China, according to the Federation of American Scientists, has 270 warheads in its nuclear arsenal.
The Washington-based research group’s estimate has never been challenged by the Pentagon. It compares with an official tally of 4,480 nuclear warheads for the US. Unlike the American side, China also renounces “first use” of nuclear weapons and holds that its ability to retaliate is sufficient to deter attack.
Why, then, is Beijing’s modernization of its nuclear arsenal — something that Washington is also doing — considered a major security threat requiring a sharp turn in US policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons?
That’s part of the reasoning behind the Pentagon’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) issued on February 2. The document is a benchmark US statement on nuclear policy and is drawn up by new presidents. The Trump administration’s first policy position on the issue focuses on creating new nuclear deterrents to Russia and China, while addressing North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions.
Deteriorating US security environment?
Unlike previous NPRs, the White House sees a rapidly deteriorating security environment for the US in which Russia and China are bumping up their nuclear capabilities. It argues the US should follow suit. Most of the analysis focuses on Russia but China is also singled out because of “its lack of transparency regarding the scope and scale of its nuclear modernization program.”
Among other things, the review spotlights China’s ability to put multiple warheads on its silo-based ICBMs, and its development of missile submarines and strategic bombers, as evidence of a growing threat.
But critics contend the latest NPR reverses years of bipartisan consensus on the use of US nuclear weapons. The review also gives the go-ahead to develop low-yield tactical nukes and sub-launched cruise missiles in the first roll-out of new US nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War. It also expands the circumstances under which the US would consider using nukes to include “non-nuclear strategic attacks” such as cyberattacks.
The review further confirms that the US has begun preliminary R&D on a new ground-launched intermediate-range missile system that, if deployed, would violate a decades-long Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia.
Greg Thielmann, a nonproliferation specialist on the board of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, noted that President Obama’s prior 2010 NPR laid the foundation for reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US defense policy. He also credits Obama for seeking a one-third reduction in US nuclear strategic forces that the Pentagon says would still allow the US to meet all military contingencies.
‘Misleading characterization’
“Trump’s NPR has reversed course, calling for an increase in the role and types of nuclear weapons and essentially abandoning the nuclear arms reduction efforts to which it is legally committed by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Thielmann told Asia Times. “All this is based on a highly misleading characterization of nuclear and missile developments in Russia, China, and North Korea.”
Thielmann’s assessment is backed by other disarmament advocates. “Ever since Richard Nixon, American presidents have cut the size of the US nuclear arsenal,” Joe Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, said in an Op-Ed published by military website Defense One on February 2. Cirincione blames Trump administration hawks for the shift in US nuclear policy.
Chinese not on nuclear ‘alert’
Gregory Kulacki, the China project manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a Washington-based science advocacy group, argues that Trump’s NPR is surfacing at a time when China isn’t preparing to fight a nuclear war with the US. He says his talks with Chinese nuclear strategists indicate they don’t believe such an attack from the US is possible because the Americans know a sufficient number of Chinese missiles would survive to launch a nuclear counter-strike.
“That’s not a high bar to meet, which is why China’s nuclear arsenal remains small and, for the time being, off alert,” Kulacki pointed out in a February 9 article published by the nonprofit Lawfare Institute.
A UCS white paper also asserts that the nuclear gap between the US and China is already too large to argue that the US is falling behind China in any serious way.
China, for its part, has urged the US to drop its “Cold War mentality” and not misread its intentions in modernizing its nuclear forces following the NPR’s release.
Miscalculation leading to war
Kulacki notes in his article that Chinese strategists have one worry: they fear the US might miscalculate by thinking it could escape full nuclear retaliation by using a massive first strike along with an anti-missile shield that can down any Chinese missiles that a pre-emptive attack would miss.
US negotiators, he says, are exacerbating such fears by declining to assure their Chinese counterparts that a US first strike is “off the table.”
China’s relatively modest nuclear modernization efforts, according to Kulacki, are designed to ensure that enough of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can survive a pre-emptive US attack and penetrate US missile defenses.
