China quietly but rapidly advancing in new nuclear arms race

A new arms race has begun, and the United States must now prepare for confrontation with both Russia and China, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While Russia and the U.S. still maintain some arms control limitations, such as the New START (SNV-III) treaty, which expires in February, China has no such obligations. It is making rapid but largely unnoticed progress. According to U.S. assessments, China is expected to reach near parity with the U.S. in deployed nuclear warheads by the mid-2030s.

Strengthening ties between Moscow and Beijing have already created an unprecedented level of strategic uncertainty for the U.S. and its European and Asian allies.

“We are now moving toward increasing nuclear arsenals rather than reducing them. We are entering a third nuclear era, which will resemble the Cold War more than the 1990s or 2000s,” said former Pentagon official Matthew Kroenig.

Other experts have noted that the U.S. was slow to respond to new threats and that its entire nuclear modernization program was based on the assumption that the country would continue reducing arms with Russia and that China and North Korea would not pose a threat to U.S. positions. However, this assumption does not reflect reality.