The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 1086 Deterrence
In the field of nuclear weapons, the nuclear triad refers to a country's ability to simultaneously possess three types of nuclear strikes: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers.

When a country possesses a triad of nuclear strike capabilities, it is equivalent to having a comprehensive nuclear deterrence capability.

Because of the ability to counterattack after sustaining the first strike, no country can destroy the other side's nuclear strike capability in one go without being subject to nuclear retaliation from the other side.

Currently, only the five permanent members of the UN Security Council possess nuclear weapons. Israel and South Africa, which originally possessed nuclear weapons, have given them up for various reasons.

Among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, only the United States and the Soviet Union were recognized as having the three-pronged nuclear strike capability, while the other three did not.

After entering the 90s, especially after the millennium, China was also recognized by countries around the world as possessing a triad nuclear strike capability.

The trinity nuclear strike capability can also be understood as a secondary nuclear strike capability!
Since we have a second nuclear strike capability, we also have a first nuclear strike capability.

The so-called nuclear strike capability is the ability to proactively launch a nuclear attack on the enemy.

This kind of attack capability is very low-level. Israel and South Africa possessed this kind of nuclear strike capability in the past. Real nuclear powers would not care too much about this.

Just because you have the capability to launch a nuclear strike doesn't mean you can carry out such an attack. If I bomb you first, perhaps all of your nuclear weapons will be destroyed by me before they even take off.

Obviously, if you only have the capability to launch one nuclear strike, you cannot deter a nuclear power, because if others take the initiative, they can completely destroy you.

If we want to develop our own nuclear deterrence capability, it is definitely not a matter of "I bet you don't dare", but "if you dare, I dare too!"
Therefore, real nuclear powers are all pursuing second-strike nuclear capabilities.

Even if you strike first and completely blow up my country, my final struggle can also completely blow up your country, and we will all perish together.

The key to having a second-strike nuclear capability is to hide one's own nuclear weapons in a place where the opponent cannot find them or hit them.

In the early 60s, the United States always kept a number of B52 strategic bombers flying in the sky, and took off as many as the ones that landed, in order to ensure its second-strike nuclear capability.

The Soviet Union also created the "Doomsday Train", with several trains pulling intercontinental nuclear missiles running around with their positions erratic, ensuring that they would be difficult to be destroyed in the first round of nuclear strikes from the United States and guaranteeing their ability to launch a nuclear counterattack.

Of course, from a certain perspective, the strongest secondary nuclear strike capability is not land-based intercontinental nuclear missiles, nor strategic bombers carrying nuclear missiles, but strategic nuclear submarines!
Only a major power with strategic nuclear submarines will be considered a true nuclear power, so nuclear submarines are really difficult to detect.

The density of water is much greater than that of air, and seawater has a strong absorption effect on electromagnetic wave energy, so conventional electromagnetic waves can hardly pass through seawater. To detect submarines/nuclear submarines, sonar detection is the only way.

Whether it is anti-submarine aircraft dropping a large number of sonar beacons for detection, or surface warships using ship sonar systems for detection, they are essentially using sonar detection.

Conventional-powered submarines have a very obvious flaw, which is their limited endurance and tonnage.

Nuclear submarines can solve these problems of conventional powered submarines.

Submarines are recognized as strategic weapons, and their research and development requires high and comprehensive industrial capabilities. Currently, only a few countries are able to design and produce them on their own. In particular, ballistic missile nuclear submarines are the key pole of the nuclear triad and are extremely important.

Taking the Polar Bear's Borei nuclear submarine as an example, it can carry 16 intercontinental missiles, each of which can be equipped with 10 nuclear warheads, which means 160 nuclear warheads. If all these 160 nuclear warheads hit the target, even the United States would probably be destroyed.

This type of missile is extremely difficult to detect and defend against, firstly because it is short in duration, and secondly because it can carry multiple nuclear warheads.

Nuclear deterrence refers to nuclear deterrence between nuclear-armed countries. The essence of nuclear deterrence is the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons are used, they will also be retaliated with nuclear weapons. This is why there has been no war between nuclear-armed countries since World War II. The most dangerous one was the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the United States and the Soviet Union both retreated and compromised. As for nuclear-armed countries threatening non-nuclear countries, that is not called nuclear deterrence, but nuclear blackmail.

The entire world has been in a nuclear balance for so many years, which has ensured that no world-class war has broken out again for more than half a century after World War II.

To date, nuclear weapons still have absolute deterrent power in military terms.

And it’s not that I don’t dare to use it!

The nuclear strategies of the United States and Russia clearly point out a series of scenarios in which they can and should be used, and they involve preemptive nuclear strikes.

At present, the United States and Russia have established a complete strategic nuclear force system in the world, with the capabilities to prevent nuclear strikes, intercept and counterattack.

The United States and Russia are roughly aware of the number of nuclear weapons in Britain and France.

However, as to how many nuclear weapons China possesses, it is like a layer of fog that is impossible to see clearly no matter how hard you try.

When China responds to external forces, it often uses the word "enough", but how many pieces are "enough"?

Tenet looked helpless, he knew very well that this was a major mistake made by the CIA.

The CIA has been collecting intelligence in this area for a long time, and even sent some intelligence personnel to travel to the East or put some phishing posts on the Internet.

However, China is still very capable in keeping secrets, and it is not easy to collect information in this regard.

Even intelligence personnel were involved and had to accept the red list proposed by the other party for exchange.

But Tenet knows that under the current circumstances, everyone must adjust their strategies to deal with the new situation.

Whether Saudi Arabia has an aircraft carrier fleet is two completely different things; whether Saudi Arabia has one aircraft carrier formation is also different from whether Saudi Arabia has three aircraft carrier formations.

Then there is the Chinese side. How to communicate with China also needs to be adjusted.

Relations between major powers are the core of diplomatic relations.

The same is true in the United States. As long as relations with major powers are handled well, other small countries are actually not that important.

Now for the United States, it is actually regressing rather than advancing in many parts of the world.

In terms of the geopolitical landscape, it has now evolved towards a multipolar world.

The United States' influence in Southeast Asia and South Asia has been almost weakened to the extreme.

As for the Middle East, the United States now has only one ally, Israel, but this ally is surrounded by enemies. Moreover, this ally is reckless and out of control, and even drags the United States into the water.

(End of this chapter)