ANALYSIS – As anyone who has followed my writing and analysis in the last few years, the exploding size of the Chinese military has been one of my major topics and primary concerns. And key to that massive buildup has been their mushrooming nuclear forces.
I have also reported on how both China and Russia have been steadily modernizing their strategic nuclear capabilities, even as ours decayed and atrophied.
Meanwhile, our strategic nuclear thinking is also stuck in the 1990s, when neither of these two major powers was considered a major threat. China due to lack of nuke capability, Russia due to myriad other factors.
But that has changed dramatically in recent years, and now our top nuclear commander is sounding the alarm over this major disconnect, and our inability to effectively deter two simultaneous peer nuclear threats.
America’s “expertise is just not what it was at the end of the Cold War,” warns Adm. Chas Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), adding that we are “furiously” writing a new nuclear deterrence theory that simultaneously faces Russia and China.
His concern, as reported by Tara Copp at Defense One, is that we need more Americans working on how to prevent nuclear war.
The admiral made these remarks to experts at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, on Thursday.
“We have to account for three-party [threats],” Richard said. “That is unprecedented in this nation’s history. We have never faced two peer nuclear-capable opponents at the same time, who have to be deterred differently.”
The need for a new deterrence theory comes as institutional expertise on avoiding nuclear war has atrophied, Richard said.
He added: “Even our operational deterrence expertise is just not what it was at the end of the Cold War. So, we have to reinvigorate this intellectual effort. And we can start by rewriting deterrence theory, I’ll tell you we’re furiously doing that out at STRATCOM.”
“Russia and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] have the ability to unilaterally, whenever they decide, they can escalate to any level of violence in any domain. They can do it worldwide and they can do it with any instrument of national power. We’re just not used to dealing with competitions and confrontations like that,” Richard said.
The growing nuke threat has become even more acute since the nuclear saber rattling by Vladimir Putin following his invasion of Ukraine.
“Moscow is using both implicit and explicit nuclear coercion,” Richard said. “They’re trying to exploit a perceived deterrence gap, a threshold below which they mistakenly believe they may be able to employ nuclear weapons,” meaning tactical, low-yield and shorter-range nukes.
And we have been quickly responding to this.
As Copp writes:
To respond to Russia this spring, the United States launched nuclear command post teams in its E-6 Mercury “Looking Glass” aircraft, which are militarized Boeing 707s, on extended airborne operations. Military leaders also worked to get its other combatant commands on the same page as to how to dampen and corral Russian escalation.
But we need to do more than make operational adjustments. We need to shift our entire strategic nuclear thinking.
And, STRATCOM has begun doing that by taking steps to move past MAD, the traditional ‘mutually assured destruction,’ nuclear deterrence theory which has helped prevent nuclear war for almost 75 years.
MAD relies on the fear that any use of nuclear weapons by any party would result in a massive retaliatory response which would destroy everyone.
As Adm. Richard notes:
But that’s a two-party version. And does not take into account worrisome developments in China’s hypersonics that might carry nuclear warheads, President Xi Jinping’s ambitions toward Taiwan, the lessons Beijing is taking away from Western response to Ukraine, or the possibility that China and Russia may find it advantageous to combine their ambitions and force the United States to face simultaneous nuclear threats.
This is a major nuclear paradigm shift. And we need to move quickly to address it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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The US Military was and is being used by the Crown Globalists (Foreign Power) as a geopolitical device. This usurpation by the Crown Globalists is not “We” the American People or the uS Constitutional Republic. “We” are being deceived used and abused. It’s time to scrap this whole MAD geopolitical insanity. The Enemy is in the gates and has been misappropriating US strategic resources. It’s time to confront the real enemy of the United States and it’s not Russia or China. It’s the Crown Globalist’s agenda for a NWO totalitarian tyranny over all the people of the earth. —crp
Were we ready under Trump??
No. With a demented and perverted dipstick in the White House and Giggles as his replacement, we are certainly NOT prepared. I begin to doubt that the ‘Shining City on the Hill’ has the capacity to survive apocalyptic Brandon and his Marxist handlers behind the curtain wo seek to neutralize and destroy the USA.
“The Obama/Biden defense theory” is realistically a protracted surrender designed to embrace subservience to former enemies to ensure peace.(Afghanistan was a precedent) In short we are in an H. Kissinger/Klaus Schwab mutually assured suicide for mankind. Clearly Adm Richard has been left out of the loop by Gen. Milley.
What is our enemies plan B for America if America attempts to regain past superiority?
As long as we retain the capability of totally obliterating both Bejing and Moscow, the MAD policy remains effective in preventing all-out war with China and Russia. Of equal or greater danger in my opinion are Iran and NoKo. Both are led by leaders who are aggressive, insane, and irrational. Putin’s sanity is also falling more and more into question, but I don’t think the Russian military establishment would allow him to have independent control of their nuclear arsenal. Eventually Russia will need to ally with the western world against the Chinese who plan to rule the planet.