The main purpose of Herzendorf's visit to China was to ease the tense Cold War situation.
The problem is that Herzendorf¡¯s opponent is no longer Guo Mingshan, who has no army in Beijing, but Gu Zhutong, who became president in 1985.
This background dictates that Herzendorf must pay a heavy price if he wants to get the time he needs to complete the reform.
Interestingly, although Herzendorf was not the first imperial prime minister to visit Beijing, he was the first imperial prime minister to make an official visit to China after the war.
In the thirty-five years preceding him, no imperial prime minister had made an official visit to China.
?This alone is enough to be hyped up by the news media.
The problem is that in addition to receiving warm hospitality in Beijing, Herzendorf must show sincerity if he wants to obtain other benefits.
Of course, Herzendorf¡¯s purpose was also to ease the tense arms race.
During his visit to China, Herzendorf formally proposed to Gu Zhutong the idea of ??"large-scale reduction of strategic nuclear weapons", that is, starting from the reduction of nuclear weapons to promote comprehensive disarmament.
Gu Zhutong welcomed Herzendorf¡¯s proposal, but did not make much concessions.
At that time, Herzendorf proposed reducing nuclear weapons in equal proportions, while Gu Zhutong insisted that nuclear weapons should be reduced in equal proportions. There are essential differences between the two methods.
As mentioned earlier, the Second German Reich passed legislation to limit the total number of nuclear weapons to 14,000, but China has no similar legislation. When Herzendorf visited China, China possessed 26,000 nuclear weapons, almost twice as many as the Second German Reich.
?That is to say. If reductions are made in equal proportions, then China needs to destroy more nuclear weapons.
On the contrary, if reductions are made by the same amount, China will be able to retain more nuclear weapons.
??Obviously, if the Second German Empire wants to maintain an effective strategic threat, it must possess enough nuclear weapons, and this is a relative quantity. rather than absolute quantity.
The reason is that the nuclear threat theory itself is relative and has a lot to do with nuclear strategy.
When nuclear weapons were first born. Its main targets are large cities in hostile countries, especially industrial cities, that is, nuclear weapons are used as weapons of mass destruction. As the number of nuclear weapons increases. As well as the improvement of the delivery accuracy of delivery vehicles, the application of nuclear weapons has undergone great changes. By the end of the 1970s, in the nuclear strategies of China and Germany, attacking each other's cities became a secondary task. The number one task of nuclear weapons was to attack the other party's nuclear weapons, that is, the main purpose was to destroy the other party's strategic counterattack force.
In this regard, China¡¯s nuclear strategy is the most obvious.
During Gu Zhutong¡¯s tenure as Minister of Defense, China¡¯s nuclear weapons delivery tools have undergone great development, and a large number of extremely high-precision delivery and delivery tools have come out one after another. For example, the "Defender" intercontinental ballistic missile, which was finalized in 1983, not only has the capability of mobile launch by road and railway. It can simultaneously carry ten nuclear warheads with a yield of up to 500,000 tons, a maximum range of up to 11,000 kilometers, and a hit accuracy of 50 meters. For another example, the "Shenzhen" submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile, which began mass production in 1984, has a maximum range of 12,000 kilometers. It can carry up to twelve nuclear warheads with a yield of up to 200,000 tons, and its hit accuracy is about 90 meters.
The advent of these advanced delivery and delivery vehicles has raised China's nuclear threat capabilities to a whole new level.
To put it more directly, if a full-scale war breaks out between China and Germany, then the "Defender" and "Divine Needle" missiles will definitely be responsible for the first strike, and the targets of these two missiles will definitely be the strategic missile launch bases of the Second German Reich. , bomber base, strategic submarine base. As well as strategic ballistic missiles in road deployment and strategic nuclear submarines that have been patrolling the sea.
The extremely high hit accuracy gives these two ballistic missiles extremely strong destruction capabilities.
According to Chinese estimates, after reaching the rated purchase quantity, the "Defender" and "Sacred Needle" can destroy 90% of the nuclear power of the Second German Empire in the first round of strikes.
As a result, if the Second German Reich wanted to maintain sufficient deterrence capabilities, that is, the ability to launch a fatal counterattack after being hit by a sudden attack, it must retain enough nuclear warheads to ensure that only one-tenth of them can be used Give China a devastating blow.
Of course, the nuclear threat policy that pursues a counterattack strategy will definitely target large cities.
If a population of 200,000 is used as the basic strike standard, three nuclear warheads are used against a city with a population of one million, five nuclear warheads are used against a city with a population of five million, and three nuclear warheads are used against a city with a population of more than 10 million. Eight nuclear warheads,So in 1986, the Second German Reich needed to launch a counterattack with at least 300 nuclear warheads. Including the reliability of nuclear warheads, 350 to 400 nuclear warheads need to be prepared. If a population of 100,000 is used as the standard for attack, the Second German Reich would need to use 500 nuclear warheads to launch a counterattack.
