If any nukes are launched at a city center, the US government will literally ignore the plight of a major city and go fully into erasing the offending country. Everything will be launched with justifiable panic and rage filled fury. No major city center nuking would cause the US to fall. Even nuking DC would just slow the response by a few minutes tops. The supply chain would bend around the devastation and coldly pretend it can’t hear the screaming. Heck, nuking a carrier group would garner this response, solely because you crossed the red line.
America has enough spare ordinance to reduce any landmass the size of Texas to charred black glass in scarily short order without using nukes and only Russia has a chance of slowing us down. Literally no other country has the military to even try stalling us out. Name a country that has enough industry to bounce back from that. The fact that nukes would be mixed in would mean complete removal of a nation.
If China nuked the US, there would no longer be a China, and Xi knows this. For those few idiots who would think that America would somehow magically fold after being nuked, I would like to point out to you that anyone who chooses to suicidally surrender would find themselves dragged out and shot by a federal agent because they aren’t going to even consider arresting anyone that wants to offer their families up for the sake of “peace”. You might not like the FBI, CIA, or any of the others, but you better be damn sure they’ll make sure that their own families are accounted for, and kill anyone that jeopardizes that.
Sorry for long post, but I‘m starting to think that people don’t understand how much of a big deal launching a nuke is. A “tactical” launch will be treated as the real deal because it is the real deal.
It's not direct strike mushroom cloud nuclear weapons America needs to be worried about but everyone thinks about when you say Nuclear attack it's Air Burst EMP attacks the west needs to be worried about, America relies on automation like no other nation and it's EMP attacks that are considerd a easy cut for public infrastructure because people can't understand it and this has bleed into a lot of millitary spending as well.
A Air burst attack at 200 miles over the centre of the US would wipe out the US, Canadian and Mexican power grids and anything attached to them and most self contained complex electrical systems, and thats with a relatively small bomb that you could easily disguise as a sat launch that would fry anything connected to the grid and the grid it's self, and the western world relies on remote systems who can operate locally but that relies on staff either on site or being able to get to site that they don't have or not able to operate indefinitely because they don't have the numbers needed to do so it's viewed as a temporary emergency backup only.
Can you imagine what sort of chaos losing power and the backups not working would cause and a lot of self contained systems just go not slowly die off but just all get turned off in one go? For the first day or so things would truck on people would locally organise and get along fairly well but by day 3 when milk starts going off, and the only meat you can reliably eat comes from a can, and then water pressure starts disappearing from houses in areas higher up the hill or high rise buildings, then little things start running low like cigerets and coffee etc, within a week people are starting to side eye each other but still have some hope the lights and water will kick back in and then it doesn't, and then sanitation becomes a issue not just people wiff a little more than usual you get people not being able to flush there toilet or dispose of food waste, that's when shit starts to go sideways in real on the ground terms and you get people fighting over baby wipes, people taking it out on any symbol of authority governmental or near government i.e. anything in a uniform becomes a target even Fire and Ambulance services become targets even if they are purely socially beneficial they become a target, and that includes people trying to fix the power network, shops security guards, etc etc.
It all goes down hill from there, having a working torch makes you a high value target for theft, hell having a candle will do that, solar pannels? you better have someone able to watch your roof 24/7 that you trust, and if they work you'll be a higher target for Government resource acquisition sooner etc, and that's just for power for something as simple as powering a lightbulb, any idea what people will do for news? You can build a radio that works without power but you can't transmit, but even incoming information is valuable but do you have any idea how hard it is to make that kind of radio with modern components? let alone trying to find the parts if you havent got them to hand?
Imagine trying to do that in a time and place where the police are not walking or driving a beat, and are looking for basic necessities and your the guy asking for obscure things like Crystals, copper wire and piezo electric headpieces you will stand out and draw attention to yourself and you don't want to be doing that.
Let's talk about something more basic, Water - do you have any idea how rare drinkable water is in nature? do you have any idea how hard it is for most people to understand that just because it's not salt water and it's clear that it's not drinkable automatically? once the forced water pressure goes that most citys rely on even without treatment do you have any idea how quickly people will start drinking rain, puddle and other sources of water without any basic form of treatment? In about a week a bottle of water clean and clear will make you king and also liable to theft, and then once people start doing that sort of thing waste disposal i.e. flushing a toilet unsanitary water intake etc... yea dysentery and other water born problems grow exponentially, you might have quietly stashed water but your in a flat and that shit spreads, you might be really well supplied and equiped but you might think cool I wont leave my home etc, it doesn't work like that, illness has a way of spreading you can't perfectly isolate yourself from in that sort of situation, especially once people start dropping.
OK so say week 2 happens and your still well supplied and equipped, Congratulations! but you wont stay that way you need to fuck off but how do you do that? Your car wont work or work for long in a urban area and anything still running draws a BIG red X on your head for anyone around saying this guy has something, OK you need to walk it out, how do you do that? Going of British numbers I am most aware and familiar with a British Squaddie with a weapon loadout carries himself and 55LBS of kit including a 11lb weapon and ammunition.
Ever tried carrying that kind of weight? every tried carrying that weight over long distance? anot just 2 or 3 miles but 20+ miles? and that's the weight for people who EXPECT resupply after a few days and can strech out supplies for a week reliably, and have done so on exercise and if you are in peak youth physical condition i.e. 14 to 25 years old well fed and physically able. The older and younger you are the less physically able you are etc all reduces this by a significant factor, and then combine that with less than ideal transportation conditions i.e. your not just walking but your taking the safest walk you can by avoiding people and locations etc your likely ot run into trouble with - so it's not a direct straight walk.
