According to President Joe Biden’s administration, the United States should prepare to increase its nuclear arsenal.
The United States must be ready to increase its nuclear weapons if it intends to respond to the growing threat of China, Russia and North Korea.
This is what the president thinks Joe Biden an anonymous representative of the administration in a November newspaper for the Wall Street Journal.
According to official sources, the final decision on increasing the number of nuclear weapons remains Donald Trump’s for the future administration, which has so far not announced its plans for the development of the armed forces.
The next president-elect, Trump, is not known to have a negative attitude towards nuclear weapons.
In his first term as president, Trump endorsed all of his predecessors Barack Obama’s initiated nuclear weapons development programs and authorized two more projects, the Wall Street Journal reported.
China’s threat is growing
The background of the US’s nuclear armament is concern about the development of China’s armed forces. China is currently building hundreds of nuclear missile launch pads in the central and northern parts of the country.
Measured in terms of the number of nuclear warheads, the world’s two clearly largest nuclear weapons states are still Russia and the United States. Both countries have more than 1,700 nuclear warheads in use, which corresponds to about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
It is still relatively easy for the two states to maintain a mutual so-called balance of terror.
However, maintaining this balance will become more difficult in the future, when China will become the third major nuclear weapon state in the next decade.
In an equal situation of three states, each party is afraid that two will unite against it and gain a clear upper hand.
– The situation in the three states is more unstable. On the other hand, the US nuclear weapons strategy is already based on the fact that it may end up in a war against Russia and China at the same time. The quantity and quality of weapons must meet this threat, says a researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy Jyri Lavikainen.
He is familiar with China’s nuclear weapons strategy.
The US view of an adversary alliance is supported by the way China deploys its nuclear weapons. Beijing has placed its ground-launched missiles in the northern parts of China, relatively close to the Russian border.
– The missile silos are placed in such a way that it is difficult for the United States to attack them from the sea. At the same time, it would be easy for Russia to destroy them with medium-range missiles in a pre-emptive strike. Beijing is clearly not afraid of Moscow, Lavikainen analysed.
With deterrence, there is room for conventional war
China has not said how many nuclear warheads the country’s armed forces have in operational use or how much it plans to increase its arsenal in the coming years.
In 2018, there were estimated to be around 200 nuclear warheads ready for launch. According to US military intelligence, the number will increase to more than a thousand in the 2030s.
According to Lavikainen, China’s decision to develop its nuclear weapons has been expected. In the 21st century, China has become prosperous, strengthened its conventional armed forces and has territorial claims in Asia.
According to Lavikainen, China’s new nuclear weapons are not aimed directly at the United States, because Beijing’s goal is not to start a nuclear war between the great powers.
The purpose of multipurpose nuclear weapons forces is to act as a backbone in regional conflicts. China uses them to warn outside powers against getting involved in a possible local war.
– The goal of China’s nuclear armament is to enable a successful conventional war in, for example, Taiwan. It can be compared to Europe, where Russia’s goal is to win the war in Ukraine without the US getting involved. This is largely based on nuclear deterrence, Lavikainen compares.