No US-China war will go nuclear – our evidence assumes every possible avenue for miscalc

Wu Riqiang, “Assessing China-U.S. Inadvertent Nuclear Escalation,” International Security, Volume 46, Number 3, Winter 2021/2022, The MIT Press, https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/46/3/128/109669/Assessing-China-U-S-Inadvertent-Nuclear-Escalation?redirectedFrom=fulltext

No One Would Go Nuclear

China and the United States might engage in a conventional war over Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the East China Sea. Because conflict over the Taiwan Strait would likely be the most intense, it represents the baseline of the following examination.145 This section focuses specifically on how the factors of survivability and the NC3 system might affect risks of inadvertent escalation according to the three mechanisms of use-it-or-lose-it, unauthorized/ accidental, and damage-limitation.

U.S. Military Strategy Vis-À-Vis China

In a conventional war with China, the United States has two strategic options: dominance and denial.146 Although the United States has enjoyed military dominance in East Asia for many decades, China’s rapid military modernization, especially its so-called anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, is challenging this dominance around China’s periphery.147 A dominance strategy would call for reclaiming military superiority and freedom of action in the West Pacific,148 while a denial strategy would relinquish military dominance in China’s near seas and seek to deny China’s sea and air control in this region.149 Compared with a denial strategy, a dominance strategy demands more strikes against Chinese inland targets, which would cause more unintentional attacks on Chinese nuclear assets. Thus, it is likely that a more offensive U.S. military strategy would result in more unintended attacks on China’s nuclear capabilities. Indeed, before leaving office, the Trump administration declassified its Indo-Pacific strategic framework, which states that the United States would deny China sustained air and sea dominance inside the first island chain and dominate all domains outside of it.150 If the United States has given up seeking to restore dominance around China’s periphery, I therefore suggest that U.S. unintentional attacks on China’s nuclear capabilities would not be too severe in a conventional war with China.

Moreover, U.S. military planners are aware of the risks of inadvertent escalation. As stated by the former commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, “U.S. planners are very mindful of the danger of attacking any state’s nuclear arsenal and take extraordinary precautions to avoid doing so.”151 The U.S. military’s caution thus further reduces the likelihood of unintentional strikes on China’s nuclear capabilities. In the following three subsections, I evaluate each of the risks associated with the three types of inadvertent escalation.

Risk Of Use-It-Or-Lose-It Escalation

As discussed in this article’s second section on the survivability of China’s nuclear forces, China’s land-based nuclear missiles—the backbone of its nuclear deterrent capabilities—are survivable to unintentional conventional attacks. Chinese SSBNs, however, are more vulnerable. The U.S. military is unlikely to unintentionally destroy a significant percentage of China’s nuclear retaliatory capability. If China builds the aforementioned silo-based ICBMs, I argue this would further reduce the risk of use-it-or-lose-it escalation. On the one hand, the silo-based ICBMs are totally distinguishable from conventional capabilities, so the risk of unintended attacks is zero. On the other hand, their deployment would enhance Chinese leaders’ confidence of nuclear retaliation in the event of unintended attacks.

While perceptual factors certainly affect escalation dynamics, two other factors can mitigate their effects. First, in a conventional war, China’s national command authority would likely maintain minimum communication capability with its nuclear forces. Second, China’s NC3 system does not require prompt retaliation. Chinese leaders would achieve much better situational awareness after the initial attacks. Given these factors, I suggest that the risk of use-it-or-lose-it escalation in a conventional war between China and the United States is extremely low, or close to zero.

Risk Of Unauthorized/Accidental Escalation

Given technical constraints and doctrinal restraints, the risk of unauthorized/ accidental launch also seems to be extremely low. First, China prioritizes “negative control,” which ensures that nuclear weapons will never be used without an authorized order, over “positive control,” which ensures that nuclear weapons will always work when ordered.152 China’s NC3 system is highly centralized, and the national command authority holds the sole authority of nuclear use; pre-delegation is hard to imagine in this context. Should the communication link with the national command authority be interrupted, theater commanders are required to reestablish communication or wait for a messenger to bring further directions.

Second, China is currently unable to adopt a LOW policy. It is unclear if the new silo constructions indicate that China is adopting a LOW posture. In the longer term, whether to go LOW depends on China’s confidence in maintaining nuclear retaliatory capability as the United States develops its missile defenses and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. China’s military is aware of the risk of LOW and the history of false alarms in the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia; thus, unless an unforeseen and dramatic technological breakthrough occurs, I argue that China is unlikely to take a LOW posture.

Risk Of Damage-Limitation Escalation

The risk of damage-limitation escalation depends on two factors: how the U.S. military interprets China’s nuclear missile dispersion during conventional war, and how committed it is to damage-limitation operations. At a 2013 China-Russia-United States Trilateral Dialogue held in Washington, D.C., I asked a U.S. participant with a government background about their perception of nuclear missile dispersion. The participant responded that the U.S. military would interpret China’s dispersion as technically stabilizing because its intention is to improve China’s nuclear survivability rather than to prepare to use nuclear weapons first. The participant further explained that politically, China’s dispersion suggested that the situation was quite serious.153 In my experience, this answer is representative of a reasonable U.S. strategist’s view.

How committed the United States is to a damage-limitation doctrine is unknown. Given the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear war, even an uncertain, limited retaliation from China could generate a strong deterrent effect and somewhat impede a U.S. damage-limitation strike. As McGeorge Bundy concluded in 1969, “a decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one’s own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder.”154 Therefore, in practice, the bar for damage limitation is probably very high; U.S. leaders might need to be almost, if not fully, certain that China is about to use, or has already used, nuclear weapons before launching a damage-limitation strike. Consequently, the risk of damage limitation escalation is also extremely low.