Experts widely believe Xi Jinping has ambitions to make the land grab beyond 2028, after the Chinese president won another term as the country’s leader.
A military attempt to capture Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army could well put them in direct contact with the US armed forces.
This is why there is a growing chorus of voices inside and outside of government in Washington that argue for America’s nuclear deterrent to be modernised at an accelerated rate.
Normal practice would see an incoming administration, in this case Donald Trump, carry out a review of nuclear policy and strategy.
These are timely and costly, and often are not finished by the time the president’s term comes to a close.
Russia, if its leaders are to be believed, has already completed its own modernisation programme of its nuclear weapons programme.
Some of this is also designed solely around destroying America’s possibility to retaliate in a first-strike scenario.
Multiple nuclear competitors
Worryingly, Chinese modernisation is happening even faster.
The rapid expansion by both countries of their nuclear weapons means being left behind is a genuine concern for the Americans.
Richard Johnson, who oversees nuclear policy at the Pentagon, recently warned: “We are now in a world where we’re facing multiple nuclear competitors, multiple states that are growing, diversifying and modernising their nuclear arsenals and also, unfortunately, prioritising the role that nuclear weapons play in their national security strategies.”
But how could the US nuclear deterrent be brought up to scratch for an era of competition from Moscow and Beijing?
One theory often spoken about is the scrappage of New Start, an arms reduction treaty signed with Russia, under which both sides are restricted to maintaining 1,550 deployed warheads each.
The pact is due to expire in May 2026, and Putin has already insisted he is not interested in renewing it.
As of 2023, the US had more than 3,000 unused warheads stockpiled, meaning it could significantly scale up the number of deployed weapons as a show of strength.
And then there is the issue of modernisation to make sure of the US nuclear triad – a three-pronged delivery system of air, sea and land-launched weapons.
Air Force General Anthony Cotton, America’s most senior officer in charge of strategic forces, argued recently it was crucial because both China and Russia needed to know how US forces would respond.
“We started talking about nuclear modernisation in 2010, but the world has changed since then,” he said.
“Our posture must align with today’s reality, where nuclear weapons are foundational to adversaries’ strategies,” he added.
That modernisation programme is currently a 30-year project, but if it doesn’t happen sooner, China will have taken over as the world’s foremost nuclear superpower.
