By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
There’s a new warning from Pentagon intelligence experts: the US global military advantage is being threatened by rivals who are developing new nuclear-capable delivery systems.
That’s the conclusion of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s latest report, “Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals.” The DIA says it provides an “updated, unclassified overview of the nuclear programs of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.”
Among the report’s key points:
-China is growing its nuclear arsenal faster than was predicted in 2018. The DIA estimates that Beijing already has more than 500 nuclear warheads, and says that number will grow to more than a thousand by 2030, “most of which will be fielded on systems capable of ranging the continental United States.”
-Russia’s nuclear stockpile has grown only slightly in the last six years, but still is the largest among US rivals. Moscow is said to have about 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The DIA report says Russia also has up to 2,000 warheads designed for shorter-range delivery systems, known as non-strategic nuclear weapons.
-Meanwhile, the DIA says that North Korea continues to increase the stockpile of plutonium and highly enriched uranium to support its nuclear weapons program. And while Iran “almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons and has agreed not to seek, develop, or acquire nuclear weapons,” the report notes that the Islamic Republic has exceeded agreed-upon treaty limits in several areas, including on the quantity and enrichment levels of its uranium stockpile.
The biggest section of the DIA report is devoted to China.
It says that Beijing is fielding new nuclear capabilities at the fastest time in its history – “almost certainly driven by an aim for enduring strategic competition with the U.S. and a goal to actualize intensified strategic concepts that have existed for decades but are now being realized.”
When it comes to delivery systems, the DIA says that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force is developing new ICBMs that will “significantly improve” its nuclear capable missile forces. It’s also increasing the number of its road-mobile DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which can be used with both nuclear and conventional warheads.
China also has launched its fifth and sixth Type 094 JIN-type nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). And more than three years ago, China tested a global-range nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle.
Plus, there’s the improved H-6N bomber which would complete China’s nuclear triad. The plane now has a recessed fuselage that could carry a nuclear-armed air-launched ballistic missile.
Regarding Russia, the DIA says that Vladimir Putin’s regime is completing the latest round of modernization of its strategic nuclear forces.
That includes what the DIA refers to as “Putin’s Big Six.” In 2018, the Russian leader announced the development of advanced weapons designed to evade US countermeasures. Five of the weapons are nuclear delivery systems – the Sarmat ICBM, the Avangard HGV, the Kinzhal hypersonic missile, the Skyfall nuclear-powered missile and the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater vehicle.
The DIA says that the escalation of the war with Ukraine and Moscow’s decision to suspend the New START arms treaty with the US “represent two key areas of continuing risk.” Two years ago, Putin implied that Russia was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend land it had seized from Ukraine.
