Does the rise of China as a nuclear strategic superpower present a fundamental threat to deterrence, arms control, and arms race stability? Experts contend that China has set in motion an ambitious nuclear modernization program that could result in a world with three significant nuclear peer great powers by the mid-2030s. A potential Chinese nuclear superpower also contributes to arguments in favor of the widespread modernization of the entire U.S. nuclear enterprise. The following analysis first considers authoritative threat assessments of China’s potential nuclear modernization and its implications for future international security. The second section provides some futuristic scenario analysis relevant to the possible combination of Russian and Chinese deployed strategic nuclear forces compared to those deployed by the United States.

The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, in its final report in October 2023, noted that the U.S. deterrence strategy must change to address the 2027–2035 nuclear threat environment. According to the Commission, the U.S.-led international order and the values it upholds “are at risk from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes,” and the risk of military conflict with those major powers has grown and “carries the potential for nuclear war.” As the Commission explains:

Today the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two nuclear peer adversaries, each with ambitions to change the international status quo, by force, if necessary: a situation which the United States did not anticipate and for which it is not prepared. While the risk of a major nuclear conflict remains low, the risk of military conflict with either or both Russia and China, while not inevitable, has grown, and with it the risk of nuclear use, possibly against the U.S. homeland.

To address this and other anticipated national security challenges, the Commission recommends an ambitious nuclear and conventional force modernization program, a more resilient space architecture capable of offensive and defensive functions, U.S. defense industrial base expansion, nuclear infrastructure enhancement, and, where appropriate, nuclear arms control and-or measures of nuclear risk reduction. In addition, the United States should secure its technological supremacy, especially in emerging security and defense technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and big data analytics. 

The commission report did not propose the precise numbers and kinds of weapons that the United States will need to offset the rise of China as a nuclear peer competitor and modernization of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Even so, the apparent costs associated with the modernization of nuclear forces and infrastructure, including nuclear command, control and communications (NC3), cyber and space supports, delivery systems, warheads, and improved U.S. missile and air defenses (plus advanced hypersonic offensive weapons and other means of offsetting enemy integrated air and missile defenses (IAMD)), are likely to cause considerable strain on the budget. More importantly, the question of strategy and U.S. understanding of Russian and Chinese military strategy (and vice versa), including that for nuclear deterrence or use, looms worryingly in the background. 

In addition, it will be important to determine how closely Russian and Chinese military-strategic planning is coordinated concerning nuclear deterrence, first use, or first strike. Presidents Xi and Putin have demonstrated a remarkable political affinity, and the two states regularly hold joint military exercises. However, this does not necessarily indicate that Beijing and Moscow are completely transparent to each other about their nuclear forces or war plans. Chinese and Russian leadership share hostility to what they regard as American global hegemony, yet the impact of this hostility on future force planning continues to be uncertain. 

Arms control might offer a forum for increasing consultation between China and Russia, in addition to their expectations about the United States. For instance, even if China builds its strategic nuclear forces to a maximum of 1,500 operationally deployed warheads on 700 or fewer intercontinental launchers, the PLA might still fall within the New START limits for deployed weapons and launchers currently observed by the United States and Russia. Some remain skeptical, reasonably so, about China’s willingness to participate in strategic arms control talks as they have only been conducted by the United States and Russia in the past. To do so, China would have to accept a degree of transparency not previously permitted with respect to its deployed (and perhaps non-deployed) nuclear weapons and launchers. 

China’s position on transparency may evolve, however, as its strategic nuclear force deployments increase in number and move into the same neighborhood as those of the United States and Russia. Even then, arms control will be a qualitative as well as a quantitative challenge, assuming the tripartite participation of three great powers. China and Russia will be much more dependent on land-based missiles than the United States, which deploys the lion’s share of its weapons on submarines and bombers. Although both Russia and China are improving their deployed SSBN and bomber forces, the United States is expected to remain at the forefront of ballistic missile submarine and strategic bomber-related technologies for the foreseeable future.

