as few Chinese nuclear platforms are intercontinental, and most of the platforms are deployed on the Russian-Chinese border. Unlike relations of the US and China, Russia and China have had military conflicts in the past. In recent years, China has improved its early warning systems and has renovated certain of its platforms for intercontinental strike, which may or may not be due to the US missile defense system. In general, it appears that China's leaders do not greatly fear a first strike, because of their posture of inflicting unacceptable losses upon an adversary, as opposed to the American and Russian policy of trying to "win" a nuclear war. The Chinese arsenal is considered to suffice in ensuring that such a first strike would not go unavenged. The United Kingdom and France have sophisticated nuclear weapons platforms, and their nuclear strategies are minimum credible deterrent-based. Both have ballistic missile submarines, armed with intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles, to ensure a second-strike retaliation anywhere in the world. France also has a number of nuclear capable fighter aircraft. Both have nuclear policies that are believed to be effective deterrence towards a would-be nuclear strike against themselves, NATO, European Union members, and other allies. Destabilizing role of land-based MIRVed ICBMs MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike or a counterforce strike, due to: Their high accuracy (small circular error probable), compared to submarine-launched ballistic missiles which used to be less accurate, and more prone to defects; Their fast response time, compared to bombers which are considered too slow; Their ability to carry multiple MIRV warheads at once, useful for destroying a whole missile field with one missile. Unlike a decapitation strike or a countervalue strike, a counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with 3 warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the SS-18 Satan which was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten Minuteman III silos, which led some neoconservatives ("Team B") to conclude a Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of the aforementioned Pershing II, the Trident I and Trident II, as well as the MX missile, and the B-1 Lancer. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to