Nuclear weapons
Top secret plan for nuclear weapons approved in the US
Hans Österman
Published 01.02
Earlier this year, the US approved a rewritten nuclear weapons plan.
The document is top secret and only exists in a few hard copies – but now parts of its contents have been revealed.
Two things are new.
The US strategic nuclear weapons plan is updated approximately every four years. In March, President Joe Biden approved an updated version where two things stand out compared to before, writes the New York Times.
For the first time, Russia is not in the main focus. Instead, the Pentagon believes that China's nuclear arsenal will challenge both the American and the Russian within ten years. This applies to both the number of atomic bombs and how they are designed, according to the newspaper.
För första gången är Ryssland inte i huvudfokus. I stället tror Pentagon att Kinas kärnvapenarsenal kommer att utmana både den amerikanska och den ryska inom tio år. Det gäller både antalet atombomber och hur de är utformade, enligt tidningen.
The document also orders U.S. forces to prepare for a new kind of threat: coordinated nuclear attacks by Russia, China and North Korea. That the US's enemies would come together to win a nuclear war against the US has previously been seen as something unlikely. But the planning in Washington has, the NY Times writes, changed by the new reality where the partnership between Russia and China is growing and where both North Korea and Iran are contributing weapons to Putin's war in Ukraine.
Available only on paper
The strategy document is called "Nuclear employment guidance" and is so secret that it is not available in digital form. Only a small number of officers and commanders have access to it in paper form, according to the paper.
However, two high-ranking representatives have been given permission to release parts of the content in short statements.
Earlier in August, retired Pentagon nuclear strategist Vipin Narang said the plan has been updated to be able to face multiple nuclear adversaries simultaneously. He also underlined the growing threat from China.
- In particular, the significant increase in the size and diversity of China's nuclear arsenal is mentioned. It is our responsibility to see the world as it is, not as we hoped or wished it was, he said, according to the NY Times.
Three countries at the same time
In June, a similar statement was made by Pranay Vaddi, who sits on the US National Security Council. He emphasized that the White House must rise to a crisis where both nuclear and conventional weapons are deployed simultaneously and from multiple directions.
- The new strategy underlines the need to deter Russia, China and North Korea at the same time, he said.
More details from the nuclear document are expected to become public when a dewormed version is released to Congress sometime before Biden leaves office.
His successor must prepare for a changed and more unstable nuclear world compared to just a few years ago, writes the NY Times.
Putin and other Russian representatives have repeatedly threatened to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In October 2022, the United States assessed that the probability of such an attack could exceed 50 percent. It happened after the intelligence service intercepted conversations between high-ranking Russian commanders.
Biden and other world leaders then made both China and India make public statements condemning the idea of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
- It was an important moment, said Richard N Haass, Republican foreign ministry veteran and professor emeritus at the Council of foreign relations, in an interview that the NY Times reports.
- We are dealing with a Russia that has been radicalized. The idea that nuclear bombs would not be used in a conventional conflict is no longer a safe assumption.
Then China can catch up
But the intensified threat from China is nevertheless seen as the major shift in a document that throughout the post-war period has focused on the Kremlin. China's nuclear arsenal is now growing the fastest in the world and at a higher rate than US intelligence believed just two years ago, according to the paper.
It comes after President Xi Jinping removed the previous minimum strategy and aimed to have at least as many nuclear bombs as the United States and Russia.
The Pentagon has previously estimated that China will have 1,000 nuclear bombs by 2030 and 1,500 five years later. It is, according to the NY Times, at the approximate level of what Russia and the United States have today.
But the Chinese are believed to have increased production faster than that. In addition, the US worries that China has ended nascent diplomatic talks on improving nuclear security, such as warning hikers during tests and establishing a hotline to ensure accidents or incidents do not escalate.
North Korea did the opposite
Donald Trump believed, after his three personal meetings with dictator Kim Jong-un, that North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons. It was the opposite. The regime is now believed to have more than 60 nuclear bombs and fuel for many more, the newspaper writes.
That, in turn, has changed how the threat from North Korea looks. When the country only had a handful of nuclear warheads, they were considered capable of being shot down by missile defense. But now - with an arsenal approaching that of Pakistan and Israel - according to NY Times sources, the theoretical risk of Kim's nukes being coordinated with those of Russia and China is increasing.
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