As the world’s attention focuses on Gaza and Ukraine, a third flashpoint ignites in the Far East and continues intermittently. This could escalate into a war that would quickly trivialize all current conflicts. I am, of course, referring to the long-feared Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Like Gaza and Ukraine, this is an old problem. As in Gaza and Ukraine, it pits an authoritarian invader against a democratic neighbor living in a desired land. But unlike those conflicts, this one will almost certainly involve the U.S. military and lead to the first direct confrontation between the major powers in 80 years.
Most of us know that Taiwan is repeatedly harassed by China’s air force and navy. For years, fighter jets and warships have circled the campfire like wolves, approaching and retreating. Many people inside and outside Taiwan have become accustomed to this threat. Few people know about the developments in China’s cold desert regions, 3,000 miles northwest of Gansu, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. There, a huge danger is growing underground. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is working night after night beneath the sand, building hundreds of vertical cylindrical structures. These are missile launch facilities. nuclear silo.
When historian Niall Ferguson was asked to name the most important topic of the moment that no one seems to be discussing in recent weeks, he simply answered: “China’s nuclear program.” Until recently, right before the coronavirus pandemic, China’s arsenal was still in the low $200 range. However, a lot has changed in a few short years. The Chinese government currently has 410 nuclear warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles, sea-based ballistic missiles, and bombers. At its current trajectory, there will be 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, and 1,500 five years later. While this number is nowhere near the stockpiles of Russia or the United States, it still lags all other competitors. But even more worrying than the sheer number of nuclear weapons is the Communist Party’s sudden and inexplicable rush.
China’s transformation began with the public debut of the Dongfeng-41 ballistic missile. Unveiled with heart-breaking pomp and panache at a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Communist Revolution, the Dongfeng 41 (“East Wind”) traveled at 25 times the speed of sound and carried a nuclear warhead 9,000 miles. You can carry it up to In other words, more than enough to get from China to the United States.
By 2021, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will be able to orbit the Earth in hypersonic gliders (twice) This indicates that the Chinese government may soon be ready to launch a nuclear attack from space. In the same year, the world became aware that three huge silo fields with the potential to house 300 ballistic missiles were under construction in northwestern China. Satellite images provided by Planet Labs showed a series of rectangular domes inflated with air. Synthetic aperture radar images then showed increased activity at the center of the dome, a feature consistent with the presence of a hole in the silo. A launch control center was being developed nearby, and the tunnel entrance suggested the existence of further underground structures.
By January 2022, one dome had been removed, exposing more than 100 missile launch facilities. These were large enough to accommodate the powerful Dongfeng-41. It is becoming more likely that the Party will fill the entire silo field with its most formidable weapons. However, even this alarming scene may not capture the enormity of the threat, as the DF-41 has been shown to be capable of carrying multiple independently targeted warheads. This is a “hydra-head” missile, meaning each DF-41 can carry up to 10 nuclear warheads and each warhead can be directed to a different destination during flight. A future conflict over Taiwan will involve threats the world has never seen before and few could even dream of. A swarm of khaki-colored aerial hydras rains down fire from suborbital space and burns down cities along the east coast of North America.
To maintain nuclear proliferation, the Chinese Communist Party is devouring the world’s uranium supply. At the same time as Chinese companies are buying mines in Niger, Namibia and Kazakhstan, they are also buying large quantities of yellowcake (enriched uranium oxide) on the open market. They import more concentrated minerals from Russia. In just three months at the end of last year, the amount of uranium transferred from a Russian facility to a Chinese reactor was the same as all that has been removed worldwide under the auspices of the United States and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) over the past three decades. It reached seven times the amount of uranium.
It is not certain that this stockpile of uranium will be used in weapons, but the broader situation is far from reassuring. A few years ago, Chinese authorities suddenly stopped reporting their plutonium stockpiles to the IAEA without explanation. Around the same time, construction began on a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to extract plutonium from the power plant’s spent fuel. (Plutonium is the primary fissile isotope used to make nuclear weapons.) And a clear picture is emerging. The Communist Party is moving away from mere nuclear deterrence and toward a “first strike” capability, the potential to strike first and destroy an enemy’s nuclear arsenal.
nature of the beast
Too many Western politicians continue to lie about the character of the Chinese government.
