US President Joe Biden approved a top-secret nuclear strategic plan in March this year that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrence strategy to focus on China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, the newspaper reported on Tuesday (20). The New York Times.
The roadmap also seeks, for the first time, to prepare the US for possible nuclear challenges coordinated by China, Russia and North Korea.
The document in question is updated roughly every four years and is so classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of printed copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders.
THE Teams He highlighted that the document must be presented to the US Congress before Biden leaves the presidency, in January of next year, at the end of his term.
The paper examines in detail whether the US is prepared for nuclear crises or a combination of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
The newspaper noted that in the past, the possibility that US adversaries could coordinate nuclear threats to overcome the country’s nuclear arsenal seemed remote, but explained that the “emerging partnership” between Russia and China and the conventional weapons that North Korea and Iran are supplying to Russia for the war in Ukraine have changed Washington’s thinking.
The shift is also blamed on China’s nuclear ambitions. Communist nuclear expansion is occurring at a faster pace than U.S. intelligence officials predicted two years ago, driven by dictator Xi Jinping’s determination to match or surpass the size of Washington and Moscow’s arsenals.
In October 2023, the Pentagon stated that China had 500 nuclear warheads by May, a number that was on track to surpass previous projections, and could reach 1,000 by 2030.
The annual report released by the Department of Defense at the request of the US Congress on China’s military power estimated that this arsenal will continue to grow until 2035 and emphasized that the Asian regime’s military strategy considers the “unlimited” partnership with Russia as fundamental to its development as a great power.
Communists expressed “concern” over the news
China’s communist regime, in turn, said on Wednesday (21) that it was “gravely concerned” about the information published by Teams.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese dictatorship, Mao Ning, declared this Wednesday in a press conference that the Chinese nuclear arsenal “is not on the same level as that of the United States”, in addition to having assured that her country follows a policy of “not being the first to use nuclear weapons”.
Mao Ning added that the “China nuclear threat theory put forward by the United States” is “just a pretext to shirk its responsibility in nuclear disarmament, expand its arsenal and seek a strategic advantage.”
Furthermore, China “adheres to a strategy of nuclear self-defense,” always keeps its nuclear forces “at the minimum necessary level,” and “has no intention of engaging in an arms race with any country.”
The spokeswoman also recalled that “the United States has the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal” and “stubbornly adheres to the policy of nuclear deterrence based on the first use of nuclear weapons.”
“The United States is the world’s biggest nuclear threat and strategic risk-giver,” Mao Ning added, while urging Washington to “effectively fulfill its responsibility to give special priority to nuclear disarmament” and “continue to substantially and substantively reduce its nuclear arsenal.”
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