The Chinese Nuclear Breakout and the Biden Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review
On August 12, 2021, the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command Admiral Charles Richard stated, “We are witnessing a strategic breakout by China….The explosive growth in their nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I described as breathtaking.” He added that “…frankly, that word ‘breathtaking’ may not be enough.” Admiral Richard characterized China as a “peer” nuclear competitor and noted that we now face two nuclear “peer” competitors, Russia and China, compared to one during the Cold War.
Admiral Richard was talking about the massive Chinese silo construction program for the large, multiple warhead DF-41 ICBM, generally reported to be able to carry 10 nuclear warheads. He confirmed the earlier reports of two new ICBM fields and that each had about 120 silos for the large Chinese DF-41 ICBM. On August 12, 2021, Bill Gertz wrote in The Washington Times that a third ICBM field had been discovered and that, “Together, the three new missile bases will house 350 to 400 new long-range nuclear missiles, U.S. officials said. If 10 warheads are deployed on the DF-41s, China‘s warhead level will increase to more than 4,000 warheads on its DF-41s alone.”
The information we now have about the Chinese silo construction was not initially made public by the Biden administration. It was made public by analysts from NGOs (Jeffrey Lewis, Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen) and noted journalist Bill Gertz. Patty-Jane Geller of the Heritage Foundation noted that on the same day as Admiral Richard characterized China’s actions as a nuclear “breakout”:
…the Biden administration was reported to be considering delaying the Pentagon’s plan to modernize the United States’ Cold War-era nuclear forces. Worse, just a few days prior, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) sent a letter asking Biden to consider reducing U.S. nuclear forces. There’s a clear disconnect between the reality of the threat facing the United States and the Biden administration’s stated desire to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy.
There is little indication that the Biden administration, as distinct from certain individuals in it, recognizes the significance of what is going on in China with respect to nuclear weapons modernization and expansion or that it will have any impact on its Nuclear Posture Review. Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. John Harvey, who had the nuclear weapons portfolio in the Obama administration, has indicated he believes that the Biden administration will “Carry forward the bulk—but possibly not every piece—of the Obama-Trump modernization program with some increased focus on NC2.”[1] The idea of cutting our nuclear forces and modernization plans in the face of such a great increase in the Chinese and Russian threat is almost mind-boggling. Furthermore, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, “I cannot say that under the current administration, we hear from Washington signals in favour of involving the PRC [People’s Republic of China] in our bilateral dialogue with the United States on strategic stability or some hypothetical negotiations in the future. This is not the case.”[2] There is no apparent motive for him to lie about this. Thus, the Biden administration appears to be largely ignoring the new China nuclear threat in its arms control diplomacy.
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