When it Comes to China’s Nuclear Weapons, Numbers Aren’t Everything
Pranay Vaddi and Ankit Panda | Defense News
Threat inflation tends to lead to poor policy outcomes. When it comes to China’s nuclear arsenal, it’s important for American leaders to accurately understand the nature of the problem. Nuclear risks between the United States and China manifest differently than those of the past U.S.-Soviet nuclear competition, or that of the United States and Russia today. Concerns regarding nuclear use in the U.S.-China context stem from, among other things, mutual mistrust and the manipulation of risk below the nuclear threshold, largely from qualitative force posture and strategy choices each country has made. Quantitative factors — most importantly the size of China’s nuclear arsenal — are less pressing.
Integrated Review: UK to Lift Cap on Nuclear Stockpile
BBC News
The UK is set to reverse plans to reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons by the middle of the decade, as part of a foreign policy overhaul. The overall cap on the number of warheads will now increase to 260, having been due to drop to 180 under previous plans from 2010. The UK will shift focus towards Indo-Pacific countries, described as the world's “growth engine”. And it pledges the UK will do more on the “systemic challenge” of China. Outlining the strategy to MPs, Boris Johnson said the UK would have to “relearn the art” of competing against countries with “opposing values”.
U.S. Has Assessed North Korea Could be Preparing to Carry Out First Weapons Test Since Biden Took Office
Barbara Starr | CNN
U.S. intelligence has assessed that North Korea could be preparing to carry out their first weapons test since President Joe Biden came into office, according to several U.S. officials speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity. The U.S. officials are on alert as the U.S. and South Korea conduct scaled-down, simulated military exercises and US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Asia for meetings with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts. On Monday, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea's leader, warned the Biden administration against “causing a stink at its first step” on Monday, hours after the White House said it had not received a response to its outreach to Pyongyang.
North Korea is Giving Biden the Silent Treatment
Alex Ward | Vox
The Biden administration may have newly rejoined the global village, but the usually rowdy North Korean neighbors so far have greeted the Americans’ move-in with nothing but silence. Pyongyang has yet to acknowledge that President Joe Biden is, well, the president of the United States. And Reuters on Saturday reported that multiple efforts by the US to directly interact with North Korea since mid-February, including through a United Nations channel, have yielded no reply. “To date, we have not received any response from Pyongyang,” a senior administration official told me on Monday.
Kim Jong Un’s Powerful Sister Sends Warning to Biden Administration as Blinken, Austin Arrive in Asia
Amanda Macias | CNBC
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent an eerie message to the United States on Tuesday, as Biden administration officials arrive for high-level talks in Japan and South Korea. “We take this opportunity to warn the new U.S. administration trying hard to give off [gun] powder smell in our land,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement referencing joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises in the region. “If it [the U.S.] wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step,” she added, according to an English translation.
UN Atomic Watchdog: Return to Iran Nuclear Deal Possible
David Rising | AP
A U.S. return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran remains possible, but both sides need to be prepared to negotiate, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog suggested to European lawmakers on Tuesday. Washington pulled out of the deal unilaterally in 2018 under then President Donald Trump, but President Joe Biden has indicated that the U.S. would be willing to rejoin. But there are complications. Iran has been steadily violating the restrictions of the deal, like the amount of enriched uranium it can stockpile and the purity to which it can enrich it. Tehran’s moves have been calculated to put pressure on the other nations in the deal — Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain — to do more to offset crippling sanctions reimposed under Trump.