China is building a 2nd base for nuclear missiles, say analysts:
Analysts at the Federation of American Scientists say China is building a second field of silos for launching nuclear missiles in a development that could constitute “the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever”.
The United States-based researchers made the discovery after analysing commercial satellite images, and said on Monday that the field – located near the city of Hami in Xinjiang province – may eventually include about 110 silos.
The new field is about 380km (236 miles) from a base near the city of Yumen in neighbouring Gansu province, where a separate group of researchers earlier this month found construction under way on 120 missile silos.
Altogether, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force now appears to have 250 silos under construction at Hami, Yumen, as well as at a training ground near the city of Jilantai in Inner Mongolia, wrote the FAS’s Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen.
[...] “The number of new Chinese silos under construction exceeds the number of silo-based ICBMs operated by Russia, and constitutes more than half of the size of the entire US ICBM force,” they wrote. “The Chinese missile silo program constitutes the most extensive silo construction since the US and Soviet missile silo construction during the Cold War.”
However, they stressed that it was unclear how China would operate the new silos, whether it would load all of them with missiles or use a portion as empty decoys. They also noted it was not known how many warheads each missile would carry.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 01 2021, @05:48AM (9 children)
when it's not you doing the deterrence.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @05:59AM
It's a stimulus program for military tech, like the empty cities for the construction industry.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Sunday August 01 2021, @09:56AM (6 children)
What they're doing is actually pretty odd, if these really are active-use silos then they've clustered them all within airburst distance of a single warhead rather than dispersing them as widely as possible. We've known about the importance of dispersal of strategic targets for eighty years but this is doing the exact opposite. It doesn't make any sense to do this, which makes me wonder what's really going on there.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday August 01 2021, @02:27PM
Sure it makes sense. If the silos would survive a near miss, then only one silo will be destroyed by an incoming missile. To take out 100 silos requires 100 missiles.
But, and here's the point: nuclear missile are soft targets, subject to "fratricide". You can't send in 100 missiles, because the first one to detonate will destroy the other 99. Which means that your missile field is actually able to survive a first strike. That gives you a lot more strategic flexibility.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Sunday August 01 2021, @07:00PM
Does it really make a different if you Launch On Warning? Unless somebody manages to completely surprise you with no reaction time, you just launch them all before it hits.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @08:00PM (3 children)
Perhaps their goal is to increase the rate at which they can launch the missiles. If they think they will launch first, this makes perfect sense.
Sleep tight.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 02 2021, @04:34AM (2 children)
The one thing China will never do is launch first. Unlike some of the nutters running other countries with nuclear weapons, they appreciate that a nuclear war is really, really bad for business. In fact given the success of the Belt and Road they'll never need their nukes... which provides another explanation for the silo farm, build a bunch of very obvious silos but never bother building the missiles for them. You've got the deterrent signal to others, and in the meantime you put the money saved into the Belt and Road and end up owning even more of the world without a shot being fired. China could right now be doing to the US what the US did to the USSR in the 1980s - you can bet the US military ran cap in hand to Congress as soon as the photos were published, all they have to do is keep poking the US to spend itself into oblivion on military gear they don't actually need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 02 2021, @06:09PM (1 child)
The danger is the USA only needs a crazy president to launch the nukes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/14/could-anyone-stop-trump-from-launching-nukes-the-answer-no.html [cnbc.com]
Fortunately Trump didn't do it.