I use terms like “first strike capability” and “destroying the enemy’s nuclear weapons,” but these words do not prepare us for the reality of a nuclear attack. I can’t do anything. No conflict has ever involved second-generation weapons to replace Little Boy and Fat Man, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even in 1945, we had not yet reached our full destructive potential. Both attacks missed their precise targets. Bomb fragments remained highly lingering, and much of the subsequent radiation dissipated harmlessly into the air. Ambient winds prevented a firestorm from occurring in Nagasaki. And in Little Boy’s case, only 1.3 percent of that material actually fissioned.
Countries may have detonated new bombs beneath desert floors or on tropical atolls, but they were never at war. When these weapons are used, the temperature of the resulting fireball can reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit, similar to the environment at the center of the sun. It is estimated that no one in the center of the explosion would survive, and that people within a 10-mile radius would receive a lethal dose of radiation. You can experience retinal burning symptoms up to 83 miles away. The atmosphere would become clogged with dust, blocking sunlight, disrupting agricultural production, and raising fears of starvation.
Some argue that we are simply witnessing a nervous reaction to recent U.S. policy changes. For example, the Pentagon’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review suggested expanding the United States’ flexible nuclear options to include low-yield weapons. A year later, Washington withdrew from the old 1987 U.S.-Soviet INF Treaty, which banned the use of ground-launched nuclear missile systems with ranges of 310 to 3,400 miles. These two changes were very important to some analysts. They saw China’s massive nuclear rush and felt alarm at perceived vulnerability rather than an aggressive plan of conquest.
It is true that chronic paranoia has always been a feature of Communist Party leadership. And maintaining silo fields in sparsely populated areas is certainly a good defensive tactic. Invaders are forced to waste weapons by destroying silos, leaving fewer weapons available to use against military bases and populated areas.
However, there are problems with this theory. The cycle of action and reaction did not begin in 2018. A review of the nuclear posture itself was a countermeasure. China’s president had already declared his intention to “completely transform”. [the PLA] …to the first class unit. ” It’s not just about rhetoric, but about the specifics brought about by the People’s Liberation Army’s development of “nuclear warheads on protected ICBMs and SLBMs capable of reaching the United States, and nuclear-armed theater ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. territory.” It was a reaction to a real threat. Allies, partners, forces, and bases in the region. ” Although its greatest escalation will not occur until 2020, the nuclear danger in the east was already increasing before 2018.
Even if there were no secret Chinese plans to start a major conflict, and even if Beijing was indeed motivated solely by fear of Washington’s posture, a sudden surge in weapons of mass destruction itself would constitute war. may increase the possibility of This is due to special circumstances in China. Desperate at the prospect of irreversible economic and population decline, fearing that its room for maneuver is rapidly closing, and recognizing the power afforded by its newly acquired arsenal and first-strike capabilities, the Chinese Communist Party simply They have good reason to attack Taiwan. Using these missiles to destroy U.S. military bases in the Asia-Pacific region before a full-scale invasion would give it a tremendous head start.
According to the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) theory, a nuclear conflict will lead to the destruction of both belligerents. No country will try to start a nuclear war because that fact is understood by everyone with the authority to launch an attack. This theory has so far been supported, contrary to most expectations of the general public. Few people living in the harsh climate of the 1950s would have bet that another 70 years would go by without a country using such deadly weapons. We are fortunate to have lived in an era of nuclear peace. It was a historically unprecedented time. A time when there was no direct conflict between major powers. Armed with this knowledge, we may be tempted to downplay the spread of new Chinese. But nuclear peace is always a dangerous act and is not a guaranteed law of nature. It depends on the relative rationality of all parties, but also on a lot of blind luck.
Let’s assume that there is no war over Taiwan. We will still have to face the problem of all the destructive firepower the party hopes to survive. The huge missiles lying in the desert look like a fleet of sleeping dragons. Few places are more at risk than in Communist China, a highly unpredictable and hopelessly unstable state from the moment of its conception to the present.
At some point, perhaps sooner than many think, the Chinese Communist Party will collapse. In the ensuing chaos, colonial acquisitions such as Tibet and Xinjiang will seek independence. That the world does not have to wait until such a late stage to finally remember that part of its vast nuclear stockpile lies within the borders of Xinjiang, the eye of the typhoon from which the nation begins to collapse. Let’s hope.