Secretary of State Anthony Blinken this week said that the U.S. and its allies must strengthen their militaries, improve readiness and maintain an effective nuclear deterrent as part of efforts to modernize alliances and respond to changing threats, China and Russia.
U.S. nuclear forces, Blinken told an audience at NATO headquarters in Belgium, must be “safe, secure and effective, particularly in light of Russia’s modernization” and demonstrate U.S. commitment to allies, “even as we take steps to reduce further the role of nuclear weapons in our national security.”
Blinken outlined three categories of “urgent threats” facing the U.S. and its allies: the pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities by Iran and North Korea, military threats such as China’s militarization of the South China Sea, and Russian interference in eastern Ukraine and “acts of intimidation” elsewhere.
Blinken spoke while the Joe Biden administration reviews the ongoing, $1-trillion, 30-year nuclear modernization regimen started in 2016 during the Barack Obama administration and supplemented by the Donald Trump administration, which added a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead and kept the megaton-class B83 nuclear gravity bomb on life support.
The administration has not said when, or in which format, it might report the results of its nuclear review. Earlier this week, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), speaking during a Heritage Foundation webcast, worried that Biden might try to cram the review’s conclusions through Congress as part of the 2022 budget request. The administration will release some of the details of its first federal spending request in a so-called “skinny budget” next week, media reported this week.
Blinken’s wide-ranging talk at NATO headquarters also touched on global climate change, 5G wireless networks and their use by foreign intelligence gatherers, a “significantly degraded” global terrorist threat.
The top U.S. diplomat also said that the U.S. and its allies must counter these threats using more than just military might.
“We’ve got to broaden our capacity to address threats in the economic, technological, and informational realms,” Blinken said. “And we can’t just play defense, we have to take an affirmative approach.”
Specifically, U.S. foreign policy is not an “us or them choice” when it comes to its allies and their relations with China, Blinken said. While that country’s “behavior threatens our collective security and prosperity,” U.S. allies have existing relationships with China and have to work together in some areas such as “climate change and health security,” he said.
A version of this story first appeared in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing affiliate publication Defense Daily.
