US aims nuclear strategy at Beijing as it frets enemies are ganging up on it

(Originally published Aug. 21 in “What in the World“) The U.S. is for the first time preparing for a coordinated nuclear attack from the “Axis of Evil”—Russia, China, and North Korea.

In March, according to David Sanger at The New York Times, Pres. Joe Biden approved a secret “nuclear employment guidance” strategy developed by the Pentagon that for the first time contemplates the possibility that the three nuclear adversaries could launch a simultaneous strike. The new strategy also shifts the emphasis of American nuclear deterrence toward countering China’s growing nuclear arsenal.

Sanger doesn’t provide details on how the strategy alters the deployment of U.S. forces or weapons, how it might affect future military spending, or the ongoing modernization of its own nuclear stockpile. But it underscores Washington’s recognition of the rising threat to American hegemony posed by four major developments:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats to deploy nuclear weapons against Ukraine or the Western allies supporting it with weapons;
• China’s accelerating buildup of nuclear weapons to achieve the kind of “mutually assured destruction” that ostensibly keeps Russia and the U.S. from launching nuclear weapons at each other;
• North Korea’s success in developing more advanced nuclear weapons capable of eluding preemptive attack and reaching the United States;
• Growing evidence of cooperation between the three, as well as Iran, to counter U.S. interests, particularly the supply of weapons by Iran and North Korea for Russia to use in Ukraine.

Putin’s threats, in particular, have set a precedent by eliminating a long-held assumption that nuclear powers would never use nuclear weapons in a conventional war. As for China, the Pentagon is worried because China now has an estimated 410 nuclear warheads and is on track to triple that stockpile by 2035, giving Beijing the means to discourage any military intervention against a forcible takeover of Taiwan. China’s concern, of course, is that it is woefully under-matched in the nuclear sweepstakes: The U.S. has more than 5,200 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

North Korea, meanwhile, appears to have won Russian assistance in advancing its nuclear interests in return for supplying Moscow with artillery and other military equipment. Pyongyang has conducted a record number of missile tests in the past two years, including intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, submarine-launched missiles and solid-fuel missile rockets that are easier to move around and launch more quickly to avoid detection.

Sanger’s report isn’t likely to lower temperatures. Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong warned in a speech Sunday that U.S.-China tensions were growing inexorably worse, noting that “it’s clear that America’s attitude towards China is hardening. Meanwhile, China is convinced that America is trying to contain it and suppress its rise.”

Sanger’s report will only reinforce Beijing’s conviction on this. Indeed, China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday responded to the report by accusing the U.S. of using China’s defensive moves as a pretext for pushing its own strategic advantage. “The U.S. is peddling the China nuclear threat narrative, finding excuses to seek strategic advantage,” a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said. “China is seriously concerned about the relevant report, and the facts have fully proved that the United States has constantly stirred up the so-called China nuclear threat theory in recent years.”

Tensions are already rising again in the South China Sea following a collision Monday between the Chinese and Philippine coast guards near a disputed atoll. Both sides accused the other of ramming their ships near Second Thomas Shoal, ripping a hole in the hull of one Philippine vessel. The U.S. condemned what it called the “dangerous actions” of China’s coast guard.

In June, Beijing and Manila reached a provisional agreement that allowed the Philippines to resupply a rusting wreck at the shoal that serves as a garrison, though Beijing still claims the territory as part of China. The standoff has helped Manila win increased military aid from Washington, including a $500 million package announced last month.

Ukraine’s gamble in invading Kursk, meanwhile, may backfire, Kremlinologists warn.

By launching its surprise counter-invasion in Kursk, Kyiv hopes to deprive Russia of a staging area for attacks and force Moscow to pull forces from Ukraine to defend Mother Russia. Neither of those aims appears to be working. Kyiv also aims to hold territory it can use as leverage to get Russia to give back more of the land it has seized since its invasion of Ukraine. But Russians familiar with President Vladimir Putin warn Kyiv may be miscalculating here, too: Putin may respond not by bargaining, but by doubling down.

Russia has already reportedly postponed cease-fire talks scheduled in Qatar this month. That could leave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who once refused to discuss ceding any territory to Russia as a condition for peace, standing alone at the peace-talk altar.

Zelensky’s shift may explain Ukraine’s increasing efforts to take the war to Russian soil: a Nixonian attempt to bring Moscow to the negotiating table. History buffs will recall that former U.S. President Richard Nixon hoped bombing North Vietnam would soften Hanoi’s position in talks on the war in South Vietnam. Ukraine has incurred Washington’s wrath by using its long-range drones to destroy not just missile launchers at airbases in Russia, but also air-defense radars and oil refineries. Zelensky’s entreaties for Washington to let it use U.S. long-range Atacm missiles for such attacks have fallen on deaf ears. While such attacks might seem prima fascie a means of weakening Russia’s ability to prosecute its invasion, they also serve to weaken public support in Russia for the war and pressure Moscow to talk.

But Putin has already responded to the escalation in Western support for Ukraine by threatening to deploy nuclear weapons. And some warn that his response to the Kursk incursion is likely to be similarly bellicose. “Putin is ready to pay an even higher price than this,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told The New York Times. For Putin, the war in Ukraine is an existential contest Russian cannot afford to lose. “For Putin, this is simply a question of the price of victory.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the Middle East without a ceasefire deal for Gaza. Israel marked the occasion by launching a fresh air strike against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley.