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The nuclear arms race never ended — and the US must not cede the lead

by Michael Mazza, opinion contributor - 08/26/24 12:00 PM ET

Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File
FILE – In this file photo taken from a video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, on Dec. 9, 2020, a rocket launches from missile system as part of a ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile test launched from the Plesetsk facility in northwestern Russia. The United States and Russia have stopped sharing biannual nuclear weapons data under the faltering New START arms control treaty. U.S. officials say they had offered to continue to provide such information to Russia even after President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the treaty, but that Moscow had declined to share its own data.

The Biden administration is putting at risk strategic stability with China.

Last month, China suspended fledgling arms control talks with the U.S., claiming that such engagements could not go on while Washington continues to sell arms to Taiwan.

This was unsurprising. Beijing has long made clear its lack of interest in limiting its own arsenal. It also has a history of canceling bilateral security dialogues to punish the U.S. for actions it does not like.

Consecutive U.S. administrations have tried to rope China into nuclear negotiations. In June 2020, negotiators in the Donald Trump administration released a staged photo depicting empty seats with Chinese flags ahead of U.S.-Russia talks in Vienna. In June 2023, Jake Sullivan offered to “engage China without preconditions.” Two years earlier, President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had vaguely agreed to “look to begin to carry forward discussion on strategic stability.” That discussion formally began in November 2023 and is already defunct.

The desire to limit China’s arsenal is appropriate. At the turn of the decade, the Department of Defense estimated China’s nuclear warhead stockpile to be “in the low-200s.” The arsenal has already more than doubled in size and is projected to reach 1,000 by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035. Beijing may be preparing to test new weapon designs.

China is also expanding and diversifying its launch platforms, including the recent completion of 300 new missile silos; the fielding of a longer-range, submarine-launched missile; and the development of a fractional orbital bombardment system designed to evade American missile defenses. In Xi Jinping’s approach to national security, nuclear weapons are moving from the background to the foreground.

All in all, China is in the midst of a historically rapid nuclear buildup. But while the Biden administration’s diagnosis of the problem is correct, its prescription is all wrong.

If Biden’s successor, whether Republican or Democrat, wants to coax China into genuine arms control negotiations, he or she will have to follow Xi’s lead in adopting a more prominent role for nuclear weapons. Beijing will have to want to restrain the U.S.

As of now, there is little to restrain. New START, which the U.S. and Russia renewed in 2021, limits the U.S. to 1,550 deployed warheads. The U.S. is modernizing its delivery vehicles and nuclear command-and-control to ensure reliability, but the scope of the American nuclear threat will remain largely unchanged as its quantitative advantage over China withers away.

The U.S. is taking steps that may even encourage China to further expand its own arsenal and to wield it more aggressively.

Last year, Jake Sullivan told the Arms Control Association that the U.S. is “investing in cutting-edge non-nuclear capabilities…that can reach heavily-defended, high-value targets.” The Biden administration wants to neutralize Chinese nuclear capabilities, but it is little interested in threatening actual harm. The problem here is twofold.

First, the easiest way for China to counter such capabilities is to simply field even more nuclear weapons.

Second, shifting the deterrent burden to conventional capabilities will reduce the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent. It will contribute to enemy (and allied) perceptions that America is gun-shy when it comes to nuclear use and uncomfortable employing what Nobelist Thomas C. Schelling called “the threat that leaves something to chance.” This is the idea that, to deter a nuclear-armed opponent, one must intentionally act in ways that risk things spinning out of control. The Biden administration instead aims to more finely control escalation, leaving rivals more space to employ brinksmanship — and more likely to do so.

As for the allies, the Biden approach will further nudge them toward procuring their own nuclear arsenals, especially given the administration’s stated desire to shift to “sole purpose,” in which nuclear weapons are not used to deter conventional attacks. If the allies go nuclear, China may find further reason to accelerate its own buildup.

New START, participation in which Russia has already “suspended,” expires in 2026. The next American president should let it die an unceremonious death. It is time to arms-race again.

A nuclear buildup and revamped strategy will put the U.S. in position to bargain with China, Russia and other nuclear rivals — and put those rivals in the position of needing to bargain.

Michael Mazza is a senior director at the Project 2049 Institute and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.