Nuking Mexico's Oil

[Webstral]

I tried to find an old thread to resurrect, but I couldn't find the original discussion on nuking Mexico's oil. In the shower today, I reconsidered a position someone else presented--namely, that France hit the Mexican oil refineries in order to have the US and USSR blaming each other and get Mexico and the US to fighting. Consider it the Talleyrand Telegram.

A late December 1997 strike on Mexican oil by France probably would be preceded by some sort of nuclear action against France. I've beaten the reasons for such an attack into the ground, so I won't repeat them here other than to say that both the US and the USSR have their reasons--especially after the surgical East-West exhcange of late 1997. Such an attack would have been from boomers. The attacker would have positioned his boomer to create doubt as to the launcher of the attack; i.e., the US would have launched missiles from a boomer in the Arctic, while the Soviets would have launched from a boomer in the Atlantic. The inevitable French retaliation against whoever they thought was the culprit would have earned counter-retaliation from land-based systems, in all likelihood.

Getting to Mexico, France would have been infuriated after being dragged into the nuclear exchange. The French leadership would have wanted some way to further injure the likely culprits. Nuking Mexico's oil would serve several purposes. First, blame naturally would descend on the US and the USSR. With luck, the two great powers might have another nuclear exchange over it. If not, the blame game still would be useful to France in the long term. Perhaps France could even create closer ties with Mexico in the long run if relations with the US and the USSR could be poisoned. A weaker Mexico would be in a poor position to be of use to the US. A Mexican-American war, while unilkely, still would be useful in that American forces would be further tied down in North America. Fewer Yanks would make French forces in Europe and the Middle East relatively stronger. Whether the US or the USSR took the blame for the nuclear attack, France would stand to gain.

Mo, I'm sorry if this seems to characterize France in an excessively negative light. I like exciting story-telling, and this possibility makes for exciting story-telling.

[Legbreaker]

I think you've made some strong arguements for France firing off a few missiles against "neutral" targets like Mexico. I can see France doing the same thing to other countries as well to advance their own post war position.
By late 1998, perhaps even early that same year, nobody is going to be able to work out where a nuke came from, let alone do anything significant about it. France can simply dust of it's halo and move on, confident they've strenghtened their international position and dished out a little payback without seriously dirtying their hands.

[Raellus]

Sub-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles would be much harder to trace. Would France have such a capability c. 1997 (in the T2KU)?

[Targan]

Compelling arguments have been put in this thread for France to nuke Mexico but... I can't quite bring myself to buy it. If French leaders had the power of prescience and could see with certainty how things would play out in 3, 5, 10, 50, 300 years' time then absolutely, nuking neutral targets like Mexico would make perfect sense. But they couldn't see the future.

I don't think, in late '97 or early '98, that the French would see a potential widening of the global nuclear exchange as being more good than bad for France. During the Cold War the MAD doctrine had everyone assuming that once the first nuke flew, that would be it. Global nuclear war and mass die offs. Instead in the Twilight War there were battlefield nukings followed by tit-for-tat strategic nuke strikes.

My gut feeling is that most non-superpower countries, once they saw that mass strategic nuke launches hadn't happened yet, would be praying that the major powers saw sense and stopped launching nukes. This would especially be the case with France if it had already been nuked itself. I can see France nuking whichever nation it thought had nuked it, but not a neutral third party. I just don't see France's leaders as being that callous. And just because France withdrew from NATO doesn't mean that the Franco-Belgian Union became sworn blood enemies with the US (or more correctly the 2 US governments). Germany hated France, sure, but according to canon the French government and the 2 US governments remained on speaking terms throughout the Twilight War.

By early '98 it would have been clear that post-war the US and the USSR would never be the same again. Would the French really think it necessary to make things that much worse for the US?

[Fusilier]

Originally Posted by Targan

Compelling arguments have been put in this thread for France to nuke Mexico but... I can't quite bring myself to buy it.

I'm in the same boat.

I just don't see things where countries would try to be the last country standing.

Also, that oil they nuked is something they could've used/traded for. Considering the extensive damage the oil fields in the Persian Gulf had, an intact source just across the Atlantic is a easy buy - especially trading for it with military hardware that Mexico desperately needs.

[Legbreaker]

Perhaps the fields themselves weren't targets but the local refining facilities, which the French still had at home - eliminate the capacity for the Mexicans or their neighbours to actually use the oil they had in the ground and make yourself the only real market able to refine and properly use the resource. It makes the oil cheaper for you as you can set the price (little effective competition), turns potential rivals/adversaries against each other and therefore makes the suppliers desperate to gain an income stream of any type to support their war effort. The refined products can then be onsold at a massive profit.

Is it sneaky and underhanded? You bet it is, but I'm sure there's been plenty of examples of this sort of behaviour if you look back over history.

[Matt Wiser]

The previous thread, IIRC, had the Soviets do it to provoke the Mexicans into attacking the U.S. by land. Tell the Mexicans that the U.S. might be interested in destroying Mexico's oil, a Soviet missile sub does the job, and the Soviets offer Mexico a deal to host Division Cuba, attack the Southwestern U.S., and so on.

[Fusilier]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Sub-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles would be much harder to trace. Would France have such a capability c. 1997 (in the T2KU)?

