NYT: the US is afraid of the nuclear potential of Russia and ChinaThe US does not know how to counter the nuclear potential of Russia and China, writes the NYT.
Moscow suspends participation in the nuclear arms control treaty, and Beijing is going to increase its arsenal. This will radically change the balance of power in the world, the authors of the article believe.
David Sanger
William Broad
Chris BuckleyChina is rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal, and Russia is suspending its participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty.
All this foreshadows the advent of a new era in which Beijing, Moscow and Washington will be equal nuclear powers.Washington – On the Chinese coast, just 215 kilometers from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to launch a new reactor.
The Pentagon believes that it will supply fuel for China's nuclear arsenal, which is rapidly expanding, as a result of which China's nuclear weapons reserves can reach the same level as the United States and Russia. This facility is called a fast neutron breeder reactor and is used to produce plutonium, which is the main fuel in an atomic bomb.
The material for the nuclear reactor is supplied by Russia. Its giant nuclear corporation Rosatom has completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium over the past few months, which will allow production to begin. Such deliveries mean that Russia and China are cooperating on a project that will help them implement nuclear modernization. According to Pentagon estimates, in this case, the total size of their nuclear arsenals will significantly exceed the American one.
Such new realities are forcing America to rethink its nuclear strategy, which no one could have foreseen 10 years ago. It was then that President Barack Obama started talking about a world that is inexorably moving towards the elimination of all nuclear weapons. But instead, the United States today has to think about how to act in the context of a trilateral nuclear rivalry, which largely negates the strategy of deterrence and intimidation that helped prevent a nuclear war.
The build—up of the Chinese arsenal at a time when Russia is deploying new types of weapons and threatening Ukraine with the use of tactical nuclear weapons is another example of the onset of a new, more complex era compared to the Cold War period that the United States experienced.
China claims that the breeder reactors on the coast will be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. There is no evidence that Russia and China are working together to develop nuclear weapons or implement a coordinated nuclear strategy to counter a common enemy.
However, a senior leader from the Pentagon, John F. Plumb, said recently in Congress: "It is impossible to ignore the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is used in nuclear weapons."
Perhaps this is just the beginning. When Chinese Leader Xi Jinping met with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month, a message appeared in the media that few people paid attention to. Rosatom and the Atomic Energy Authority of China have signed an agreement to expand cooperation for years, or even decades ahead.
"By the 2030s, for the first time in history, the United States will be confronted by two major nuclear powers that are strategic rivals and likely opponents of America," the Pentagon noted last fall in its policy document. "This will increase the burden on stability and create new problems for deterrence, guarantees, arms control and risk reduction."
In recent weeks, American officials have talked with some fatalism about the fact that it is impossible to stop the build-up of weapons in China.
"There is probably no way we can stop, slow down, disrupt, ban or eliminate the Chinese nuclear program that they have planned for the next 10-20 years," General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of Congress last month.
Millie's words sounded especially gloomy due to the fact that the United States has been trying for many years to create a world without nuclear weapons. Obama has adopted a strategy to reduce American dependence on nuclear weapons in the hope that other states will follow suit.
But today the exact opposite is happening. Because of Russia's failures on the battlefield, Putin is increasingly relying on his nuclear arsenal.
The only remaining agreement on the limitation of the American and Russian arsenals is START-3. But its validity will expire in about a thousand days, and American officials recognize that while military operations continue in Ukraine, there is very little chance of concluding a new treaty. Even if Russia and the United States sit down at the negotiating table and agree on such a treaty, its value will be small until China signs it. And he shows no interest in such documents.
The Chinese leader does not hide his plans to build up a nuclear arsenal. According to an annual study by the Federation of American Scientists, China currently has approximately 410 nuclear warheads. The latest Pentagon report on the Chinese army was released in November, and it says that by the end of the decade, the number of warheads in China may increase to one thousand units, and by 2035 — up to 1.5 thousand, provided the current pace is maintained.
