The Biden administration has recently approved a covert nuclear strategy that is intended to adjust US defense planning to the ongoing competition with Russia, China’s anticipated rise as a third nuclear superpower, and potential challenges from North Korea, according to recent press reports. The highly classified document, approved in March 2024, aims at adapting the “Nuclear Employment Guidance” to the new global environment of competing and conspiring hostile nuclear powers.
In June 2024, Pranay Vaddi, Senior Director for Arms Control and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council, emphasized that the new strategy underscores the “need to simultaneously deter Russia, China, and North Korea.” Biden’s policy echoes Pentagon projections that China will boost its long-range nuclear weapons to 1,000 by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035, approximately equal to the amount already deployed by the United States and Russia.
On the other hand, noted national security scholar and analyst Theodore Postol argues that Biden’s strategy is nothing more than a tacit acknowledgment of a decade-long US technical program aimed at enhancing America’s ability to “fight and win nuclear wars against both China and Russia.”
Postol says that the installation of a relatively new “superfuse” on all U.S. strategic ballistic missiles more than doubles the capability of Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) to destroy Russian and Chinese nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in hardened silos.
As Postol explains, US nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) currently carry “about 890 W-76 warheads (100 kilotons) and 400 W-88 warheads (475 kilotons).” The 400 W-88 warheads, equipped with the super fuse, have the accuracy and yield to destroy Russian silo-based ICBMs before launch. However, this number of W-88s is insufficient to destroy both Russian and the anticipated number of Chinese ICBMs before launch. Therefore, equipping W-76 warheads with the superfuse means:
“It is now possible, at least according to nuclear war-fighting strategies, for the U.S. to attack the more than 300 ICBM silo-based ICBMs that China has been building since about 2020 with the copious numbers of available 100kt W-76 Trident II warheads. The rapid expansion in “hard-target kill capability” of the 100 kt W-76 warhead also makes it simultaneously possible for the U.S. to attack the roughly 300 silo-based Russian ICBMs.”
Postol asserts that these enhanced hard-target-kill capabilities could enable the U.S. to execute a preemptive strategy, at least as perceived by Moscow and Beijing, forcing both Russia and China to adopt countermeasures that would increase nuclear deterrence instability.
Biden’s strategy calls for further discussion on the assumptions regarding China’s nuclear rise and the most appropriate response if it occurs. Postol’s report on US nuclear warhead modernization warns against the consequences of undisciplined technicism without considering the broader political and strategic contexts surrounding technological innovations. Future discussions will contextualize China’s growing nuclear capabilities and the concerns over the US or other nations deploying technologies that enhance first-strike capabilities in the wider context of nuclear deterrence stability and arms control.
Biden’s Nuclear Strategy and China’s Rise
Regarding Biden’s nuclear strategy, the assumption that China will inevitably seek to maximize its strategic nuclear delivery systems by 2035 is not necessarily an indisputable claim. China has various alternatives for developing its future armed forces, including nuclear capabilities.
1. Minimum Deterrence: China could decide that minimal deterrence is sufficient. This approach would provide them with enough survivable long-range weapons to inflict unprecedented damage on the aggressor’s economy and society, including its major population centers and selected civilian and military infrastructure.
2. Assured Retaliation with Flexible Response: China may seek a strategy that allows it to target the enemy’s political leadership, nuclear command-and-control systems (NC3), and some conventional forces, as well as those under minimal deterrence.
3. Ambitious Strategy: A more ambitious strategy would involve, beyond minimal deterrence and guaranteed retaliation, the ability to conduct protracted nuclear war, maintain reliable NC3 systems, ensure the survival of political and military leadership post-attack, and neutralize the enemy’s control of space and cybersecurity.
So far, China seems to have moved from the first option toward the second. Catching up with or exceeding the United States and Russia in the more ambitious third plan by the mid-2030s would necessitate financial and military commitments that could take resources away from other priorities, provoking countermeasures from Washington and Moscow. Although China’s nuclear rise clearly threatens the US in the near term, it implicitly threatens Russia in the uncertain future of global geopolitics.
China designs its nuclear forces as tools of deterrence and armed persuasion, thwarting any attempt by other powers to use their nuclear weapons for coercive diplomacy, including threats of large-scale conventional war against China in the Indo-Pacific theater.
In conclusion, China’s aspirations for nuclear modernization and employment policy have shifted from minimal deterrence to a more flexible strategy. Their nuclear rise deserves attention, but it is not necessarily incompatible with strategic stability and arms control. The US needs to carefully plan responses to avoid an arms race and prevent escalation. Additionally, the US should not be the sole escalation preventer.