It must also be acknowledged that greater numbers of strategic or non-strategic nuclear weapons do not necessarily mean greater security. A trade-off between newer-generation conventional and nuclear weapons is unavoidable without an unlimited defense budget. U.S. defense planners, including those dealing with decisions about nuclear weapons, will need war games and studies that maximize uncertainty, include scenarios with nonlinear events, and force different strategic mindsets into comparison and contrast under plausible scenarios.

In order to establish benchmarks for a three-nuclear superpower configuration, we projected future American, Russian, and Chinese strategic nuclear forces, with each fielding weapons deployed on a variety of land-based, sea-based, and airborne launchers. There are inevitable asymmetries here since the geostrategic settings and policy agendas among the three powers differ considerably. The exact patterns of their respective nuclear force modernizations between now and the next decade are works in progress. Doubtless, the United States and Russia will continue plans to upgrade their ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers with newer generations of launchers in each category. China’s plans for modernization are more opaque. 

Chinese strategic thinking is apparently quite nuanced about the deterrent and defense uses for nuclear weapons. Chinese leaders are certainly aware that they are presently far away from nuclear-strategic parity with Russia or the United States. China might or might not aspire to a model of nuclear-strategic parity as the principal means of deterrence or other means of war avoidance. China may prefer to see nuclear weapons as one option along a spectrum of choices for deterring or fighting a war under exigent conditions, as well as a means of supporting conventional military operations and assertive diplomacy when necessary. In other words, nuclear-strategic parity, as measured by quantitative indicators, may be less important, from the perspective of Chinese leadership, than the qualitative use of its nuclear arsenal as one part of a whole politico-military strategy. 

China is also expanding its military modernization not only in weapons and platforms but also in the development of superior brain and spinal columns for the control of military operations. This checklist includes innovation in C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) in addition to other information technologies for cyber war. Chinese military strategists have concluded that the informatization of warfare under all conditions would be a predicate to future deterrence and defense operations. Nuclear weapons would provide a way to deter U.S. or other military intervention in China or its backyard, according to the PRC design for A2AD (anti-access, area denial) military operations for air-sea battle (for example, in an attempted Chinese takeover or blockade of Taiwan). 

The composite effect of China’s present, and presumably future, modernization is to make its forces more agile, meaning the ability to identify opportunities and move more quickly than rivals. The emphasis on agility instead of brute force reflects a tradition in Chinese military thinking that seeks victory without fighting. However, if war is unavoidable, it is essential to strike the first and decisive blow. Among other things, this means that China cannot fall behind in competition with other nuclear powers in the domains of space and cyber. China’s emphasis on space as a domain for future warfighting and deterrence is evident in its number of satellite launches and its growing capabilities for RPO (rendezvous and proximity operations) and other means of potential disruption or destruction of enemy satellites and downlinks.

Currently, the United States has 3,708 strategic nuclear weapons, which is more than Russia’s 2,822 or China’s 440 but only slightly less than the two combined. Moreover, all three nuclear powers are modernizing, and China’s operational nuclear arsenal may increase to 1,000 by 2030.

The more incisive question is how much of a disadvantage the United States faces with respect to a possible combined attack from Russia and China compared to having to deter each adversary alone. This question has no obvious immediate answer, but it does raise important political and strategic issues. Why, for example, would China want to join in a Russian nuclear first strike on the United States and its NATO allies? One would have to imagine an extreme scenario in which simultaneous crises in Europe and Asia turned white hot, perhaps an escalation by either side in Ukraine accompanied by U.S. resistance to a PRC coup de main against Taiwan. Even in that extreme case, China would doubtless prefer to settle affairs with Taiwan on its own terms and with conventional forces. China gains nothing by piggybacking on Putin’s nuclear war with NATO. To the contrary, China has thus far indicated quite clearly to Russia that the Chinese leadership opposes any nuclear first use in Ukraine or against NATO. Chinese economic ties to the United States and Europe are extensive. The PRC has no plan to turn Western economies into irradiated ruins. Additionally, the United States and NATO nuclear responses to a Russian first strike would pose immediate dangers to China’s safety and security.