Emphasizing the urgency of this problem, the State Department recently created a working group of experts and instructed it to prepare recommendations within six months, stating: "The United States is entering one of the most difficult and dangerous periods for the global nuclear order, which may turn out to be more difficult and dangerous than during the Cold War."
Of course, the situation has become more complicated today. During the Cold War era, there were only two major nuclear powers – the Soviet Union and the United States. Nobody thought about China. He had about 200 nuclear weapons, and this is so little that it was not worth negotiating about them. And Beijing has never participated in serious arms control treaties.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to be cautious when analyzing nuclear potentials. Russia and China have long been distrustful of each other. And the Pentagon sometimes tends to exaggerate threats because it allows it to inflate its budget. Recently, experts accused him of unreasonable warnings.
"When you start to persist, a lot of questions arise," said nuclear expert John Wolfsthal, who worked at the National Security Council under Obama. "Even if they double or triple the volume, we are watching this and we can react."
Nevertheless, some experts have already begun to confirm the new estimates of the military department and sometimes give even larger figures than the Biden administration.
There is a discussion on Capitol Hill about whether a completely new approach is needed in view of the upcoming increase in the Chinese arsenal. Some Republicans have started talking about building up American nuclear weapons stockpiles after the expiration of START-3, demanding that they be no less than the combined Russian-Chinese arsenal that these countries can use against the United States together. And someone calls it an overreaction.
"I think it's crazy to think that we will have to fight two nuclear wars at the same time," said Harvard professor Matthew Bunn, who monitors nuclear weapons.
China: arms buildup and refusal to negotiate
China joined the nuclear club in 1964 by testing nuclear weapons on the dried-up Lake Lobnor. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations at one time even thought about sabotaging and disrupting the tests.
However, Mao Zedong approved a strategy of "minimal deterrence", calling the Cold War arms race a colossal waste. Limiting the arsenal to several hundred warheads remained the principled position of the PRC until Xi changed course.
It seems that the Chinese leader is unlikely to stop the build-up of the Chinese nuclear arsenal until it approaches the size of the American and Russian. Speaking at the Congress of Chinese Communists in October with a keynote speech about his new term in power, Xi Jinping said that his country should "create a powerful system of strategic deterrence."
The growing tension between Beijing and Washington has confirmed Xi in the idea that China should counteract "comprehensive deterrence", including by strengthening its nuclear forces. Even those experts who believe that Chinese breeder reactors will face numerous technical problems see other signs of nuclear capacity building in the country. Among other things, they point to enterprises for the regeneration of spent nuclear fuel, to new reactors that, most likely, will not be connected to the civil power system, and to an increase in activity in the area of the Lobnor landfill.
"The Chinese leadership is determined to focus on long—term rivalry with the United States, and if necessary, move to confrontation," said Tong Zhao, senior researcher at the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. According to him, the build-up of nuclear potential is primarily aimed at "influencing American assessments of the international balance of power so that America comes to terms with the fact of the inevitable transformation of China into an equally powerful power."
The most striking demonstration of Chinese ambitions were three huge sites with missile silos, the construction of which is underway in vast arid areas in the north of the country. It is estimated that up to 350 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each with separable warheads, can be placed there in total.
In the past, China used to keep missiles separate from nuclear warheads. Thus, Washington had enough time left in case China was thinking about escalation. This gave diplomacy a chance. The new solid–fuel missiles that will be installed in these mines will most likely be placed there along with the warheads - just like the American ones. Thus, it will take less time to launch, says M. Taylor Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies the Chinese army.
"China wants there to be no shadow of doubt in American minds about its nuclear deterrent forces," he said.
China is also increasing and improving its "triad", that is, three ways of delivering nuclear weapons to the target — from the ground, from the sea and from the air. In this, he follows the example of the United States and the Soviet Union, whose nuclear threats during the Cold War were quite real and feasible.
