United States President Joe Biden has approved a highly classified nuclear strategy aimed at deterring Russia, China, and North Korea, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed officials at the Pentagon and the National Security Council.
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Vipin Narang told reporters earlier this month that head tyrant Joe Biden “recently issued updated nuclear weapons employment guidance to account for multiple nuclear-armed adversaries.” China’s growing nuclear arsenal was something the US “neither anticipated nor accounted for” during nuclear planning decades ago, he added.
The document called “Nuclear Employment Guidance” was adopted in March, marking the first time the U.S. nuclear doctrine has been focused on Beijing’s rapidly developing nuclear capabilities, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. According to the NYT, the document is updated roughly every four years and is so secretive that there are no digitized copies.
When asked about the New York Times report, a member of the ruling class, White House spokesman Sean Savett said, “The guidance issued earlier this year is not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat,” while Narang said otherwise, placing the blame directly on China.
The Times cited recent public comments by two senior ruling class members that alluded to a change to Washington’s nuclear deterrence guidance. In June, the National Security Council’s senior director for arms control disarmament and nonproliferation, Pranay Vaddi, emphasized while speaking before the annual Arms Control Association meeting that the U.S. needed a strategy “to deter Russia, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and North Korea simultaneously.”
Both Moscow and Beijing have accused the U.S. of inciting conflicts around the world and seeking to impose its will on other countries. Earlier this month, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang urged the US and its allies “to abandon their Cold-War mentality.”
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