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Subject: Assuming a Chinese first strike against US cities, followed by a US counterforce strike
Zhang Fei    7/29/2008 8:30:03 AM
against PLA forces, to what extent would the PLA's military capability be affected by say, 1,000 nukes. 50% destroyed? 10% destroyed? I'm not referring strictly to personnel, of course - I would include infrastructure and ammo dumps in the estimate of capabilities. Just wondering idly about the possibility of a Chinese first strike over Taiwan - in the event an invasion fails - or even in the case of US intervention over an invasion. If Chinese leaders thought they could survive intact, they might do it (once their families were in blast- and fallout-proof bunkers, of course). And the Chinese masses might discover, for a change, what making any sacrifice to conquer Taiwan actually means in real-life.
 
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Softwar       7/29/2008 8:44:41 AM
The US strategy is not a counter-force aimed at the PLA equipment - although a good portion of the targets will be weapon related.  The US has made it clear that the PRC leadership is the target.  The PRC leaders know that there are weapons in the US arsenal with their name on them - literally.  We don't need to destroy the forces piecemeal or counter-attack population centers.  We have weapons targeted directly at the PRC leaders, their family, their homes, their pets...  You can crawl into a bunker but if all the holes are plugged and radioactive for 100 years - you have a real problem getting fresh air.
 
The other aspect of this is the so-called "bolt out of the blue" attack - the kind of Pearl Harbor nuclear strike that no one expects.  Again, there are leading indicators in the PRC - some of which I won't illustrate for obvious reasons - but one such primary indicator will be in the movement of leaders and their families.  Thus, the PRC knows that if they are preparing for a first strike - they may very well be confronted with a US military poised and ready to pounce on their forces, leadership and C3 assets to pre-empt such a strike.
 
The Chinese have adhered to a "defensive" offense strategy - where if a strike can spoil an attack - they would carry it out.  However, a first strike against a prepared and mobilized US is suicide and the PLA forces know that.
 
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Zhang Fei       7/29/2008 11:15:32 AM
The US strategy is not a counter-force aimed at the PLA equipment - although a good portion of the targets will be weapon related.  The US has made it clear that the PRC leadership is the target.  The PRC leaders know that there are weapons in the US arsenal with their name on them - literally.  We don't need to destroy the forces piecemeal or counter-attack population centers. 
 
I think the problem with not bothering with enemy rank-and-file force attrition is what happened in Iraq. The disbanded army went on to kill 4,000 of our boys. The lesson of Iraq, in my view, is that you have not only to kill the leadership - you cannot bypass the main forces unless you want to take serious losses from soldiers turned guerrillas. (This is based on the scenario that any Chinese nuclear attack on the US would be followed by a quest to wipe the Chinese Communist Party off the face of the earth, which would mean a US invasion of China).
 
We have weapons targeted directly at the PRC leaders, their family, their homes, their pets...  You can crawl into a bunker but if all the holes are plugged and radioactive for 100 years - you have a real problem getting fresh air.
 
Nagasaki and Hiroshima are functioning major cities in Japan. They started rebuilding almost immediately after the nukes went off. I think the post-explosion hazards of nukes are considerable, but not insurmountable. Here's an account of post-explosion Nagasaki:
 
The notice came to Nagasaki's Urakami neighborhood leaders about a month after the bomb fell.

"No trees or other plants will grow there for 70 years. ... It is recommended all residents find a suitable place to live elsewhere," the government message read.

Dr. Takashi Nagai refused to go.

The physician and radiology professor had lost his wife and his home a few hundred feet from Ground Zero, and he wanted to stand his ground.

Lacking radiation-measuring instruments, he watched the ground.

"After three weeks, we found a swarm of ants. ... and they were vigorous and strong," Nagai wrote in 1946.

"After a month, we found worms in large numbers. Then we found rats running around .... And I began to think that if small animals could survive, human life was also possible."

So Nagai built a hut on the rubble of his old home, where he lived until 1951 when the 43-year-old physician died of leukemia -a disease he had prior to the bombing.

"He was one of the first to rebuild his home in the destroyed area," said the Rev. Jose Aguilar, a Jesuit priest who has lived 33 years in Nagasaki and is a scholar of Nagai's writings.

Indeed, Nagai's courageous stand was correct. Within a few days of the bombing, radiation had decayed to safe levels. And long-term environmental contamination never appeared to be a problem, according to Yutaka Hasegawa, director of the Nagasaki branch of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which has studied atomic bomb survivors for 48 years.

Following Nagai's lead, others began to leave the huddled groups of survivors who were living in primitive dugouts elsewhere in the city and built huts in the destroyed area. Gradually, the huts were rebuilt into houses.

