American Admiral Charles Richard is the head of the US strategic command, responsible for the country’s nuclear weapons. He is now sounding the alarm on Chinese nuclear weapons.
– If I consider the level of US deterrence against China, the ship is sinking slowly, according to the Richard report CNN and adds:
– It is slowly decreasing, but it is decreasing as they have more field capacity than us, he says.
China already has the second highest defense budget in the world after the United States and is, among other things, in the process of developing several long-range ballistic missiles, which can also carry nuclear weapons, submarines and other technologies.
– Increased speed
The United States has long warned against Chinese nuclear weapons. Last year, the Pentagon estimated that the Chinese want to have 1000 atomistridshoder in 2030.
– The increasing speed of China’s nuclear weaponry could mean the country will have up to 700 operational nuclear warheads by 2027, the Pentagon said in the annual report to Congress.
China “probably wants to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030,” the report said, writes NTB. That’s far more than the ministry thought in 2020, when the Pentagon believed China’s stockpiles of 200 nuclear warheads would at least double within a decade.
Experts believe that China wants to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
– Problem
Charles Richard calls China’s nuclear weapons a “short-term problem”.
– When the basket continues, it doesn’t matter how good it is [operasjonsplanen] ours is, how good our commanders are or how good our forces are – we won’t have enough. And it’s a very short-term problem, he says.
In January, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country would continue modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
“China will continue to modernize its nuclear arsenal, for reasons of reliability and safety,” said Fu Cong, director general of the Chinese foreign ministry’s arms control department on Tuesday.
At the same time, he urged the United States and Russia to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The day before, China sided with the four nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, Britain and France, and vowed to work to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons.
– A nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought, says a rare joint statement by the five countries that have veto power in the Security Council.
The five nuclear powers have all signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and through it have also pledged to abolish nuclear weapons in the long term.
