After decades of global nuclear arms reduction, every nuclear state ruled by an authoritarian regime is drastically increasing its weapons and capabilities. The global balance of nuclear power is shifting, and the United States and its allies must also change their mindset and invest in their own nuclear weapons and missile defenses.
In the United States, we have long maintained the nuclear triad included nuclear-capable bombers, ballistic missile submarines and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. All three legs now require significant modernization and billions of dollars to keep pace with our adversaries. Maintaining a credible and effective nuclear deterrent would help prevent them from contemplating a nuclear strike against the US or its allies.
The biggest pressure comes from China. With that goal, the dreaded nuclear build-up is underway twice as much Number of nuclear weapons. “The explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces could be what I describe as exciting,” Adm. Charles Richard, former commander of US Strategic Command, said In 2021. The Biden administration recently announced that it was rearrangement Its nuclear posture to address China’s growing arsenal. But just because we’re re-engaged doesn’t mean we’re giving enough money to the threat.
Elsewhere, North Korea has conducted a provocative test About 100 missiles In the past two years, possibly to complete its capability to hit the United States with ICBMs and attack South Korea. It is also wants to make A fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, which would allow its military to get close to targets, evade radar systems and attack potential allies and American bases in South Korea and Japan.
In the Middle East, which is already on the brink of regional war, Iran has drastically reduced the time it takes to develop nuclear weapons by increasing the size of its uranium stockpile and developing and operating advanced centrifuges. In July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said That Iran’s breakout time — the amount of time needed to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon — is as short as a week or two. Iran Also launched A North Korean-derived ballistic missile that can travel nearly 2,000 miles and strike central Europe is a development that appears to have a message directed at the West: Iran will not stop until it has a missile that can travel across the Atlantic. Not and can attack United. States.
Russia, as it advances its war on Ukraine, is not only aggressively modernizing all three legs of its nuclear triad. It is also developing a nuclear weapon for launch into space that could destroy satellites and disrupt our economic, international security and social systems. The Biden administration released its classified information about the weapon this year after being challenged by a bipartisan group of members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence but has not released more information about Russia’s space-nuclear program since then. Russia’s use of an antisatellite nuclear weapon in space would be a devastating attack on Western economic and democratic systems.
Our current nuclear arsenal is inadequate to counter these rapidly evolving threats. Minuteman III missiles, the land-based part of our nuclear triad First deployed in 1970Special attention is needed; They are aging fast and is likely to be less reliable. Any operational problems could undermine the missile’s effectiveness in deterring potential adversaries, especially in high-stakes situations where reliability is paramount.
After an extensive analysis of options in 2014, the Air Force decided to replace the aging Minuteman III missile system with a new system called Sentinel that was designed to meet current and future threats. In JanuaryThe Department of Defense announced that the program came in 37 percent over budget and significantly behind schedule. (Costs have since gone up reached 81 percent.) Many in the disarmament community jumped on the news as an opportunity to try to cancel the program. But the obstacles the Sentinel program has hit do not change the fact of the significant growth of our adversaries’ nuclear programs. The Department of Defense must do whatever it takes to expedite and fully fund this critical component of our nuclear deterrent. Without it, our opponents can become dangerously excited.
That threat requires Democrats and Republicans alike to prioritize a new integrated missile defense system that can detect threats early and intercept them at every stage of flight. Our current missile defense system protects the United States from some incoming missiles but is not capable of effectively handling large-scale or multi-directional attacks. Complicating matters, Russia and China are developing advanced weapon systems such as hypersonic missiles, which are difficult for our defense systems to track due to their high speed and maneuverability.
Over the past decade, the United States has tested components and parts of an integrated missile defense architecture. During a test in 2021, the Patriot missile defense system, which Ukraine has been using successfully to protect Kiev from conventional Russian missiles, used sensing data from an F-35 aircraft to track and intercept a nuclear-capable missile. The technology has been successfully tested. Now, we must fully integrate advanced aircraft like the F-35 into a more interconnected missile defense network to be ready to intercept all threats, including hypersonic missiles, at all stages of flight.
In addition to being able to adequately detect new nuclear threats, a concerted effort must be made to coordinate with our allies on technologies that can defeat them. The United States has worked, independently and with allies, to develop a high-energy laser missile defense system that can intercept a variety of weapons, including rockets, artillery, mortars, and drones. Once deployed, this tool would provide an effective and significantly less expensive alternative to more extensive air-to-air intercept methods and could be deployed to intercept larger nuclear-capable missiles in the future.
The United States has spent decades assembling the various components of its layered missile defense architecture. Now is the time to fully integrate these systems, invest more in our nuclear-weapons program, and protect the homeland from growing threats. Only through this kind of decisive action and coordinated strategy can we ensure that our nation’s defense is as formidable as the challenges we face.
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