The important question here is how many of these PLA silos are operational and how many of them are actually loaded.
Best to assume it's all of them.
Best not to assume anything and do proper intel work to find out the real answer.
Obviously Scott’s approach, given current geostrategic realities, is correct WHILE making sure we are using all NATECH means at the same time to ultimately determine the exact extent of the threat
It is not like there is actually only a limited binary choice between “weak willed” complacency and massive expansion of US ICBM force (missiles and warheads) continually being pushed by the same usual suspects on this site.
It is interesting that same voices do not appear to be interested in pushing for an expansion of the US SSBN fleet (or even mention its existence most of the time).
Via
CDR Salamander:
I cannot stop thinking of the utility of what the South Korean navy is building here. A relatively large, modern SSK with 6 and soon 10 launch tubes for large cruise or ballistic missiles. Via Naval News, just look at this beautiful beast; If the day of assuming any SLBM launch being nuclear is...
blog.usni.org
Why we should double or triple our Columbia purchase
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From the SK ballistic missile thread. Could find more scattered throughout different threads about “matching the number of Ohio’s, having 20-24 tubes, etc.
There is a basic issue here, what nuclear forces you can afford and the balance with non-nuclear forces you can simultaneously afford, and which balance actually provides the optimal deterrent effect.
The US can’t afford massive ramp up of its nuclear forces while maintaining it current non-nuclear forces. Indeed it is struggling to afford to renew its nuclear forces at approximately the same current level while maintaining its non-nuclear forces at their approximate current level.
It is clear that after the collapse of the USSR the US increasingly focused on maintaining and strengthening its advantage over it likely adversaries in non-nuclear forces (in ultimate effectiveness , not overall numbers). Given the conflicts fought and not fought in this period that decision has largely been vindicated. When faced with an alternative approach (that of post-USSR Russia) of greater emphasis on nuclear weapons the impact and limitations of that alternative approach become clear.
The US can’t and won’t build 2 or 3 times the number of new SSBNs, or massively ramp up land based ICBMs including but not limited to new mobile ICBMs; any attempt to get any where near this would need to be at the expense of the non-nuclear forces which are probably at least as important in deterring a conflict with Russia or China as the nuclear forces are.
At the likely end of the START treaties combined with a larger more capable Chinese land based and sub based ICBM forces will likely see a move towards larger number of active warheads deployed on existing systems and on their replacements as they enter service. There may even be modest relatively small increases in the numbers of new ICBMs, subs, B-21s and the environment may help politically secure these systems procurements and related programs like the new nuclear armed air launched cruise missile.
But fantasies of exponential growth are just that; pure fantasies unconnected to economic or political realities (or even the likely favoured priorities and choices of the US armed forces even if the required additional funding did just magically appear). And the few exponents of these fantasies must know they are just fantasies; they appear to be being pushed primarily for “signalling” purposes (the right wing cold-war warrior equivalent of virtue signalling?).
www.usnc.com
