Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Yes - I was answering what I thing was etudiants statement that the US would only have a few big cities to hit in China. Having flown over city after city there that hardly appears on any western map and certainly has no name recognition I thought he/she was wrong................... and your numbers nicely show they have the means - if they so decide
I was unclear, I meant that there are only a handful of big cities in the US, so a Chinese force of 200 warheads is ample to deal with those, which is the basis of deterrence.
The much larger number of such cities in China is of course addressed by the much larger US arsenal, although presumably part of that is reserved for other potential targets.
Either way, there is such excess nuclear capability that the established players know it is not a usable tool. Whether new entrants such as North Korea share that view is unclear