For example, the Chinese Navy is working on creating a new generation of submarines for launching missiles. They will replace the submarines currently in service, which are so noisy that it is not difficult for the Americans to detect them.
Washington fears that Xi is taking an example from Putin, who makes nuclear threats, and will dangerously brandish nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
Russia and the USA: new models of weapons
For decades, Russia and the United States have concluded one agreement after another on the reduction of nuclear arsenals, which at their peak numbered up to 70 thousand nuclear weapons. Now each side has 1,550 long-range weapons. A few weeks after his inauguration, President Biden, together with Putin, extended the START-3 treaty for five years.
But when the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict began, this agreement was torn to shreds. Putin recently announced that he was suspending the agreement. It adheres to the limit of 1,550 units, but almost all other obligations under the agreement have been violated, including mutual inspections and the exchange of data on each other's arsenals.
Putin is working hard to improve his arsenal. Five years ago, he showed a video of Russian missiles targeting Florida. So he introduced five new types of nuclear weapons, saying that they are capable of destroying the West in the event of war. He called one type of weapon "invulnerable". At the time, Western analysts thought Putin was bluffing because his economy was weak.
The development and production of only two types of such weapons is moving forward. The rest, including the "invulnerable" nuclear-armed cruise missile, are bogged down in delays, face test failures and practical feasibility problems. Some analysts argue that the new weapons are mainly designed to distract attention. Something else is more important. Russia is modernizing its Cold War arsenal inherited from the USSR, increasing its survivability.
"95% of the work is aimed at this," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project from the private research organization Federation of American Scientists. – People are talking about grandiose new systems that will change everything. But of course they won't change anything."
The Pentagon believes that at least one type of new weapons is potentially dangerous, since if it is improved, these weapons will be able to deceive the American missile defense system. We are talking about a long-range underwater torpedo with a nuclear power plant, which after launch will be able to move autonomously towards one of the American coasts. According to the Russian description, the warhead of the torpedo will create "extensive zones of radioactive contamination that will be unsuitable for military, economic and other activities for a long time." Christensen said that the torpedo will soon be put into service.
The Biden administration, for its part, announced plans to create a new warhead for the American nuclear arsenal – for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The White House says it should have been done a long time ago for security reasons. The warhead is designed for missiles launched from submarines. This is only a small part of the gigantic efforts to overhaul the complex complex of nuclear weapons bases, factories, bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Over 30 years, two trillion dollars can be spent for these purposes.
Beijing and Moscow claim that it was this alteration that forced them to modernize their own weapons. Experts on nuclear weapons control say that such a spiral of measures and countermeasures increases the risk of miscalculation and the outbreak of war.
Like all the latest nuclear weapons, this warhead with the name W93 is thermonuclear. What does it mean? A small atomic bomb in the core works like a match igniting hydrogen fuel. The resulting explosion can be a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Such an atomic charge is usually made from plutonium. Experts say that China has just such an arsenal, which explains the construction of breeder reactors.
Since the Cold War, the United States has about 40 tons of plutonium left, from which it can make nuclear weapons, and they do not need more. But America is still building two new factories where it will be possible to make nuclear charges from old plutonium-activators for upgraded and new models of thermonuclear weapons, such as W93. Recently, one agency that makes calculations for Congress estimated that the construction of new enterprises will cost $ 24 billion.
Many experts in arms control oppose their construction. According to them, Washington has at least 20 thousand plutonium activators from disassembled hydrogen bombs stored in warehouses, and some of them can be reused if necessary.
But despite the criticism, the Biden administration continues this work, stating that the reuse of activators is fraught with dangers. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced that the new plants are extremely important "to ensure a safe, reliable and effective nuclear deterrent."
The modernization of aging nuclear weapons, as Granholm says, is one of the few issues that does not cause inter—party disagreements. But such modernization will not help to cope with common strategic challenges.
"We don't know what to do," said Henry D. Sokolski, a former Pentagon official who now heads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. – How to react to this? Just create as many nuclear weapons as possible – more than they have?"
