Biden approves secret nuclear strategy: what we know – NYT
21 August 2024 09:13
US President Joe Biden approved a classified strategic nuclear plan for the United States in March. This was reported by the American newspaper The New York Times, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
The new strategy is called the Nuclear Employment Guidance and foresees the possibility of US conflicts with Russia, North Korea and China.
The document, which is updated about every four years, is so classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a handful of national security officials and Pentagon commanders.
But, the NYT notes, two senior administration officials were allowed to allude to the document in recent speeches. Subsequently, before Biden leaves office, the unclassified message will be sent to Congress.
“The president recently issued updated guidance on the use of nuclear weapons that takes into account the presence of multiple nuclear adversaries,” said a nuclear strategist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked at the Pentagon.
He added that “the arms guidelines explain the significant increase in the size and diversity of China’s nuclear arsenal”.
In addition, Pranay Waddy, Senior Director for Arms Control and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council, previously referred to this document, which for the first time analyses in detail whether the United States is ready to respond to nuclear crises that erupt simultaneously or sequentially, using nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
Three threats – Russia, China and North Korea
The new version claims that China’s nuclear capabilities will actually match those of the United States and Russia in the next decade. According to Biden’s order, US forces must prepare to counter a coordinated nuclear threat.
Changes in the US nuclear strategy were also caused by the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. Pyongyang has doubled its nuclear arsenal under Kim Jong-un’s rule and now has more than 60 nuclear weapons. The expansion of this arsenal makes North Korea an increasingly serious challenge for the United States, given the possibility of coordinated threats from Moscow and Beijing.
The NYT article says that previously, the likelihood that American adversaries would be able to coordinate nuclear threats to outsmart the US nuclear arsenal seemed small. But the emergence of the partnership between Russia and China, as well as the conventional weapons that North Korea and Iran are providing to Russia for the war in Ukraine, have fundamentally changed Washington’s thinking.
Russia and China are already conducting joint military exercises. Intelligence agencies are trying to determine whether Russia is helping North Korea and Iran’s missile programmes.
The possibility of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine
The new document is a reminder that whoever takes the oath of office on 20 January 2025 will face a changed and much more unstable nuclear landscape than the one that existed just three years ago, journalists write, recalling Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats.
The NYT claims that in 2022, during the “October crisis” (probably referring to the defeat of the Russians in the Kharkiv region and the impending liberation of Kherson – ed.), the Biden administration estimated the probability of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine at 50%.
“We’re dealing with a radicalised Russia; the idea that nuclear weapons would not be used in a conventional conflict is no longer a safe assumption,” said Richard Haass, a former senior State Department and National Security Council official.
At the time, Washington forced China and India to make statements about the inadmissibility of nuclear blackmail, which helped to reduce tensions.
It is noted that Biden’s strategy is aimed at deterring Russia, China and North Korea at the same time, and this is an unprecedented challenge for US nuclear policy.
We would like to add that the geopolitical theory of deterrence, developed by the American diplomat George Kennan in the 1940s, is inextricably linked to the concept of mutually assured destruction. It ensures the maintenance of peace based on the understanding by all states of the inevitability of retaliation by the enemy in the event of a first strike. The theory of deterrence formed the basis of Soviet-American relations and world politics in the second half of the 20th century.
