US intelligence chiefs are discussing efforts to rearm their agencies to counter China. They believe that the Russian nuclear triad is convincing and effective, so the Chinese are largely guided by it and would like to have the same one.
In its large-scale build-up of nuclear forces, China is deliberately imitating Russia's nuclear forces, the director of the US Military Intelligence Agency said on Tuesday.
The head of the Military Intelligence Department, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, said that the Chinese armed forces are developing both on the conventional and nuclear front, and nuclear elements are one of the most important points of modernization.
"If we talk about threats to existence, the Russian nuclear triad is convincing and effective, and I believe that the Chinese are largely guided by it and would like to have the same," General Berrier said.
General Berrier's comments came at a conference on Tuesday, where he and five other senior intelligence leaders said that US spy agencies are being re-equipped to meet the challenge of communist China, while not abandoning efforts to combat Islamic extremism. At the conference, it was described in detail how the rise of China poses new and new challenges to the United States in the field of security, economy and politics.
General Berrier said that Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a three-goal strategy: to discipline the leadership of both the ruling Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army, to finance national power through the "One Belt and One Road" initiative and to vigorously strengthen the armed forces.
China's nuclear triad includes the deployment of up to 400 new long-range mine-based missiles recently discovered in commercial satellite photos in the west of the country. The mines will house new Chinese DF-41 missiles, each of which carries up to ten warheads.
In addition, the Chinese nuclear triad includes new missile submarines and new stealth bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Bill Gertz
