. Then China detonates ten over open waters, and tells "you" to back down and not go there. The magic deterrent value of nukes (mutually assured destruction) doesn't work if one side can't assure destruction of the other. Even if Taiwan can manage such a show of nuclear force, China can (credibly) threaten to annihilate it if it attacks, but the reverse isn't true.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > The magic deterrent value of nukes (mutually assured destruction) doesn't work if one side can't assure destruction of the other. Even if Taiwan can manage such a show of nuclear force, China can (credibly) threaten to annihilate it if it attacks, but the reverse isn't true. Exactly! China has ~350 warheads, and they play a shell game where they have more silos than ICBMs and they are swapping the ICBMs around the empty silos and nobody knows which one is full and which one is empty. Which means if you are targeting their nuclear forces you need to spend much more warheads to knock out all of theirs. That is a lot of warheads (and delivery mechanism) to “secretly smuggle in”. And even after you somehow knock out all their nukes China has their conventional forces, they are angry and fair to say justified in tearing Taiwan apart. If Taiwan decides to target chinese cities. Do you think China will say “whoohooo, you won”? They will be very angry, the Chinese people will demand the attacker’s head, on top of Tawain just lost significant international support for basically killing civilians by the millions. Of course they can also aim at invading conventional forces, but if China is just a little bit competent they won’t bunch up enough of their troops to make a nuke justified. Meaning that Taiwan would waste a whole warhead and delivery mechanism to sink a single ship, or knock out an enemy harbour. They can do it, but they can also probably do it conventionaly. I don’t think brandishing nukes is going to help the Taiwanese government here.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > China has ~350 warheads... And more every day. I've read they're estimated to have 1000 by the end of the decade.
  - mupuff1234 4y ago
    I just don't think that assumption is true. There probably is a pain threshold that beyond it China won't invade Taiwan as logically it just won't be worth it.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > I just don't think that assumption is true. There probably is a pain threshold that beyond it China won't invade Taiwan as logically it just won't be worth it. The question is, can Taiwan get there? I doubt it, and if it tries and fails to reach the threshold, it will only provoke China (or more specifically, the Chinese leadership). Limited nuclear war is an automatic loss condition for Taiwan, but it's only very costly to China. I believe nuclear weapons in Taiwan is one of China's stated red lines that will trigger war.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > If they do, problem solved. Taiwan can also draw a giant jellyfish in the sand on a beach and tell China to back down. If they do, problem solved. If they don't, at that stage it probably didn't hurt. The trick is that once you demonstrated your capability (either nuke detonation or giant jellyfish drawing) you need to explain to your adversary how this capability is going to cause them pain they cannot bear. This part is unclear with your plan and mine too!
  - mupuff1234 4y ago
    The nuke is pretty self explanatory imo, the jelly fish a bit less so. So why even bother with defending Taiwan if the number of Chinese casualties doesn't matter to the chinese? being a fairly calculated player I believe that there exists some threshold of pain that even china would think twice before shrugging it off.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      Of course Chinese casualties matter. But why do you think a few smuggled-in nukes going to change that materially? What do you propose to do with the nukes? How many warheads do you propose to need to do it? > being a fairly calculated player I believe that there exists some threshold of pain that even china would think twice before shrugging it off. This is not in doubt. It just that nukes are not magic. They are not an automatic “you won” card. The most sensible thing I can think of with nukes regarding the protection of Taiwan is to hit Chinese deep sea harbours. If you can distrupt enough of them then maybe they can’t board their troops. But that is a lot of warheads, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they can restore some semblance of operations even in a nuked harbour.
simplotek 4y ago
> Ok, they reveal them. What is next? Nukes are not magic. I'd wager that if you're amassing forces to conduct an invasion and midway through you discovered your target has nukes pointed at you, the very least you'd do is rethink your strategy and put a pause on operations.
- krisoft 4y ago
  From here on I will call this tactic “stopping a charging rhino with a bubble blower”. It does not have a credible chance of hurting the rhino. It won’t stop the rhino directly, but maybe it confuses the rhino? And maybe the confused rhino stops, instead of stomping on the cause of confusion?
  - simplotek 4y ago
    > It does not have a credible chance of hurting the rhino. I don't follow. What exactly leads you to believe that lobbing nukes at an invasion force's staging area and/or neighboring military bases "does not have a credible chance of hurting" the invader?
    - krisoft 4y ago
      I see your point. Obviously it would hurt the troops the nuke explode over. Then the Chinese send in the next group. Or pepper your cities with their ICBMs. Or both. I hope you will believe me without proper citations that they just have a lot of troops.[1] And there is no reason to think they would need to bunch them up. How many smuggled in nukes are we imagining here? 1: this is the orbat of the Chinese rocket forces from 2020 https://www.aboyandhis.blog/post/mapping-the-people-s-liberation-army-rocket-force https://www.aboyandhis.blog/post/mapping-the-people-s-libera...