Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the working-so-well-for-North-Korea? dept.

China working to double nuclear warheads:

China is expected to at least double the number of its nuclear warheads over the next 10 years - from an estimated figure in the low 200s it has now - and is nearing the ability to launch nuclear attacks by land, air and sea, a capacity known as a triad, the Pentagon has revealed.

The annual report to Congress on China's military marks the first time it has put a number to China's nuclear warheads. The Federation of American Scientists has estimated that China has about 320.

The Pentagon said the growth projection was based on factors including Beijing having enough material to double its nuclear weapons stockpile without new fissile material production.

Begun, the Second Nuclear Arms Race has?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:52PM (11 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:52PM (#1045583)

    Yeah but what would a land empire on the other side of the planet care about a naval trade empire on the other side of the planet.

    Like invade Venezuela for oil, I can see that. Invade Canada for strategic maple syrup reserves and hot breedable women, sure I can see that. The idea of getting into a fight with China is weird.

    The best air craft carrier to protect Taiwan is likely the Taiwan island dirt, unlikely to sink.

    I guess we could F with their trade ships to Africa or whatever, and they'd want to F with our carriers to get even.

    Maybe China thinks they need nukes to fight off Japan again, or things might get weird with Vietnam or maybe they just need to outgun the crazier North Korean military...

    I'm just saying there's not much actual strategic conflict worthy of nuke use for China. Like if you wanted to write a realistic technothriller including Chinese nuke use, aside from boring deterrence, it would involve ... um ... yeah that's a good one.

    Like maybe if NK decided to F with China by trying a token naval invasion of Taiwan, and the Chinese wanted the US to stay out of the fight in a rather forceful manner. This is getting pretty far fetched already.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Funny=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by pvanhoof on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:59PM (4 children)

    by pvanhoof (4638) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:59PM (#1045586) Homepage

    I think the idea is to have nukes to ensure that the US military doesn't do a massive (nuclear) attack or indeed a blockade of their naval trade routes (to Africa, and other places), also not when the US military does block their naval trade routes and they decide to militarily retaliate and, indeed, sink the US's boats. With 600 nukes ready to launch I'm sure the US military's response wouldn't be an all out nuclear war against China as re-retaliation for that. Else a few US cities will vaporize as re-re-relatiation.

    But yes. Sounds crazy and weird to conceptualize such a war. Neither side would win anything.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Wednesday September 02 2020, @09:16PM (2 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @09:16PM (#1045605) Journal

      Neither side would win anything.

      No? What about those juicy reconstruction contracts?

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 03 2020, @12:30AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 03 2020, @12:30AM (#1045663) Journal

        You mean cleaning up the radioactive glass contracts?
        I doubt there'll be enough ... something... to pay with any contacts after a nuclear conflict.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Thursday September 03 2020, @08:28AM

        by pvanhoof (4638) on Thursday September 03 2020, @08:28AM (#1045772) Homepage

        Reconstruction contracts after setting fire to the place? Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives ,a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome">approves of this.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @02:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @02:38PM (#1045865)

      Stephen Falken: Exactly. There's no way to win. The game itself is pointless! But back at the war room, they believe you can win a nuclear war. That there can be "acceptable losses."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @10:57PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @10:57PM (#1045632)

    What? Wait, hot breedable women?

    I've lived here all my life. Where are these women of which you speak?

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:15PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:15PM (#1045640) Journal

      Prince Edward Island

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:31PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:31PM (#1045650)

      Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:10PM (#1045955)

        76% homo erectus hybrid? yeah right. they said "breedable" not how well they can carry baskets on their huge gorilla asses.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:54AM (#1045758)

    breedable women

    I find this level of objectification satisfying.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 03 2020, @12:47PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 03 2020, @12:47PM (#1045833)

      At least I didn't refer to them as Frank Herbert's "breeding stumps" from that old sci fi book.