On the nuclear front, I believe the old term was “ mutually assured destruction “ and this is what the Chinese are now working to achieve. They have been refusing to join nuclear arms negotiations for months now. And why should they? Their warhead count is far lower than ours. They are now working to change that. For me the question is; would they entertain a first strike? You notice 老胡 didn’t say “nuclear confrontation “, he said “military confrontation “ . If we were forced to extend a conventional war to the eastern coastal provinces, how would the CCP respond? ICBM with conventional warheads fired at California? Or would they quickly move to the nuclear option? Some might say that this is our own fault. We encouraged nuclear proliferation in the last century and now our nuclear karma is back for a visit.