Peter Huessyis Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
The Deputy Commander of the United States Strategic Command told a Mitchell Institute nuclear seminar forum on August 27th that China may replace Russia as the top nuclear capable adversary of the United States.
The context of Lt Gen Bussiere’s remarks is the recent discovery that China is building up to 400 new ICBM silos in Western China, the construction of which could be completed within the next two-four years, if done at a pace not unlike that of the United States when our original Minuteman ICBMs were constructed. The missile slated for deployment in these silos would be the 6-10 warhead Chinese DF-41.
When Does China Surpass Russia?
When is the crossover point–when China actually surpasses Russia as the leading nuclear threat? Bussiere explained: “There’s going to be a point, a crossover point where the number of threats presented by China will exceed the number of threats that currently Russia presents.
As a matter of fact, there’s more to it than numbers. We don’t necessarily approach it from a pure numbers game.
It is what is operationally fielded?
What’s the readiness status of those forces?
What’s the posture of those forces?
And then what’s the intent of that posture of those fielded forces?
So it’s not just a stockpile number? It’s a much more informed decision on that.”
While the two nations have differing national objectives, there are indications said the General that those nations are “cooperating across different spectrums and presenting a cooperative deterrence model.”
As the Air Force Association’s John Tirpak writes, according to the General, “Both China and Russia have the ability to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence in any domain, in any geographic location, at any time, with any instrument of their national power…we haven’t faced a … global situation like that in 30-plus years.”
