Why didn't China, France, UK didn't bother with creating

>>3018514
The possibility of one hitting the mark is a sufficient deterrent for any rational nation.
Capacity to intercept, disable, or appropriate mitigates that thread but this doesn't justify a higher quantity of warheads, it demands qualitative improvement.
A well maintained Arsenal of 100+ is more than enough, the better question is why Russia and the USA need 7000+

>>3018610
>A well maintained Arsenal of 100+ is more than enough, the better question is why Russia and the USA need 7000+

For a true deterrent, you need enough capacity to make a meaningful strike even assuming catastrophic failure rates or an extremely successful enemy missile defense system. Moreover, to prevent a preemptive counter-force strike, you need you need to maintain a full nuclear triad and be able to respond in force even with a large part of your arsenal wiped out. If you suspect the enemy might think a first strike would at some point be "worth it" even with proportional or limited retaliation you need to have "massive retaliation" capacity to discourage even a "limited" attack. Combine the need for overwhelming, disproportionate retaliatory force to discourage preemptive attacks with the need for such force to be available from just a fraction of your bombs (the rest having been destroyed or not reaching their targets) and you reach numbers in the thousands.


That being said, massive retaliation to some extent assumes were operating in a MAD world, whereas a lot of more modern thinking allows for the possibility of a limited NUTS nuclear exchange.

>>3018610
>The possibility of one hitting the mark is a sufficient deterrent for any rational nation.

Not necessarily. You have to at some point consider that the enemy (especially a large nation like Russia or China) might be willing to lose 1 city in exchange for utterly wiping your nation off of the map.

>>3018699
> MAD
> NUTS
What next? CRAZY? Was that on purpose?

>>3018716
I think it must have been.

>>3018716
Military loves clever acronyms like it loves grooming standards.

>>3018716
help me make a backronym here, anons. Catastrophic Response/Zone Yielding?
Critical Response Zones Yardstick?
Critical Resource Zones of enemY?

in all seriousness, though, I think NUTS makes more realistic assumptions about proportionate retaliation and the consequences of a first strike. It would take a special kind of madman to order massive countervalue strikes even once the nukes are out of the box

>>3018736
Constant Radio Active Zero Yield

>>3018775
it sounds nuclear-y but I'm trying to think of something that could actually describe a strategy or targeting/strategic priorities, not just the effects of weapons. Like Mutually Assured Destruction or Nuclear Utilization Target Selection

>>3018514
China's nuclear program has never really had the same strategic aim as the USSR or the US

>>3018716
>BRRAP

>>3018736
Contamination restricting Advancement Zero (objective/goals) yielded
Commanded Resources Active, Zero Yield
Civilian Response Assumed Zero for Yielding