Wheat and green vegetables were planted in the bombed area, but the first crops of corn and sweet potatoes were disasters.
 
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Softwar       7/30/2008 10:10:27 AM
I think you underestimate our capability.  The atomic bombs that ended World War II were simple devices by today's standards.  Keep in mind there are several atolls in the South Pacific that are still off limits to human life.  Sure - the vegitation is back and many of the animals are too.  However, a human would not live for very long if they drank the water, ate the local food, strolled around inhaling dust or just taking in the background radiation.
 
We also do not need to rely on just nuclear weaponry - as has been demonstrated - to take out selected targets.  So a US response to a Chinese attack may not be all nuclear or even go nuclear at all.  Accuracy is the key - not destruction.
 
While the 2003 OIF operation involved invasion and direct contact - a nuclear war does not have that requirement.  Still, a headless giant is still a force without direction.  This is the one reason why dictatorships and totalitarian states have such ineffective military structures.  The C3 is too centralized in these political cultures and removal or disconnect from the command renders the forces into wandering masses of targets.  For the most part - surrender becomes an option - but starvation, lack of logistics, and medical care can turn even the best Army into a rabble in short order.
 
The only exception to this rule was the German Army in World War II - but the Nazi forces were based on years of training and tradition that remain unmatched even by today's standards.
 
Finally, there is the fact that the Chinese leadership is quite willing to sacrafice 500 million or more if it means their survival and world domination.  Thus, counter-value strikes at population centers are not considered an effective deterrent to the PRC leadership who is willing to kill hundreds of millions.  Strikes at the leadership - directed personally toward the dictators, generals and communist warlords - are a very effective way to deter agression.
 
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Zhang Fei       7/30/2008 3:12:28 PM
The atomic bombs that ended World War II were simple devices by today's standards. 
 
My understanding is that they were extremely dirty by today's standards. The current bombs are bigger, but much more efficient. If the Japanese could recover within years from Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Chinese leadership should certainly weather the aftermath of cleaner bombs with no problem. The US recovery from the Chinese bombs should, in contrast, take longer, because the Chinese use dirtier (i.e. less efficient) bombs. I think in the event of a nuclear exchange, neither country will suffer any long-lasting damage apart from the loss of infrastructure and population.
 
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Softwar       7/30/2008 3:32:44 PM
When it comes to fallout and lasting radiation - the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs don't hold a candle to some of the H-bombs we set off during the 1950s.  Also see zinc, cesium, cobalt, iodine and thorium salting in nuclear weapons - Leo Szilard - 1950.
 
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Softwar       7/30/2008 4:05:52 PM
One extra point - Nagasaki and Hiroshima were air burst weapons.  A ground burst or sub-surface burst will produce large amounts of fallout and lingering radiation.  For an example, see the effects of Chernobyl as compared to Hiroshima in terms of radiation pollutants.
 
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Zhang Fei       7/30/2008 4:11:10 PM
When it comes to fallout and lasting radiation - the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs don't hold a candle to some of the H-bombs we set off during the 1950s.  Also see zinc, cesium, cobalt, iodine and thorium salting in nuclear weapons - Leo Szilard - 1950.
 
Actually, the appeal of hydrogen bombs vs fission bombs (the ones used in Japan) is that hydrogen bombs have fewer after-effects, while generating a bigger explosion. Today's bigger (150 to 350 Kt) bombs would cover up to eight times the surface area of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. But on a per square foot basis, the bombs would have less radioactive detritus than the bombs detonated over Japan.
 
Actually, there's an interesting Michael Fumento article about the after-effects of Chernobyl, which I have heard are worse than the non-blast after-effects of any nuclear detonation would be:
 
Why would an energy-craving nation (the U.S.) that also demands a pristine environment put the kibosh on a limitless form of power (nuclear energy) that produces no air pollution and no emissions environmentalists claim cause global warming?

It stems essentially from two massively-publicized incidents that plague our imagination: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and especially Chernobyl in Ukraine. Nobody was even injured at TMI, but Chernobyl was a disaster of epic proportions. Or was it?

For the answer go back to 1986 in the former Soviet Union, a regime in which worker and public safety mattered zilch. A powerful steam explosion at one of four reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear facility near Kiev ? a hunk of junk compared to any American nuke plant ? caused additional explosions, a fire, and a full nuclear meltdown. Over 100,000 people were evacuated.

