You’re talking about maximum yields for warheads that can be fitted to them, which in more practical terms *should* go down for most actual situations where accuracy (destruction of command known NK command centers, for example) is more important than obliteration.

Only from a realist perspective. Tens of millions of deaths in SK, NK, and possibly Japan is still pretty horrifying.

That would drastically depend on the size of the weapons used and where they were used. Most combat-ready nukes are sub-10 KT, unless they were all targeting global food supplies, you’d need a huge amount.

Unfortunately, it’s only in much more recent years that China’s become a far more tenuous ally to NK. Twenty years ago, I think China really *would* back NK in a war with the US. It’s hard to imagine how that would have turned out.

Why would they seek war with the US over an ally they no longer have any reason to be allied with? China is nothing if not pragmatic. They’re not unpredictable at all.

No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying people very often have the picture of the hydrogen weapon tests burned into their minds when they think of nukes, when nothing in this scenario would even come close to approaching that kind of power.

That’s a fair counter-point and a lot better of one than thinking China will somehow back NK once all pretenses and reasons for even trying to be its ally no longer exists. But it is very true that it could be an ‘opening of the box’ moment.

Is going to do what? They’re barely NK’s ally, they just crushed them with sanctions and only remain its ally to try to prevent the country from destabalizing and refugees trying to flee over the border into China. Once a war starts, China has no reason to even pretend to be NK’s ally, because those things become…

Only if you’re talking about weapons in the megaton ranges. NK has nothing even approaching that (their largest weapon tests haven’t even approached 10 KT, let alone MT), and the vast majority of the US stockpile is in the similar 10-15 KT range. Nobody really maintains combat-ready hydrogen weapons now.

A climate effect if two or more bombs are detonated? Are you picturing Tsar Bombas or something?

You’re right, they won’t. They’ll take the opportunity to isolate the US on the world stage and assert their economic dominance. But they have no reason to initiate mutually-assured-destruction with the US (a policy developed originally by Russia and, as far as I’m aware, does not exist for China’s military doctrine)…

Are they? Is that why China just signed off on the strictest sanctions ever imposed on a country and have nine tank divisions pointed at the NK border?

Frank Ferdinand was an excuse for countries already chomping at the bit for war. China’s not looking for war, it’s looking for economic dominion over the US and a reduction of its influence in Asia.

Sigh. I’m not trying to somehow undersell how horrifying it would be. I have friends serving in the military in Korea, I myself am ‘in the line of fire’ in southern California, so to speak.

There’s some misconceptions about modern nuclear weaponry.

The thing is that folks are implying that China would fly into a MAD war with the US if the US nuked NK, which it simply wouldn’t. The whole point of MAD is that China is assuming it would be destroyed. The far more likely result is that China flexes its muscle on the world stage and isolates the US economically,…

Oh, I didn’t say it won’t piss them the hell off. But they’re not going to start launching them back. It would ruin relations with China basically forever and the US would likely become isolated economically from the rest of the world.

I know right? :(

What reason would China have to lob nukes? Once a war starts, NK is done. They have no reason to even pretend to back NK anymore, and they barely do so now. China just signed off on the most powerful sanctions possible for NK.

This is the ‘mutually assured destruction’ scenario that only really exists for a nuclear power with a huge stockpile.