A B-2 Spirit bomber, deployed from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, is prepared for a training mission at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Jan. 17, 2019. (U.S. Air Force)

Recent reports that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile caught the U.S. intelligence community and policymakers by complete surprise. Even though the missile missed its target, the implications of this advancement are deeply concerning. With the modernization of America's aging nuclear defense triad estimated to be a decade away, can the stable nuclear balance that the United States has enjoyed since the dawn of the nuclear age still be preserved?

In a new report, defense expert and Hudson Senior Fellow Andrew Krepinevich explores China and Russia's efforts to expand and modernize their nuclear arsenals and the precision warfare advancements that are disrupting Cold War-era conventions. See below for key excerpts from Andrew's report.

Key Quotes

Excerpts from the new report, Modernizing the Nuclear Triad: Decline or Renewal?

1. The Coming Precision Warfare Revolution

The likelihood of an emerging new military revolution that incorporates cyber and hypersonic weapons strongly suggest that nuclear weapons have lost the monopoly on strategic warfare. The U.S. military, which for several decades held a commanding lead in precision warfare, finds that lead dissipating.

New forms of warfare, such as those involving cyber weapons and hypersonic vehicles, find China, Russia, and other military powers actively engaged in their development. Nuclear weapons are no longer the only means by which to destroy large numbers of strategic targets with a high confidence of success.

2. China Embraces Nuclear Coercion over Nuclear Deterrence

Unlike the Russians, who have sought to increase their emphasis on nuclear weapons as their principal response, the Chinese Communist Party is pursuing a combination of capabilities that include nuclear forces, “informatized” conventional forces, information warfare forces, a flexible space force, and something it refers to as an “innovative and developmental civilian deterrence force.”

The Chinese Communist Party views nuclear forces not only as a means of precluding a nuclear attack on China, but as instruments of coercion as well. Both of these revisionist powers are moving forward with programs to modernize all legs of their nuclear triad, with several new systems already deployed and more on the way. Of particular note is the two powers’ development of “heavy” ICBMs capable of carrying ten or more independently targetable warheads. Meanwhile, the United States is still debating how, and in some cases whether, to proceed with its modernization effort. 

3. Modernizing America's Nuclear Triad

The United States is planning to modernize its strategic nuclear deterrent for the first time since the Cold War ended over thirty years ago. The deterrent comprises three main components, or “legs”: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, distributed in hardened silos throughout the northern Midwest; fleet ballistic missile submarines  operating from two bases, one on each coast; and long-range bombers positioned at three air bases in the continental United States. These three legs are known collectively as the triad.

The triad’s land-based leg offers significant advantages with respect to crisis stability. By absorbing a disproportionately large part of an attacker’s nuclear forces, it reduces an enemy’s incentive to attack. The ground based strategic deterrent weapons system, deployed as planned, serves as a kind of “missile sink,” draining an enemy’s nuclear forces. The force’s disposition, in 400 silos spread over five states rather than concentrated at five bases, as is the case with the triad’s sea and airborne legs, ensures that an enemy cannot hope to eliminate the great majority of the U.S. deterrent by employing a handful of weapons.

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

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