Beijing said it was “concerned” by the discreet revision of the US “Nuclear Employment Guidance” document, which points to the increase in China’s arsenal and the risk of nuclear “collaboration” between the Chinese, Russians and North Koreans.
The article from New York Times published on August 20 had the effect of a small bomb. David E. Sanger – whose biography on the website of the major American daily reminds us that he writes about “American nuclear strategy» for four decades – read carefully because on this particularly sensitive subject every word counts. It is not for nothing that we are talking about “nuclear grammar» to evoke the highly codified language of deterrence. In this case, the American journalist revealed that last March, President Joe Biden had approved a highly confidential document regarding American nuclear policy, which was not the subject of an official announcement from the White House.
This is a review, which usually takes place every four years, of the so-called plan “Nuclear Employment Guide”. There is no digital copy of this text that is not distributed in format “paper” only to a handful of very senior officers and US officials closely involved with national security. Some piecemeal information that indicates larger directions can still filter through the press, so that the development of the American nuclear strategy is shed some light, amidst a lot of darkness, which still largely covers the doctrines of the nuclear weapon states.
Growth in China’s nuclear arsenal
This year, these few elements of the advertisement reveal a significant change: “for the first time”clearly states David E. Sanger, the “American Deterrence Strategy” – structured since the Cold War by rivalry with Russia – “concentrates” on China and “the rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal”. Washington also considers the possibility, again new, of one “coordination” nuclear power between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang. The previous edition of 2020 only mentioned China.
The People’s Republic did not fail to respond to this revelation of New York Times. On Wednesday, during a regular press briefing reported by Reuters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning announced “serious concern” from Beijing. “US Sells Chinese Nuclear Threat Narrative, Finds Excuses to Seek Strategic Advantage”he added. The day before, the White House had clarified that the confidential strategic nuclear plan approved this year by Joe Biden was not “a response to a single country or a single threat”. Not surprisingly, these few appeasing words were not enough to assuage Beijing’s anger.
Also readChina Now Deploying 500 Nuclear Warheads, Pentagon Says
However, this shift in American strategy is not a surprise in itself. Traditionally, China implemented “minimal deterrence»based on the principle of a limited number of nuclear weapons capable of deterring an adversary by targeting its main urban centers or responding to a first strike. Beijing officially rejects any use of a nuclear weapon first or against a non-nuclear power. This resulted in a relatively low number of nuclear warheads, around 200, roughly equivalent to the French arsenal. However, this stability is over. By 2022, commercial satellite imagery had revealed the construction in China of several launch silo fields capable of holding up to 300 intercontinental missiles. Since then, the momentum has continued to accelerate.
In October 2023, in its annual report on Chinese military capabilities, the US Department of Defense – “Death” – estimated that Beijing now possessed 500 operational nuclear warheads, doubling these in just three years. Pentagon that evokes a “exceeds previous projections”also predicted that “China would have 1000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030” and that the expansion of the Chinese arsenal will continue “until 2035”until “1500”roughly equivalent to the number of strategic warheads deployed by the United States or Russia, whose ceiling is set at 1,550 in the New Start Treaty, whose use is currently suspended. As for the number of land launchers, this would have increased from 100 to 500 between 2021 and 2023, again according to the Pentagon. The New Start treaty, however, sets the number of Russian and American launchers at 700, a number that includes land-based launchers, but also submarines and air-launched launchers.
Coordination between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang
China’s catch-up is therefore spectacular, especially as it is accompanied by a diversification of its arsenal. Beijing is developing new programs for the three components of its nuclear triad: land-based intercontinental missiles; nuclear ballistic missile submarines; strategic bombers. Beijing is also deploying a number of new dual-use cruise or ballistic missiles that can carry a nuclear or conventional warhead. Not to mention a hypersonic glider program — an area where Washington lags behind China or Russia — designed to elude the most sophisticated eavesdropping systems.
The worrying development of China’s nuclear arsenal cannot be understood in isolation. This is the second aspect mentioned in the confidential US strategic plan, according to New York Times : American deterrence must face the possibility of coordination between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang. “In the past, it seemed unlikely that adversaries of the United States could coordinate their nuclear threats to thwart the American nuclear arsenal. But the new partnership between Russia and China, as well conventional weapons that North Korea and Iran supply Russia for the war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed Washington’s way of thinking.writes David E. Sanger, quoting strategist Vipin Narang, an MIT researcher who served at the Pentagon: “It is possible that one day we will look back and see the quarter of a century after the Cold War as a nuclear parenthesis. The new challenge is the real possibility of cooperation and even coordination between our nuclear-armed adversaries..