This quantity determined the size of the nuclear arsenal of the Second German Reich.
In other words, even if nuclear disarmament is carried out, the Second German Reich will need to retain between 3,000 and 5,000 nuclear warheads.
"No matter how small it is, the counterattack capability possessed by the Second German Empire will not be enough to pose a fatal threat to China, and it will not be able to curb China's attempt to launch a war.
¡°Obviously, if nuclear weapons were reduced according to the equivalent reduction method proposed by Zhu Tong, the situation of the Second German Reich would be quite unfavorable. That is, if both sides reduce 11,000 nuclear warheads at the same time, then the nuclear weapons retained by the Second German Reich will not pose a fatal threat to China, while the 15,000 nuclear warheads retained by China are enough to destroy the Second German Reich. Second-rate.
In fact, even with equal proportions of reductions, the Second German Empire would not have any advantage at all.
This is that as long as the reduction ratio is higher than 70%, the nuclear power of the Second German Empire will be shaken, but the impact on China is not obvious enough.
Of course, for the Second German Empire, proportional reductions are definitely more beneficial than equal reductions.
During Herzendorf¡¯s visit to China, the leaders of China and Germany only reached agreement on nuclear disarmament and did not discuss the details of disarmament.
¡°However, without the support of the top leaders of both parties, nuclear disarmament will certainly not be initiated.
Since then, China and Germany have conducted more than ten negotiations on nuclear disarmament.
By 1992, after six years of arduous negotiations, the two sides signed the first nuclear disarmament agreement, which was also the first nuclear disarmament treaty during the Cold War.
According to the provisions of the treaty, China will destroy all "Defender" strategic ballistic missiles within five years after the treaty enters into force, retaining only 350 "Volunteer" strategic ballistic missiles, and each missile will carry The number of nuclear warheads must not exceed three; within ten years after the treaty enters into force, China will reduce all strategic nuclear submarines except sixteen "Liaoning" class, and reduce the number of submarine-launched ballistic missiles to 384 , and the number of warheads per submarine-launched ballistic missile shall not exceed ten; within five years after the treaty enters into force, China will destroy all land-based cruise missiles carrying nuclear warheads, as well as air-launched cruise missiles with a range of more than 3,000 kilometers; Within ten years after the treaty comes into force, China will reduce the number of bombers that can be used to carry out strategic bombing missions to 120, and the number of nuclear warheads carried by the bombers shall not exceed 1,200; the nuclear warheads stipulated in the treaty will be destroyed and delivery vehicles must be completely destroyed under the joint supervision of both parties, and the Disarmament Commission will conduct inspections from time to time.
According to this treaty, after ten years, the number of nuclear warheads retained by China will be reduced to less than 7,000, of which 6,090 are strategic nuclear warheads and nearly a thousand are tactical nuclear warheads. In other words, the size of China's nuclear arsenal will be reduced by 70% within ten years.
??Obviously, this is definitely not a unilateral concession by China.
The treaty clearly stipulates that the number of nuclear warheads possessed by the Second German Reich will be reduced to 3,500 after ten years, of which 3,000 are strategic nuclear warheads, including 1,600 on strategic ballistic missiles and 1,600 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Nine hundred on the aircraft and five hundred on the strategic bomber. In other words, the Second Reich's nuclear warhead reduction was even larger, exceeding 70%, leaving only the minimum nuclear threat.
In addition, the treaty also clearly limits the explosive yield of nuclear warheads.
That is, the explosive yield of warheads equipped with strategic ballistic missiles must not exceed 500,000 tons, submarine-launched ballistic missiles must not exceed 250,000 tons, and air-launched warheads must not exceed 150,000 tons.
From the perspective of mankind as a whole, the Nuclear Weapons Reduction Treaty signed by China and Germany in 1992 can be said to be a great progress for civilization.
However, this does not mean that the Cold War between China and Germany has ended.
¡°In a sense, this nuclear disarmament has intensified the intensity of confrontation between China and Germany in the field of conventional weapons and national defense capabilities.
The reason is that after the number of nuclear weapons is reduced, China and Germany must pay more attention to conventional weapons and have more reason to improve the country's strategic defense capabilities.
For the Second German Reich, these two issues were particularly prominent.
You must know that the Second German Reich only retained a minimum strategic threat capability, and its national security dropped to the lowest point during the Cold War. In order to improve national security, the Second German Reich not only needed more advancedConventional weapons, as well as an effective national strategic defense system, also need to improve the combat efficiency of nuclear weapons, especially the penetration capability of nuclear warheads, to offset China's numerical advantage in nuclear weapons.
From this perspective, Herzendorf failed to achieve his goal through nuclear disarmament.
Don¡¯t forget, the key purpose of Herzendorf¡¯s initiative to propose nuclear disarmament is to cut high military expenditures in order to obtain enough funds to promote domestic economic reforms.
The problem is that the military expenditure saved by nuclear disarmament is not used in economic construction, but is used to develop other armament projects. (To be continued)
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