In a prepared statement to the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee yesterday, Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, continued his crusade against Russia and China, describing them as unparalleled nuclear threats to the U.S. that must be deterred. “The strategic security environment is now a three-party nuclear-peer reality, where the P.R.C. and Russia are stressing and undermining international law, rules-based order, and norms in every domain,” he said. “Never before has this nation simultaneously faced two nuclear-capable near-peers, who must be deterred differently.” (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP02/20220405/114575/HHRG-117-AP02-Wstate-RichardC-20220405.pdf)
“Today, both the P.R.C. and Russia have the capability to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence, in any domain, worldwide, with any instrument of national power, and at any time,” Richard went on. “USSTRATCOM measures the risk of strategic deterrence failure every day considering this reality. The DOD can no longer have the luxury of assuming the risk is always low, particularly during a crisis. Potential adversaries, as they have for years, have the capability to threaten to inflict catastrophic effects on the U.S. homeland, and on our Allies and partners to achieve their national objectives.” China and Russia “will continue to expand and diversify their nuclear forces over the next decade and the P.R.C., in particular, will increase the role of nuclear weapons in its defense strategies,” he continued. “The range of their new systems complement growing nuclear stockpiles, and includes the development and modernization of survivable nuclear triads, counter-intervention, and power projection capabilities intended to deter and deny our regional influence.”
Richard called China’s expansion of its nuclear delivery platforms, nuclear command-and- control, and associated infrastructure “breathtaking” and “inconsistent with a minimum deterrent posture.” He said: “I am fully convinced of the recent strategic breakout points towards an emboldened P.R.C. that possesses the capability to employ any coercive nuclear strategy today.”
