{"id":40145,"date":"2022-05-05T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2022\/05\/05\/us-nuclear-commander-warns-of-deterrence-crisis-against-russia-and-china\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:58:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:58:49","slug":"us-nuclear-commander-warns-of-deterrence-crisis-against-russia-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/pentagon\/2022\/05\/05\/us-nuclear-commander-warns-of-deterrence-crisis-against-russia-and-china\/","title":{"rendered":"US nuclear commander warns of deterrence \u2018crisis\u2019 against Russia and China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 The head of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the nuclear arsenal, warned Congress Wednesday that Washington faces a heightened nuclear deterrence risk when it comes to Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are facing a crisis deterrence dynamic right now that we have only seen a few times in our nation\u2019s history,\u201d Adm. Charles Richard told the Senate\u2019s strategic forces panel. \u201cThe war in Ukraine and China\u2019s nuclear trajectory \u2014 their strategic breakout \u2014 demonstrates that we have a deterrence and assurance gap based on the threat of limited nuclear employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richard sits on the Nuclear Weapons Council, and his appearance came during the first hearing assembled by the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. The panel was set to hear testimony from the interagency panel\u2019s six voting members who are tasked with managing nuclear policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe nation and our allies have not faced a crisis like Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in over 30 years,\u201d said Richard. \u201cPresident [Vladimir] Putin simultaneously invaded a sovereign nation while using thinly veiled nuclear threats to deter U.S. and NATO intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He went on to note that China is \u201cwatching the war in Ukraine closely and will likely use nuclear coercion to their advantage in the future. Their intent is to achieve the military capability to reunify Taiwan by 2027 if not sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richard said China has doubled its nuclear stockpile within two years, despite expectations it would take Beijing until the end of the decade to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe biggest and most visible one is the expansion from zero to at least 360 solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile silos,\u201d he said, noting China has also made significant advances in its air- and submarine-launched nuclear-capable missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richard used the warning to reiterate his call for \u201ca low-yield, non-ballistic capability that does not require visible generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He confirmed to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., this was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2022\/04\/05\/us-strategic-command-chief-sea-missile-cancellation-opens-deterrence-and-assurance-gap\/\" target=\"_blank\"> a reference to the sea-launched cruise missile nuclear development program<\/a>, adding additional fodder to the congressional debate over whether to proceed with the Biden administration\u2019s proposal to cancel the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another voting Nuclear Weapons Council member, Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security Administrator Jill Hruby, said the Biden administration would not meet its statutory requirement to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s unclear what impact this would have on U.S. nuclear modernization efforts as Hruby noted scientists at the National Nuclear Security Administration have yet to determine the effects of using old plutonium pits in new weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re making new pits because we\u2019re concerned about pit aging,\u201d said Hruby. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to put old pits in new weapons if we think in 30 years those weapons will be in the stockpile, they may have aging problems, but we don\u2019t know for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., criticized the plutonium pit production program for running behind and over budget, while Richard and Angus King, I-Maine, who chairs the subcommittee, came to Hruby\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSTRATCOM supports this or any other measure that [the National Nuclear Security Administration] can execute that minimizes the delay and ultimately reduces the operational risk that I\u2019m going to have to carry because we can\u2019t meet the requirement,\u201d said Richard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">King acknowledged nuclear modernization efforts have meant a greater portion of the defense budget is going to maintain the nuclear triad \u2014 it now comprises 6.4% of the defense budget<b> <\/b>\u2014 but noted it\u2019s still drastically lower than the 17% of the budget it encompassed in 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s still not a lot of money,\u201d said King. \u201cI refer to it as the pig in the budget python. It\u2019s a very large expenditure that we\u2019re going to have to cover over a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The head of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the nuclear arsenal, warned Congress Wednesday Washington faces a deterrence crisis amid Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine and China\u2019s rapid nuclear modernization efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,160,32,36,19],"tags":[8592,8593,8628],"coauthors":[3411],"class_list":["post-40145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-disaster","category-newsletters","category-pentagon","tag-china","tag-taiwan","tag-ukraine"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GPHMMACFMFAI3I444HSQUSTTXY","arc_canonical_url":"\/pentagon\/2022\/05\/04\/us-nuclear-commander-warns-of-deterrence-crisis-against-russia-and-china\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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