They'd have no less than six SSBNs at the start - depending on potential changes due to the alternate timeline. I think its reasonable to think that most French warships would escape being sunk up to that point.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Fusilier

They'd have no less than six SSBNs at the start - depending on potential changes due to the alternate timeline. I think its reasonable to think that most French warships would escape being sunk up to that point.

Right, I got that. What I was trying to get at was this: An SSBN's ballistic missiles are usually launched from quite some distance away from their targets and, due to their ballistic trajectory, they can also be detected from quite some distance away. Folks in the States would probably see that missile coming and would likely assume that it's from a Soviet boomer. If France was trying to escalate the nuclear exchange to an all out strategic one, then launching a missile from one of its SSBNs would be the way to go. If it was trying to "frame" the U.S., this would be a poor way to do it. And why would the Americans waste ballistic missiles on Mexican refineries when a sub or ship or air launched nuclear Tomahawk would do the trick much more neatly?

A submarine launched nuclear cruise missile, on the other hand, is much harder to detect. It would therefore be much harder to pin on anyone. The confusion would be greater and it would be more difficult for American or Soviet diplomats to exonerate their mother countries or pin the blame on the other.

It just seems like the risk would outweigh the reward as far as the French were concerned. They have a decent relationship with Mexico and could reasonably hope to benefit from her oil deposits. Nuking them as some sort of grand strategic ruse makes for great theatre, but it doesn't quite ring true for me.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Sub-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles would be much harder to trace. Would France have such a capability c. 1997 (in the T2KU)?

No as far as I know we still don't have it and we are only planning to get such capability by 2015. However, as the attack occurs after the initial exchange I'm not sure that anyone still has the full capability to trace it. Several sattelites will already be out of order or disfunctionning.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Sub-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles would be much harder to trace. Would France have such a capability c. 1997 (in the T2KU)?

France has had an SLBM capability since 1971. Five of the six Redoutable Class SSBN's were in service over the T2K period and were armed with 16x M4MIRV capable sub-launched missiles with a range of 5,000km. The later and larger Triomphant Class SSBN's started entering service from 1991 and two would have been built over the T2K period. The Triomphant Class were armed with 16x M45 missiles with a range of 6,000km. France does not have any equivalent to the Tomahawk TLAM over this period or at present. The Anglo-French Storm Shadow air launched cruise missile would be only French cruise missile near this capability and its range is much shorter than the Tomahwak. It didn't enter service until 2002 and is non-nuclear, but France is developing a naval launched version (MdCN) to be launched from ships and the new Barracuda Class SSN.

[Mohoender]

RN7 you are pefectly right but within T2K you will have a few differences for France's nuclear deployement. On an average, until 1990, France was spending around 3.7% of its GDP for its armed forces. It droped to about 3% by 1991 and now is only 2.4%. In T2K, that budget would have been raised to probably reach 4.5 ot 5% of its GDP by 1995.

With the change in the international situation, the SSBN "Le Redoutable" would probably have been refited with M4 missile as its sisterships and that makes 6 Redoutable-class SSBN. Its decomissioning as in IRL is doubtful.

Work on the first Triomphant-class had started in 1986 with the ship entering service in 1997. This was mainly due to financing issues and this would not have been relevant to the game (In T2K France even finances the Richelieu) and the first in class would have entered service by 1992 instead of 1997. Then, 3 would probably have been build over the T2K period with the last one under construction.

You are right about cruise missile capability from submarines or ships but you forgot about the ASMP (altough not a cruise missile strictly speaking). 60 had been deployed with nuclear warheads from 1986 and in T2K more would certainly have been built. I would expect France to have between 150 and 200 ASMP with nuclear warheads. Range is about 400km and speed is Mach 3.

Then, you can expect to have one or two being launched at Mexico, using a specialy modified commercial aircraft operating from Guadeloupe or Martinique. An Airbus could be used but it is highly vulnerable and I would expect France to use 1 or 2 Dassault Falcon 200. After all, what we are talking about here is a covert operation. I don't buy the idea but if I did, I would go in that direction.

[Legbreaker]

So, in theory, it is possible France could have nuked Mexico, although the reasons for them doing so are shaky at best.
I am however fairly certain France would have fired off a few nukes during the course of the war, both in retaliation for strikes upon either France itself or it's allies/colonies, or in an effort (by deception) to provoke other countries to attack each other and thereby strengthen French interests in the area.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

You are right about cruise missile capability from submarines or ships but you forgot about the ASMP (altough not a cruise missile strictly speaking). 60 had been deployed with nuclear warheads from 1986 and in T2K more would certainly have been built. I would expect France to have between 150 and 200 ASMP with nuclear warheads. Range is about 400km and speed is Mach 3.

Then, you can expect to have one or two being launched at Mexico, using a specialy modified commercial aircraft operating from Guadeloupe or Martinique. An Airbus could be used but it is highly vulnerable and I would expect France to use 1 or 2 Dassault Falcon 200. After all, what we are talking about here is a covert operation. I don't buy the idea but if I did, I would go in that direction.

More practical to just launch them from a Mirage, but anyways if they are air launched and the aircraft are taking off from French Carribean Islands their going to be tracked. Sub launched missiles are less traceable.