From China and Russia With Love

Senator Deb Fisher, the ranking member of the Senate Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the SASC and her House counterpart as Chairman of the HASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee Representative Doug Lamborn, on Tuesday February 14^th both called for Congressional debate and assessment of what they described as a deteriorating strategic nuclear balance.

It is without doubt, the nuclear balance between the United States and its allies, on the one side, and Russia and China on the other, is a critically important matter which needs more attention.

And it is thus good news such a discussion will soon begin on the Hill for at least four reasons: (1) China’s nuclear buildup to somewhere between 900-1500 warheads by 2030-2035; (2) Russia’s refusal to allow New START compliance inspections; (3) the expiration of nuclear New START agreement in 2026; and (4) the adoption by both Russia and China of a nuclear strategy characterized by threatening to wage coercive limited nuclear strikes with high precision weaponry.

Previous assessments of the relative strategic balance between the US and its adversaries have dismissed concerns over the stockpile of nuclear forces sustained by Russia as inconsequential, the assumption being that after a certain level of nuclear warheads is achieved, more is not necessarily better or useable.

Dr. Henry Kissinger quipped years ago that he did not know what one would do with nuclear superiority even if one achieved it. On the other hand, US scholars such as the Atlantic Council’s Mathew Kroenig have argued superiority matters, and the US needs to achieve nuclear superiority and then maintain it.

On the other hand, since the SALT treaties of 1972 and 1979, such nuclear agreements have centered on the US and the USSR and now Russia having the same number of allowed, countable nuclear weapons under the treaty terms. One Senate requirement proposed in 1972 by Senator Scoop Jackson (D-WA) was that no future agreement allow Moscow to have more capability to rapidly build up their warheads by taking advantage of their especially “heavy” or multiple warhead capable ICBMs.

In short, numbers do matter. At least all of the seven major bilateral nuclear arms agreements with Russia the US has agreed to since 1972 have made a “equal numbers” requirement very clear.

Given the assumption that Russia and the US have relatively even deployed warhead numbers under New START, China’s new deployments that may reach the New START allowable numbers should be cause for concern, as its “breathtaking” expansion may be part of an effort by China to reach not only parity with the US but superiority. [Even adding in France and Great Britain to the US side of the ledger doesn’t resolve the potential imbalance.]