China’s Global Times, in an Aug. 6 commentary on U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby’s nuclear strategy review, as reported on Aug. 5, warns that any use of nuclear weapons, no matter how small, would trigger retaliation. “A Chinese expert said Washington is hyping external threats to justify tactical nuclear weapons development, even though such weapons may be technically feasible, while ignoring that any nuclear use would trigger retaliation with catastrophic consequences,” Chinese military affairs expert Zhang Junshe stated. He added that the underlying aim of the US policy “is to impose strategic deterrence against China, Russia and other nations, constituting blatant nuclear blackmail.”
Zhang further told the Global Times that the US shift toward normalizing and making nuclear weapons battlefield ready is highly dangerous. “The effectiveness of nuclear deterrence lies in the extremely high threshold for use and the devastating consequences involved. By deliberately lowering the nuclear threshold, the US will only undermine global nuclear stability and fuel a new arms race,” Zhang said.
Also commenting was Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), who told Kommersant that if Colby’s ideas are incorporated into the US nuclear strategy and lead to further deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia, tensions between Washington and its adversaries would significantly escalate. “As a result, the security of the United States itself would suffer serious harm. The conflicts in question would cease to be regional and would become global,” the RIAC president warned. “Instead of bolstering the security of its allies, America would face an intensified direct threat to itself.”
“Such a nuclear strategy may sound appealing, but implementing it would be a path toward self-destruction. This reckless approach, driven by strategic ambitions and military-industrial interests, will not strengthen US deterrence credibility but will only increase the risk of global nuclear conflict and threaten world peace and security,” Zhang told Global Times.
