Concern over America’s vulnerability to nuclear attack strikes some as a legacy issue from the days of the Soviet Union. The reality, however, is that the U.S. is more at risk now than ever before.
According to the commander of U.S. Strategic Forces, Admiral Charles A. Richard, “For the first time in our history, the nation is facing two nuclear-capable strategic peer adversaries at the same time…Chinese and Russian advances are eroding our conventional deterrence.”
Russia has modernized and diversified its atomic threat. Overall, notes Russia Beyond Russia has made a number of breakthroughs in the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles, significantly outstripping Washington in several areas.
Russia has engaged in conventional and nuclear capability modernization, which is around 80% complete. The U.S. nuclear modernization effort has not yet started.
Moscow’s determination to expand its nuclear weapons geographical basing is becoming more significant. The Daily Mail discovered that Russia is set to deploy more nuclear weapons in the Arctic. In addition to highly worrisome weaponry, the proliferation of atomic weaponry is a concern. Recently, Moscow has provided nuclear strike capability to its puppet state Belarus. RT reports that during a meeting with Russian key officials, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported that “Part of the Belarusian attack air fleet have received the ability to conduct strikes on enemy targets with nuclear means of destruction.”
In the past, Moscow was the sole major concern. That has changed dramatically.
Beijing now has more nuclear launchers than Washington. A Heritage study found that “The China has surpassed the U.S. in the number of intercontinental ballistic missile launchers it has. The former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Charles Richard, stated, ‘As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking.’ As China continues its nuclear expansion, the U.S. needs a nuclear force able to convince China that the costs of using nuclear weapons overwhelmingly outweigh any benefits. Right now, it’s unlikely the U.S. can do that with a nuclear force not big enough to take on Russian and Chinese nuclear forces at the same time. It is well past time the U.S. make plans to strengthen its nuclear forces to bolster deterrence of the growing Chinese threat. These efforts should include increasing the overall size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and fielding additional capabilities like the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile. The U.S. will also need to improve its ability to make changes to its nuclear forces as the threat continues to quickly evolve.’”
North Korea has the ability to launch nuclear weapons to the American mainland. Biden’s hasty and amateurish withdrawal from Afghanistan will strength the hands of terrorists, including those in nearby Pakistan, a nuclear stated heavily infiltrated by groups that wish intense harm on America.
A Rand analysis reports that “North Korea’s nuclear weapons might soon pose a serious threat to the United States; even a few of them could cause millions of fatalities and serious casualties if detonated on … U.S. cities…The authors of this Perspective argue that there is a growing gap etween North Korea’s nuclear weapon threat and ROK and U.S. capabilities to defeat it.”
As we have reported previously, even a single nuclear detonation over the center of the U.S. could unleash an EMP wave that could devastate all mainland electrical power, causing massive deaths.
Iran is on the verge of a nuclear breakout. Biden’s hasty and amateurish withdrawal from Afghanistan will strengthen the hands of terrorists, including those in nearby Pakistan, a nuclear stated heavily infiltrated by terrorist groups that wish intense harm on America.
Ignoring or downplaying all of these realities is exceptionally, even existentially, dangerous.
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