“Ultimately, this report emphasizes the importance that China agrees to engage with the United States in a meaningful dialogue on arms control and risk reduction so as to increase stability and transparency as well as to minimize the possibility of unconstrained nuclear weapons competition in the years ahead,” said Shannon Bugos, a research associate at the non-profit Arms Control Association.

If China’s nuclear expansion does meet the Pentagon’s assessment, both Moscow and Washington will likely apply more pressure to bring China into strategic talks and future arms control conversations. did approach China about joining New START, but it was met with indifference by Beijing, given the vast disparity in the size of its stockpile to the U.S. The landmark treaty, which the Biden Administration extended for five years with Russian President Vladimir Putin, remains in force until February 2026.Ĭhina, however, is not part of that agreement and therefore is not obligated to publicly reveal the size and scope of its nuclear forces. is limited to 1,550 deployable weapons under a bilateral treaty known as New START with Russia. The American stockpile now stands at 3,750 warheads, but the U.S.

has worked for decades to cut its nuclear weapons arsenal following the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union. Read more: China Allegedly Tested a Nuclear-Capable Hypersonic Weapon. was technologically behind in the space race. Last week, Milley compared the test to 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, that revealed the U.S. The capability came years before analysts believed China would be able to develop it.

The report comes just weeks after news that the Chinese successfully tested a nuclear-capable weapon, called a “hypersonic glide vehicle,” which sent tremors through national security circles in Washington. “We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power… It only happens once in a while and it’s not standalone,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley said Wednesday at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington.

military leaders often refer to Beijing as “America’s pacing threat,” denoting the challenge China will pose economically, technologically, politically and militarily to the U.S. The PLA, headlong into a complete modernization of its forces, may have already fielded a so-called nuclear “triad,” the report said, capable of launching an attack from submarines, bombers, or intercontinental ballistic missiles-a capability Russia and the U.S. The Pentagon says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the formal name for China’s military, is seeking to build a stockpile many times larger as part of its decades-long march to establish a “world-class” fighting force that can challenge the U.S.

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