The weapon systems that make up the U.S. nuclear triad have nearly outlived their operational utility and must be replaced to maintain a credible deterrent, senior Air Force officers in charge of nuclear forces said in congressional testimony Wednesday.
Both Russia and China are rapidly modernizing and expanding their nuclear weapons stockpiles and delivery platforms, presenting an ever growing threat to credible U.S. nuclear deterrence, said Gen. Anthony Cotton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command.
“Russia presents a growing nuclear deterrence challenge centered on its potential perception that the threshold for regional nuclear employment is lower with low-yield systems,” Cotton said March 8 in written testimony presented to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Services. China is “also developing capabilities that would present a similar deterrence challenge, and it is unconstrained by any nuclear arms control treaty limitations.”
As an example, Cotton said China has recently constructed three new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fields that collectively include more than 300 silos. By the end of the decade, China will have an estimated 1,000 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, the Pentagon said in a 2021 assessment.
Where the U.S. military’s current nuclear weapons strategy was based on a single nuclear-capable opponent — Russia — “we now have two nuclear peer adversaries,” Cotton said. “Now we have to have the conversation about what does it look like now as far as force posture moving forward.”
Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, raised the same concerns a day earlier in Colorado at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium.
“You don’t have to look too far back in history to realize that Russia doesn’t necessarily comply with all the international rules and laws that Western democratic nations aspire to follow,” Bussiere said March 7 at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium in Colorado. “Just ask the Ukrainian people how they feel about that.”
The war in Ukraine is being fought with conventional weapons, though Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced his country would withdraw from the New START nuclear weapons treaty and has ordered the deployment of ground-based strategic weapons inside Russia. Meanwhile, Russia has recapitalized 80 to 85 percent of its strategic forces in recent years, Bussiere said.
Elsewhere, China is rattling its saber at Taiwan and other neighboring countries that contest its hegemony in the region. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also is intent on matching U.S. global strike capability nuke for nuke, Bussiere said.
“If you look out toward the Pacific, you can see China and the CCP sprinting to parity with their nuclear force, diversifying, expanding and modernizing at a pace we haven’t seen since the Cold War,” he said.
“Our nation recapitalizes the triad about every 40 years,” Bussiere added. “We don’t have any option other than to modernize. We have exceeded all of our operational margin in our current force. The good news is, our Air Force budget and the DoD budget reflect the priority of this mission.”
