All presidents since Reagan/Bush have failed to prioritize US hard-target kill capability, including Trump, so our enemies both in Russia and China have been compensating for that.
Eroding the certainty of destruction erodes deterrence.
The Chicoms haven't been emphasizing concrete manufacturing just to build vacant buildings and roads to nowhere.
Mark B. Schneider:
In 1985, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John
Vessey briefed President Ronald Reagan about the need for improved
hard-target kill capability, including the need for 100 MX (Peacekeeper)
ICBMs. We actually got 50. Of the three U.S. hard target capable systems created by the Reagan administration, two (the Peacekeeper ICBM and the Advanced
Cruise Missile) were eliminated by the George W. Bush administration.
This left only the high-yield WW-88 Trident warheads. Reportedly, the
U.S. produced only 400 of the high-yield WW-88 warheads for the Trident II missile.
Obviously, they can’t all be used against Chinese silos even if one
makes a number of best-case assumptions. Moreover, it is not clear that
the 1990 accuracy of the Trident II will be adequate if the Chinese are
building silos based upon the new 30,000 psi super concrete now
commercially available.
The 1970 accuracy of a Minuteman III, while a great achievement in
1970, is hardly the same today against really hard targets.
Unfortunately, the Minuteman III life extension program did not aim to
upgrade the accuracy of the Minuteman.[8] It is not comparable to the Peacekeeper.
There are plenty of important targets, including hard targets, the
Minuteman III can cover, but super hard targets are not among them.
Even before the discovery of the new Chinese silos, a case could be
made from a targeting standpoint for a strategic nuclear force of
2,700-3,000 nuclear warheads.
There is a great difference between target coverage (assigning a
warhead to a target) and damage expectancy (the probability of target
destruction). Claims by Minimum Deterrence advocates, such as the Global
Zero "Commission" report that a small nuclear force can do effective
counterforce targeting are bogus.
Regarding China, the report’s targeting plan involved “(85 warheads
including 2-on-1 strikes against every missile silo), leadership command
posts (33 warheads), war-supporting industry (136 warheads).”
With the new Chinese silos, this targeting approach would require
almost 1,000 warheads. Moreover, the approach itself is flawed because
it ignores the Underground Great Wall, which protects the Chinese mobile
ICBM force, the Chinese Navy and Air Force, and the large Chinese force of nuclear-capable theater-range missiles. The Global Zero report also assigned two warheads against every Russian silo.
The report talked about target coverage, not damage expectancy, because
its recommended force structure would likely have performed very badly
against the facilities it targeted.
Against the very deep hard, and deeply targets (HDBTs) [sic; should read "very hard deeply-buried targets] there is essentially zero chance that they can be destroyed with a single U.S. nuclear warhead.
The 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review only partially reversed the Obama
administration’s decision to eliminate the two most effective U.S. bombs
against HDBTs, the B61 Mod 11 and B-83. These bombs will be retained
longer than planned but not be life extended. Once again, numbers matter, and we no longer have the numbers. Conventional weapons have little and declining capability against HDBTs.[9]
As one report stated, “One GBUJ-57A/B [Massive Ordnance Penetrator] can
only penetrate 8 meters of 10,000 psi rock or concrete. This could drop
to 2 meters of 30,000 psi material.”
More.
