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Xu Guangyu:Nuclear Transparency(7)
Time：2013-05-11 19:07         Author:Xu Guangyu         Source:军控协会，
China’s nuclear transparency typically reflects China’s unique concept of military strategy. Using defensive deterrence to subdue the enemy without fighting in the confrontation is the ancient strategic wisdom. Limited nuclear forces, coupled with a defensive strategic concept, often leads to a limited nuclear transparency, that is, the minimum nuclear transparency. China’s nuclear transparency typically reflects China’s unique concept of military strategy. Using defensive deterrence to subdue the enemy without fighting in the confrontation is the ancient strategic wisdom. Appropriately and subtly maintaining the minimum nuclear transparency without prejudice to the interests of national security, is fully in line with China’s strategic thinking and strategic status quo.
China’s active defense strategy determines the choice of nuclear policy, that is, openly practice an independent nuclear policy. Besides, China makes it clear that it takes the No First Use policy of nuclear weapons, and has signed and complied with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as well as takes an active part in arms control and disarmament affairs. China carries out a limited defensive nuclear deterrence and active counterattack strategy on nuclear strategic level. On nuclear arms level, China implements the principle of good quality, full variety, and sufficient number, and maintains an effective anti-missile system and the trinity nuclear counterattack capabilities, advancing with the times. China temporarily denies being transparent mainly about the information of the specific varieties and quantity of nuclear weapons, and the domestic deployment. Before completely changing the situation of significant differences on nuclear forces, the difference between vulnerable nuclear transparency and strong nuclear transparency will be difficult to reduce.
ⅲ.Secrecy
Israel is typical of this mode. Israel continues to maintain its long-standing policy of nuclear opacity: it neither officially confirms nor denies that it possesses nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the staff who secretly leaked out nuclear-related intelligence information will be imposed very severe sanctions. However, international nuclear experts have projected the number of nuclear weapons Israel may have according to the production capacity of Israel’s existing nuclear reactors. Chapter Seven, Section IX of SIPRI Yearbook 2011 specifically analyzed Israeli nuclear arms capacity. It is estimated that Israel has approximately 80 intact nuclear weapons, of which 50 are warheads for delivery by ballistic missiles and the rest are bombs for delivery by aircraft. In 2010 there continued to be media speculation that Israel may have developed a nuclear-capable SLCM, based on the US-made Harpoon missile, and its fleet of three Type 800 Dolphin Class diesel-electric submarines purchased from Germany. The reason why Israel has taken this secret nuclear mode and refused the nuclear transparency requirements are maybe as follows.
The first reason is the need to hide the killer. Because of its own small land and dangerous terrain, from east to west at its widest point just over 110 kilometers, from north to south at its longest point just more than 410 km, its strategic land is extremely limited. It is on the west of Mediterranean, and the other three sides are surrounded by many Arab countries. Despite the victory in four Middle East wars, Israel got many enemies, so that Israel is always afraid to relax military alert, and in fact, is ready to fight. Although the surrounding Arab countries still do not have nuclear weapons, as a precaution, Israel first starts to solve the nuclear arms quietly to avoid possible public driving effect, and make the actual ownership of nuclear weapons as the killer as a last resort, thereby maintaining the active status of the strategic deterrence and security.
The second reason is to use nuclear to contain nuclear power and get rid of the devastating consequences of nuclear war. As we all know, in order to develop nuclear weapons, a country must have both the endurance of the comprehensive national strength and the endurance to deal with a nuclear strike. Israel is sorely lacking in the latter. Limited land and a population of about one million make it vulnerable to withstand a nuclear war. Therefore, it is most worried about surrounding hostile countries that possess nuclear weapons. To further increase the concerns of neighboring countries to develop nuclear weapons, Israel ultimately chose the policy of developing nuclear weapons internally and secretly to suppress the external nuclear weapons. Because this approach still has certain risks, plus the need of leeway, so Israel uses a secret non-transparent mode. (军控协会)