Biden aide says US could deploy nuclear weapons to 'deter China and Russia' – World

WASHINGTON: The United States may need to deploy more strategic nuclear weapons in coming years to “deter growing threats” from Russia, China and “other adversaries,” a House aide said Friday White.

Pranay Vaddi, the top arms control official at the National Security Council, made his comments in a speech on “a more competitive approach” to arms control, describing a policy shift aimed at putting pressure on Moscow and Beijing to that they renounce the rejections of American calls in favor of negotiations on the limitation of arsenals.

“Without a change in the adversary's arsenals, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase over currently deployed troops will be necessary. We must be fully prepared to execute if the president makes that decision,” he told the Arms Control Association.

“If that day comes, it will result in a determination that more nuclear weapons are necessary to deter our adversaries and protect the American people and our allies and partners. »

The United States currently observes a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads set in the 2010 New START treaty with Russia, even though Moscow “suspended” its participation last year due to U.S. support for Ukraine, a decision that Washington called “legally invalid.”

Vaddi spoke a year after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the same group that there was no need to increase U.S. strategic nuclear weapons deployments to counter the arsenals of the Russia and China, to whom he proposed talks “without preconditions”.

The administration remains committed to international arms control and nonproliferation regimes intended to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Vaddi said. But, he said, Russia, China and North Korea are “all expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a breakneck pace.”

The three countries and Iran are “increasingly cooperating and coordinating in ways that undermine peace and stability, threaten the United States, our allies and partners, and exacerbate regional tensions.” “, did he declare.

Published in Dawn, June 8, 2024