4 days ago
Experts: US to be locked in nuclear arms race with Russia and China
The US will soon be locked in a three-way nuclear arms race with Russia and China — a scary new chapter in global brinkmanship that experts say is far more complicated and dangerous than the two-sided Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union. For decades, the balance of terror rested on a relatively simple formula: Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between Washington and Moscow. But now, Beijing's stunning nuclear build-up is reshaping the strategic landscape — and the old rules no longer apply.
The numbers are sobering. China is on track to quadruple its nuclear arsenal by the early 2030s, racing toward a stockpile of 1,500 warheads, many mounted on ultra-fast hypersonic glide missiles designed to dodge US defenses. Beijing has also been constructing dozens of mysterious underground silo s across its western deserts, sparking fears of a rapid-launch capability on par with America's own. Russia, meanwhile, already possesses the world's largest nuclear stockpile, and Vladimir Putin shows no signs of slowing down. Moscow is even developing an underwater nuclear drone capable of triggering tsunamis.
Worse still for America: Moscow and Beijing are cozying up. Their self-proclaimed 'no limits' partnership was on full display this week in the Sea of Japan , where their destroyers staged joint mock combat drills. The challenge facing the US is immense. Eric Edelman, the vice chair of the National Defense Strategy Commission, a nonpartisan advisory panel created by Congress, called it a seemingly insurmountable 'three-body problem'. 'How can one nuclear power simultaneously deter two nuclear peers?' he asks.
Pentagon officials are grappling with this unnerving new reality, where established principles of deterrence, crisis stability, and arms control become exponentially more complex when three roughly equal actors are involved. A 2023 congressional strategy commission warned that the shift to a three-way race represented 'an existential challenge for which the US is ill-prepared, unless its leaders make decisions now to adjust the strategic posture.' For some, it's time for America to rearm and prepare for a looming Sino-Russian nuclear decapitation strike. Others argue that a three-way race is the road to the apocalypse — and only universal disarmament can save mankind.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) laid bare the threat in June. Its annual report confirmed that all nine nuclear-armed states are expanding their arsenals and walking away from arms control agreements. Members of the nuclear-armed club — the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel — plan to increase stockpiles amid rising geopolitical tensions, SIPRI expert Hans Kristensen reported. He warned of a 'clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric, and the abandonment of arms control agreements.' SIPRI said Russia and the US — which together possess around 90 percent of all nuclear weapons — kept their stockpile sizes stable in 2024, but are both extensively modernizing and could increase the size of their arsenals in the future.
The fastest-growing arsenal is China's, with Beijing adding about 100 new warheads per year since 2023 . By the end of the decade, China could have as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as either Russia or the US SIPRI's estimates place Russia and the US at approximately 5,459 and 5,177 nuclear warheads respectively, while China holds around 600 — more than enough to wipe out humanity and collapse the planet's ecosystems. In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock one second closer to midnight, warning that humanity is now the closest it has ever been to a catastrophic event that could imperil all of civilization.
The threat of nuclear Armageddon became painfully clear in recent days during a war of words between US President Donald Trump and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev, now a hawkish online provocateur, boasted of Russia's Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities. Trump hit back at his 'highly provocative statements' and said he had ordered two US nuclear submarines to reposition in response. On Monday, Russia declared it no longer considers itself bound by a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles — the latest in a long line of rejections of arms control norms.
The main nuclear arms control deal between the US and Russia, the New START treaty, is due to expire in 2026 . A successor now appears unlikely, as Moscow continues to threaten the use of battlefield nukes in Ukraine. Trump, during his first term, invited China to join trilateral nuclear arms reduction talks — but Beijing was reluctant, citing its comparatively smaller arsenal. Any such talks now appear to be a distant prospect. With no binding agreements in place, the three-way race is spiraling into a free-for-all.
Even worse, the US is struggling to keep up. Its nuclear arsenal is decades old. Modernization is underway, but painfully slow, plagued by cost overruns and bureaucratic delays. Warhead production facilities are outdated and bottlenecked, unable to quickly scale production if needed. Pentagon planners are increasingly worried about a nightmare scenario in which Russia strikes in Europe while China invades Taiwan. If both adversaries act in tandem or coordination, the US could face an unprecedented dilemma: how to respond to two simultaneous nuclear threats with a single command system, a finite arsenal, and mere minutes to make potentially world-ending decisions.
Emerging technologies make this scenario even more terrifying. Hypersonic weapons from Russia or China could arrive before US defenses can even detect them. Artificial intelligence, cyberattacks, and space-based weapons are rewriting the rules of deterrence — a game that once had predictable red lines. Edelman says Russia and China could even be preparing for a joint surprise strike to 'decapitate' America's leadership — including the president and top military commanders — before it can retaliate.
The two powers are rapidly developing anti-satellite systems, cyberweapons , and hypersonic delivery vehicles that can evade US missile defenses. Upgrading America's aging command and control systems is the 'first order of business', Edelman says. Strategic weapons experts Mark Schneider and Keith Payne, from the National Institute for Public Policy, warned in a recent report that the US has already fallen dangerously behind — and should ditch New START and rapidly catch up. They called for an immediate 'nuclear upload' — adding multiple warheads to 400 land-based Minuteman III ICBMs and to the Navy's submarine-launched missiles.
This, they argue, is the 'only way America can adequately enhance the force size and flexibility needed to tailor deterrence in the near term for the prevention of great power conflict.' Some experts argue a three-way nuclear race can only end in disaster — and that rapid global disarmament is the only hope. Others believe the MAD theory still holds: that despite the saber-rattling, none of the three powers would dare pull the trigger. But unlike the Cold War, there are no red phones, no predictable deterrence models, and no second chances. One miscalculation — a false alarm, a misunderstood missile test, a flashpoint over Taiwan or Ukraine — could trigger global catastrophe within minutes.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, warned of deepening global divisions and an 'even more challenging' nuclear threat landscape today. 'That is exactly why we must make all-out efforts to bring about a world without nuclear war and a world without nuclear weapons,' he said at a wreath laying in the city where 140,000 perished in the August 1945 blast. As the Cold War fades into history, a new, more chaotic, and potentially catastrophic nuclear era is dawning — and America finds itself caught in the middle. This is no ordinary arms race. It's a three-way sprint to the edge of annihilation.
