President Joe Biden has approved changes to a secret nuclear strategy document that for the first time aligns Washington’s deterrence strategy with the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, according to a report.
Updates to the strategy document titled “Nuclear Employment Guidance” were approved by Biden in March. The New York Just reported Tuesday that the document is updated about every four years and is top secret. There are no electronic copies of it, only a few paper copies distributed to national security and Pentagon officials who Just said.
The Just cited recent public comments by two senior Biden administration officials that hinted at a change in Washington’s nuclear deterrence policy. In June, National Security Council senior director for arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation Pranay Vaddi stressed in a speech to the Arms Control Association’s annual meeting that the U.S. needed a strategy “to simultaneously deter Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and North Korea.”
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Earlier this month, Vipin Narang, a former assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said in a speech that Biden had “recently issued updated guidance on the use of nuclear weapons to reflect the variety of nuclear-armed adversaries, and in particular the significant increase in the size and diversity of the PRC’s nuclear arsenal.”
The White House has not announced any changes to its nuclear deterrence strategy. But the Just’ The report comes at a time when tensions continue to rise over a possible nuclear threat from US adversaries such as China and Russia.
The Pentagon said in October 2023 that Beijing has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal and estimates that number will rise to over 1,000 warheads by 2030. And Russia’s growing military ties with China and North Korea during its war with Ukraine have raised security concerns among U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for further comment.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly warned that the United States was heading for a major nuclear conflict. In an interview with Elon Musk broadcast live on X (formerly Twitter), the former president said that China could “catch up with, maybe even overtake” Washington when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian addressed this claim at a press conference a few days later, saying that the “US nuclear arsenal is much larger than China’s.”
Lin also said that Beijing is pursuing a “no first strike” policy, which means that a nuclear power is obliged not to use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in the event of a first strike in a war.
The Pentagon report last fall said the United States had about 3,700 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and about 1,419 strategic nuclear weapons in use.