See also: https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/nuclear-weapons-how-cold-war-major-harold-hering-asked-a-forbidden-question-that-cost-him-his-career.html [slate.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/09/what-if-the-president-ordering-a-nuclear-attack-isnt-sane-a-major-lost-his-job-for-asking/ [washingtonpost.com]
Not sure if Russia still has their Perimeter system, which was significantly saner than the USA's approach (it's usually easier to be sure that someone has launched nukes at you AFTER you got nuked): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand [wikipedia.org]
I'm not sure whether the Russian system can figure out that it definitely was the USA and not someone else... So even though it's saner it's still insane if they don't care who launched it, if they get nuked the USA etc gets nuked.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @11:47PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @04:25PM
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @06:27AM
Nothing Compared to Malestrom AirForce Base (Mal-strom, "storm of evil") nice spread of tubes of death all across Central Montana. Could never figure why they were there, instead of in New York, or Los Angeles, and putting all those deer and antelope, and elk, and cattle at risk. Not their fight.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @10:40AM
>> unclear how China would operate the new silos, whether it would load all of them with missiles or use a portion as empty decoys.
These are actually being built by a Chinese entrepreneur for his new takeout service, FreshGan: "Fresh Gansu Cuisine... Anywhere in the World in 15 Minutes".
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday August 01 2021, @12:43PM (14 children)
This is one of the biggest problems with an opaque government. You never know what they're doing or what the various factions are thinking. Even when you find out what they're doing, it's often years after the decisions were made. This is the heart of Kremlinology [wikipedia.org] - carefully analyzing actions today to figure out what important events happened years ago.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 01 2021, @04:10PM (11 children)
"Kremlinologists" -- That's funny stuff, like today's modern conspiracy theorist:
As for missile count, the story is that China still has some catching up to do.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Sunday August 01 2021, @04:16PM (1 child)
Did they count the tea leaves too? And see which way the stripes went on their socks and ties?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @05:14AM
It might sound silly, but this sort of stuff was necessary to have any understanding of what was going on in the heads of the elite of these governments.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @04:44AM (8 children)
Except that the "conspiracy" is overt.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 02 2021, @05:25PM (7 children)
Always is... "hidden in plain sight"
So, deep down you're "QAnon", eh?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @09:50PM (6 children)
Where "plain sight" is a massive country that you're not allowed to poke around in.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 02 2021, @09:59PM (5 children)
Yeah, so they're gonna hang the picture of Lenin just a little bit crooked to signal they're invading Poland tonight at 11pm Eastern/10pm Central, but only if the German Chancellor sits across from the Swedish Prime Minister and the waiter serves him beluga caviar from his left side
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @10:06PM (4 children)
Well, if that's how they do it, then they'll do it that way. You're missing that this sort of analysis works. In the real world, subtle status signaling was and is a common feature of authoritarian governments like the USSR or present day China. One can tell who is in favor from their public status, and that in turn can give clues about what the present day policy of the authoritarian government is.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 02 2021, @10:13PM (3 children)
Ah, so it's just status seeking and adjusting the plumage on your hat. Only happens in "foreign" culture.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @11:35PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 03 2021, @12:46AM (1 child)
Very revealing that you call it "Kremlinology"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday August 03 2021, @01:50AM
What's a better label to use here?
Kremlinology was a systematic study of the observable behavior of an otherwise black box government and culture. That's exactly the situation here with China. So why not reuse a good label again?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 01 2021, @05:09PM (1 child)
It would make sense to build 100 similar bases. And then to put one missile in every 20th or 50th silo. An attacker would have to target 10,000 silos if he were hoping to get all the missiles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 02 2021, @11:40PM
Oh just wait for it, they'll be more silos, maybe not 50 or 100 but they'll be a few more. Meanwhile they're also building fake islands in the South China sea where real nuke warheads in subs are prowling much closer to the rest of the world.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jasassin on Sunday August 01 2021, @01:06PM
More nuclear missiles! There's never enough. /s
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @02:08PM (3 children)
The people in power have been amping up cold war rhetoric for several years.
Well you got one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01 2021, @04:57PM
well, cold war is done to death. how about:
luke warm war?
tepid war?
frigid war?
honey, call the hvac guy war?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 02 2021, @10:03PM (1 child)
China isn't building this because of "rhetoric".
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 03 2021, @05:57AM
They've seen the quality of the people that America elects to have their finger on the button.