UPI's immediate death toll was 2,000 while others used far higher figures. "Late Word From Inside Russia: Mass Grave for 15,000 N-Victims," blared the New York Post. Blame these perhaps on confusion and Soviet secrecy. But in 2001 Agence France-Presse reported the highest toll ever, claiming "between 15,000 and 30,000 people died" from the initial blast and radiation exposure. As to delayed cancer deaths from radiation, some nuclear energy opponents estimated almost half a million.

But a voluminous new report assembled by the Chernobyl Forum, comprising 8 UN agencies, shows not only that the accident's immediate impact was grossly exaggerated but that even delayed cancer deaths will prove minuscule compared to the outrageous predictions.

The actual number of immediate deaths? Not 30,000 but rather 47 says the report. All were among plant personnel and emergency workers, none among the general public.

Delayed cancer deaths estimated in the new report? Not half a million but about 4,000. This though five million people received excess radiation exposure. Yet the report also admits that although there's been plenty of time for cancers to start showing up, researchers are having trouble finding enough cases even to justify the 4,000.

The report did attribute nine thyroid cancer deaths in children from drinking contaminated milk (which may be preventable with cheap iodine supplementation).

But even for the cancer most linked to radiation exposure (leukemia) and for those with the greatest such exposure (cleanup workers) it found studies repeatedly showing no increased risks.

Tragically, women as far away as southern Italy and Greece aborted their babies aborted their babies because of environmentalist propaganda essentially claiming they'd be born with three eyes and tentacles. Yet the report finds no evidence for excessive birth defects.

Indeed, "the largest public health problem created by the accident" is the "damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information," the Chernobyl Forum found. "These problems manifest as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state." As FDR might have put it, these poor people have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Yet all of us suffer from nuclear hysteria - if not our own, then from those who force the hands of policy-makers. It's why no new nuclear power plants have been ordered since the late 1970s and more than 100 new reactors have been canceled. Never mind that nuke plants supply 20% of our energy and yet have never harmed a single American, nor that there's never been an accident in France where they supply 75% of the nation's energy.

Never mind that accidents caused by natural gas, petroleum products, and accidents and black lung disease from coal take a steady toll of lives each year. Never
 
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Zhang Fei       7/30/2008 4:35:29 PM
One extra point - Nagasaki and Hiroshima were air burst weapons.  A ground burst or sub-surface burst will produce large amounts of fallout and lingering radiation. 

It seems to me that the trade-off comes down to whether you want to destroy a large area without lingering radiation or destroy a small area while leaving behind lingering radiation*. A single 450 Kt bomb envelops a 250 sq mile area with significant (or complete destruction near the center of the blast) when detonated at the same height as a Hiroshima bomb. Closer to the ground, the area coverage is much smaller. Multiply that by a thousand bombs, and you have a 250,000 sq mile area. That's less than a tenth of China's land area. Note that only about 25 sq miles of that 250 sq miles would be completely vaporized - the rest merely sustains structural damage. Ultimately, airburst explosions of 1000 nukes merely vaporize 25,000 sq miles of land, or less than 1% of China's territorial extent. I suspect US policy won't be to use ground bursts - the coverage is inefficient, and the possibility of US boots on the ground is not conducive to the idea of the creation of wasteland, no matter how iffy the likelihood.

* There's some question as to whether the area could be cleared relatively quickly of radiation debris, since we've never bothered, given that our test sites were mainly in relatively sparsely populated areas of no geographical significance, as opposed to major cities like Hiroshima and and Nagasaki, which were rebuilt for the same reasons that they became cities in the first place - strategic location. 
 
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Softwar       7/30/2008 4:56:29 PM
Ground burst is standard for runway cratering and bunker busting.  The Russian 1 meg standard warhead of the Cold war days was intended to destroy airfields using a ground burst.  An airburst will cause destruction but a ground burst destroys the runway.  Similar strike patterns by US warheads would be aimed at command bunkers and C3 sites.
 
The fission - fusion - fission process is something which lends itself to enhanced fallout with salting.  This f-f-f procedure was not developed until after the H bomb tests in the 1950s.  Well after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The H bombs themselves were tested in a ground burst (the first vaporized an entire island).  The fireball is all that is required to strike the ground, causing cratering and uplift of tons of radioactive materials.
 
Either way - none of this is a pretty picture and certainly not something that the PRC leadership would want to consider a good trade off for a first strike at the US homeland.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       8/2/2008 7:24:24 PM
Decapitating the CCP is fairly useless, the PLA has been slowly taking over quite a few aspects of Chinese leadership and foreign policy.  It would be wiser to decapitate the PLA leadership, which should allow the PLA to splinter into ethnic centered and local power seeking bands.  The CCP would be left defenseless to the civilian population.
 
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