Admiral Charles Richard, ahead of a closed-door hearing on Tuesday, plans to tell US lawmakers that US forces do not have the luxury to assume that the risk is low due to China’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal. The head of the US strategic command, according to a House Defence Appropriations subcommittee testimony accessed by news agency Bloomberg, said that Beijing’s rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal is escalating the security risk for the US.
He also warned that both China and Russia have the capabilities to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence. “(Both) can unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence, in any domain, worldwide, with any instrument of national power, and at any time. The US armed forces no longer have the luxury of assuming the risk is always low, particularly during a crisis,” he said.
The admiral said that Beijing increased construction of nuclear missile fields in western China. He said that 120 missile silos are present in each field and the missiles have the capability of reaching the US mainland if launched. According to the documents accessed by Bloomberg, Admiral Richard said that China also added ground-based, large phased array radars and a geostationary satellite capable of detecting ballistic missile launches since last year.
Admiral Richard outlined that China’s intercontinental ballistic missile-launched hypersonic glide vehicle tested in July remains a technological achievement which has serious implications for ‘strategic stability’. He said that it ‘was the greatest distance and longest flight time of any land attack weapon system of any nation to date.’
He also warned that China continues to invest in hypersonic and directed energy weapons technology for global strike and defeat of missile-defence systems, anti-satellite, anti-missile, and anti-drone capabilities. “If strategic or nuclear deterrence fails, integrated deterrence and no other plan or capability in the DoD will work as designed,” Admiral Richard warned.
The construction of missile silos in western China, if true, is also a worrying development for India due to its closeness to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and eastern Ladakh where India asked China to normalise border relations if bilateral relations were to become normal.
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