In short, a EMP is more devistating to places like the US, UK and most Europe than anything else, you don't need to hit a city or a couple of them an turn them into craters to win the war you just need to loft a nuke into orbit and blow it up and let nature take it's course. All the fun of a MAD war with non of the mess and not enough left of the civilian population to mount there own defence, and most will be begging for help and will do anything and put up with a lot for people who are willing to feed and water them let alone give them a little glimmer of the Bread an Circuses they where used too.
Most folks have had their perceptions of a land invasion of burgerland colored by Red Dawn, complete with occupied towns getting regular supply drops. A traditional land war, which is more or less obsolete in and of itself at this point, would be impossible for the reasons you've mentioned and the sheer volume of Bubba's, angry 20-somethings in need of an outlet, and general violent assholes with easy access to guns. Would most of them go splat in a conflict? Absolutely, but before that the chinese troops will get intimately acquainted with the second amendment.
As I said above it's not conventional nuclear war that would fuck things up, it's a EMP Bubba might be outside the city but your average guy outside the city with some farmland and guns might fair better than a suburbanite or city dweller for the first few months but how is he going to harvest his crop? how is he going to defend that crop? how is he going to transport that crop? If he lives near a city he's going to get hordes of sick hungry people descending on his farm, that's not something he can realistically defend against, and something he can't really do anything about apart from a small area around his own home.
That means a smaller garden and animals like Chicken and some pigs with non livestock animals like dogs and cats as well, Cattle are something that are estimated apart from in some outlying regions to best be considered extinct just as a fun fact I will toss in here. But let's say they manage to keep the basic kitchen garden and some small animal stock together like a hobby farm almost, Your average farmer today hasnt got farming skills he has agribusiness skills, most farmers even for there own kitchen garden don't save seeds they buy them but they are also unlikely to have on hand seed stocks for that garden but can likely build them, but would have to work to do it and will fuck up a lot, but those gardens are not nice organic subsistence farming islands in a sea of agri business, nope they have yields boosted by fertiliser that they now don't have easy or any access too.
You can live as a 4 person family off less than 1/2 of a acre, even as a subsistence farmer with cattle but that relies on 90% of things going right, you having the skills to do it and being able to easily trade for things or skills you dont have. How do you plough a acre without machine tools? OK cool in your old Barn you have the 1920's drawn plough, great how do you draw it? The steam engine it was drwan buy is long gone or rusted to death outside and there is no way you can rebuild it, OK it just pulls a tool through soil with rope, just get some animals and pull it? OK What animals? OK you have some farm horses to hand and they can be ridden doesnt mean you can use them as a draft animal even if they can pull a buggy they can't work a plough that's a differnt set of training and also wears down your tack and the shoes the horses have fast, you can do a lot of animal care but do you know how to make horse shoes? Ever shoed a horse not just helped but really done it? Ever made Tac for a horse? Is the horse even suitable to do it? Most horses around today are bread like racehorses and trained like that in other words they are great at derping around for a while and are capable of incredible bursts of energy for a period of time but they can't do that effort for a long time and need lots of babying to get them to that point.
There are horses that where bread for this sort of job, but they are very much in the minority of available animals today while things are going well. They are not great animals for riding (they can be but are not great for it) but they are a diminishing breed type and the training is getting less and less viable, a untrained animal is asgood if not worse as not having a working animal, but lets say you have a trained animal and the equipment to hand to get a few years of use out of, you get that to the point you need to replace animals and equipment do you have any idea how to do that? It takes 11 to 11 1/2 months for a horse to gestate and that's assuming it's a viable pregancy and a animal you can work and horses need a lot of help although working breeds tend to need less than fancy animals.
Training of a horse takes time and effort, ever trained a Animal? I mean on it's own and a animal that's not a pack animal like a dog who will comply and learn from others, it's hard to get them to let you touch them let alone trust you enough to put something omn them they can't get rid of let alone a animal that's a herbivore who thinks like prey who are liable to panic at discomfort or inflicted pain, This isn't like training a animal like a Wolf or a dog who have evolved coperation and learn to work together from a young age, you might have a horse and a fole but the horse will try and defend that fole and the fole will not learn from that horse how to tow a buggy or pull a plough from others.
And that's Horses, try finding a Donkey or a Ass notibly dosile animals to get them you need populations of horses to get them and they also require training and while easy the tac they need is just as complex, and beyond that they have issues with some foods.
I'm not even going to get into Bovines like Cows and Oxen as draft animals as they are dumber than horses and have more issues with digestion and are harder to train than a horse and are so specialised I can't do it justice.
manufacturing contraction due to power issues and the supply chain crisis
They always are but the problem is we have centralised it all in one location, and there own internal problems are now are problems. I've said it before and I will say it again but Chinese export stuff is miles ahead of the same crap inside china but there internal quality is now becoming more normal to see standards lowered to match than supply chains looking elsewhere, It's happening in every industry that's got used to cheep items they have gotten used to viewing as a penny count on a Bomb, there is a reaon for the saying "Ship was ruined for a hap-eth of tar" it's not the main items that shitty builders cheap out on (china and others will if given the chance) but they will always cheap out on the bits you dont see or notice, in this case historically it was Tar, a essential finish to keep a ship water tight. China does this today with metal grades and finishes, look up the price difference for paper specification M6 (1/4" for sane people) nuts and bolts and then look at the tested results, even for the allowance of the tendancy of metric threads to strip really fast in comparison to imperial threads these fail faster than ones made in the western world as they do bad QC on a good day and on a normal day they don't QC at all but slap on any badge or certification you want, even if they are contradictory.
For the most part Chinese things are designed and specced for there own market and only met other standards when they had to and even then do everything they can even with daily and hourly inspections to slip in crap, and will find any way of doing it even things like buying in western made parts or items to pass QC to win a contract then slipping in shit they got 4th hand as they wont face ANY concequences for doing that to a non ciChineses nesse national.