“In the absence of a no first-use commitment from the United States, these improvements are needed to assure China’s leaders their US counterparts won’t take the risk of attacking China with nuclear weapons,” Kulacki says in his piece.
While acknowledging that China’s declared policy and doctrine on nuclear weapons use “have not changed,” the NPR nonetheless chides China for not divulging more about its nuclear modernization program to the US.
However, Kulacki stresses there’s scant evidence that China is preparing to fight a limited nuclear war by modernizing its nuclear forces.
On the upside, Trump’s policy statement expresses a willingness to “seek a dialogue with China” to “help manage the risks of miscalculation and misperception.” But Kulacki says Washington’s, and Beijing’s, current preoccupation with the North Korean nuclear crisis has stymied further bilateral discussions on nuclear weapons policy.
Opposing views
Others say the NPR doesn’t go far enough in countering China’s nuclear challenge to the US.
“(The NPR) is still mired in the notion of ‘deterrence.’ What do we do when deterrence fails and the other side actually uses (nuclear weapons) or is clearly about to use them?,” said Angelo Codevilla, a former senior US national security official, speaking to Asia Times.
Codevilla is a strong missile defense advocate who helped conceive the “Star Wars” programs of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
Those favoring a harder US stance against China also tout evidence that Beijing is replacing single warhead nukes with Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) that carry up to eight warheads on a single missile.
If true, this would allow China to boost its ICBM warheads to 500 and beyond. The NPR emphasizes that China has developed “a new multi-warhead version of its DF5 silo-based ICBM.”
But Kulacki noted in a recent blog that “China has had the ability to put multiple warheads on its largest silo-based ICBM for decades” and only recently chose to add 20 warheads using MIRVs.
“It is a small increase and it is misleading to characterize it as an ‘entirely new’ capability,” Kulacki said, pointing out that the US has placed MIRVs on ICBMs since the 1970s.
Very irresponsible of Beijing to gamble with the survival of the nation with obsolete no first use policy and questionable minimal nuclear deterrence. It will only tempt US for the nuclear option if it can’t win by conventional means.
MAD Usa
If you want to see ghost, it is everywhere. So do people who just want to see China as a threat. Everything she does is a threat to US because it challenges the present norms. Perhaps the military-industrial complex is just looking for war. That is not what China is looking for. China has no balls going to war, but will defend itself unto death.
it will help change Chinese DNA to be similar to the American variety.. then US will finally have something genuine to freak out.
The US has for decades suffered under the threat of the USSR being capable of destroying the US, and swore never again to be put under such a threat by any country in the world. Which helps explaining the hysteria in respect of North Korea, and the obsessive attempt at reducing Russia’s power. China is therefore going to become the third target of America’s fears. But the US should rather accept that its hegemony is over, and start dealing in a civilized way with all other powers. Will they be able to understand that? I doubt it, seeing the low level of intelligence of most American politicians.
Its funny how people look for "TROUBLE" when there is none——–the big PLUS about GLOBALIZATION and Global trade is the connected tissue that binds us humans————this was a dopey article looking for the wolf at the door!!
The greater the nmber of missles the greater the chance of accidental detonation on home soil. On several occasions all safeties failed. Watch Command and Control on Netflix.
The world is fortunate that Russia is still around to seriously keep the mad Western war mongers in check by being able to incinerate the USA many times over.
FIRST OF ALL THIS NPR IS A POLITICAL DOCUMENT MEANT TO THREATEN THE WORLD WTH U.S NUCLEAR POWER. ALL REGIMES KNOW WHAT THE U.S, HAS, ONLY NOW THEY KNOW THE TRUMP ADM IS AS BAD AS TRUMAN BACK IN THE 1904-50. TRUMAN DID NO HESTITATE TO INVADE KOREA UNDER THE GUISE OF A U.N. CHARTER AGREEMENT. IT WAS A CIVIL WAR OF WHICH THE WORLD HAD NO PART TO INTRUDE . WITH THAT SAID THE U.S. IS NOW IN THAT MENTALLITY .ALTHOUGH TRUMAN REFUSED GEN MC ARTHURS USAGE OF NUKES AS HE WANT TO .THIS WILL NOT BE THE CASE WITH TRUMP AND THE U.S NOW AS THE WARMONGERING ZIONIST ISRAELI NEOCONS ARE BACK IN POWER AS TRUMPS ADVISERS AND GENERALS..
