With two nuclear-armed peer competitors — Russia and China — and with both advancing their nuclear capability, the U.S. now, more than ever, must move at full speed to modernize its nuclear deterrence capability. That effort is not just for U.S. national security, but as well for partners who depend on the U.S.

“The security environment we face today is unprecedented,” said Melissa Dalton, undersecretary of the Air Force. “We face for the first time in our nation’s history, two strategic competitors that are nuclear states with large and growing nuclear arsenals. When we look at the [People’s Republic of China] and its breathtaking modernization over the last two decades, we see today they have over 500 operational nuclear warheads, far exceeding prior projections.” 

Speaking Wednesday at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2024 Air, Space & Cyber Conference just outside of Washington, Dalton said that in coming years, the U.S. expects China’s warheads to exceed 1,000. At the same time, she said, Russia also remains a challenge. 

“We see Russia brandishing its nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict and also possessing novel nuclear capabilities that are designed to challenge our escalation calculus,” she said. “The stakes are incredibly high.” 

During the Cold War, the U.S. maintained top-notch nuclear deterrence, and the domestic defense industry stood ready to provide whatever was needed. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, and with the U.S. focused on other parts of the world for the past 20-plus years, the U.S. must now up its game. 

“We mortgaged our nuclear modernization for 30 years, and for a lot of understandable reasons,” Dalton said. “We had the post-Cold War peace dividend. We were fighting counterterrorism globally. But the fact is, the bills are now way past due, and in that time, our competitors went to school on us, and they caught up.” 

With U.S. defense underpinned by its nuclear deterrent, modernization of that capability is a top priority for the Department of Defense. 

“The 2022 nuclear posture review reaffirmed our commitment to delivering a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent, and that security guarantee extends to our allies around the globe, and that can never be in question,” she said. 

The department is now engaged in a recapitalization of its nuclear triad, which involves new submarines, such as the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines; new bomber aircraft, such as the B-21 Raider; and a new ground-based system, called Sentinel, to replace the nearly 400 silo-based Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said that while two-thirds of the nuclear triad, the ground systems and the aircraft-based systems belong to the Air Force — the submarine systems belong to the Navy — modernization is not just an Air Force effort or even just a Navy effort. 

“It is imperative that we understand that it’s not a Department [of Defense] imperative that we maintain the nuclear security and nuclear triad,” he said. “It is a national imperative. It’s national policy that the foundation of what we hold dear, the framework of that is nuclear deterrence. And to add to that, and I’ve seen this in the last 19 months of being in command, our allies and partners are counting on us more than ever.”

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