- The United States can deploy more strategic nuclear weapons.
- Russia, China, Iran and North Korea share advanced missiles.
- US the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads continues.
The United States may need to deploy additional strategic nuclear weapons in the future to deter growing threats from Russia, China and other adversaries, according to a senior White House official.
Pranay Vaddi, the National Security Council's top arms control official, gave a speech Friday in which he discussed “a more competitive approach” to arms control.
He outlined a policy shift aimed at urging Moscow and Beijing to reconsider their rejections of the United States' proposal to negotiate arsenal limits.
“Absent a change in the adversary's arsenals, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase in the current numbers deployed will be required. We need to be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision,” he told the Arms Control Association.
“If that day comes, it will result in a determination that more nuclear weapons are needed to deter our adversaries and protect the American people and our allies and partners.”
The United States currently adheres to a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, as outlined in the 2010 New START treaty with Russia. Reuters reported.
Moscow “suspended” its participation in the treaty last year over US support for Ukraine, a move Washington considered “legally invalid.”
Vaddi's remarks come a year after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan assured the same group that there was no need to increase U.S. strategic nuclear weapons deployments in response to Russian and Chinese arsenals.
He also offered talks “without preconditions.”
Vaddi emphasized that the administration remains “committed to the international arms control and nonproliferation regimes” established to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
But, he said, Russia, China and North Korea “are expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a dizzying pace, showing little or no interest in arms control.”
The three and Iran “are increasingly cooperating and coordinating with each other in ways that run counter to peace and stability, threaten the United States, our allies and partners, and exacerbate tensions in the region,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea share advanced missile and drone technology, Vaddi said, citing Moscow's use in Ukraine of Iranian drones and North Korean artillery and missiles, and Chinese support for Russian defense industries.