China as in the period of Mao as in now believe that nuclear bomb is a no -go area, and only used as a minimal deterrence. Now that US had such an accurate missiles, China had to upgraded that to be still relevance as minimum deterrence. Irrespective if your have 1,000 hits or just.10 hits, you are going to wipe out the other countries. So nuclear weapon is a no-win.solution. It is.MAD (mutual assured destruction). Since China had assured of a "no first.use",’US should not be unduly worried.
Whenever Washington DC claims China’s nuclear weapons is a threat to America it is because DC wants to increase defense spending or is planning to confront China in a military fashion. Both choices require Congressional approval as well as electoral support.
Same excuse works if Russia or Iran are accused. There is a 3rd option of the "Chinese threat" and that is domestic issues are not doing well.
I think the reverse might be true. China’s military buildup primarily targets Japan, not the US. If China sees she is losing the war against Japan, China might use her nuclear weapons regardless her ‘no first use’ pledge.
When you said China will defend itself unto death, you implied that the US initiated a war and is invading Chinese land. I believe this scenario is not likely to be true.
The problem the the US is dealing with now is that as our economy deteriorates and China’s economy grows, the US will be in an inferior position for research, development, and deployment of new expensive weapons systems. Much like the former Soviet Union, the US will be defeated, not by the Chinese being superior to Americans, but by the fact that military power comes from the end of a gun, but economics drives the ability to develop and procure those guns. Russia today has a shell army, navy, and air force due to their third world economy, not because Russians are in any way inferior to any other ethnic group. Soon, it will be the same for America, and just like the Russians, we will need to use nuclear weapons as a shield to hold back the enemies of America.
Besides, we have not updated our nuclear deterrent in decades, and it is long overdue.
Um! Everybody is an expert in dishing out views and advice on nuke war!
China has threaten no one with nuclear war. By contrast U.S always talks about regime change with all options on the table, now nuclear(?). One should read Daniel Ellesberg’s chilling story, The Doomsday Machine,about potential colateral damage that could be millions if not hundred of millions even if the Soviet Union was incapable of retaliating a U.S. strike. All China and all those constantly threatened by the U.S. want is to send a message that any strike against them would be catastrophic for both parties, sadly that also mean for the whold world. But we have too many nuts in the U.S. who think we can survive a nuclear war.
"US should rather accept that its hegemony is over,"
Now that the rest of the world caught Britain & her two wicked daughters, America & Israel going for Control of the Black Gold since they got their PNAC Think Tank Need "A New Pearl Harbor" Coup on 911.
Immediately implemented their Patriot Acts to go around the Constitution & Bill of Rights to Start Their 100 Year War of Terror Against the Rest of Us.!!!!!!!
All Countries Invaded By The Axis of Evil either have Oil or Pipelines. Plus are trying to take out Russia’s Two Oil Ports in Ukraine & Syria.
This article is familiar and appears every time a big defence budget increase is needed. This time, no exception!
America wins the competition to see which country can store more useless weapons in its own backyard.
Wood Wu and i guess, in your wishful thinking, while everyone is distracted during this sino japanese war(nuclear or not) , Taiwan will declare independence.
The US is gambling with its survival more than anyone else
Russia could easily nuke the US completely out of existence today.
how about d island of d philippines n sinasakop ng china.anu tawag dun.ok lbg b un.
some nation have to teach US a lesson. if nuclear bomb explosion happen in US soil & killing million of people there, only than the world would be safe. russia should help north korea on their nuclear arsenal & let korea start launch their Icbm to US soil
Welcome China.This world needs some power like China or Russia to keep the mad Trump and arrogant Netinyahu duo on tight leash