President Joe Biden quietly signed off on the revised “Nuclear Employment Guidance” in March, a classified document that guides the U.S.’s nuclear weapon policy, which now advises the U.S. to prepare for the possibility of a coordinated nuclear attack from China, North Korea and Russia, according to the New York Times. While not much about the document is public, Vipin Narang, a nuclear strategist who recently departed from his job at the Pentagon, said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies on August 1, that the “president recently issued updated nuclear weapons employment guidance to account for multiple nuclear-armed adversaries, and, in particular, the significant increase in the size and diversity of the PRC’s (China) nuclear arsenal.” The policy shift piggybacks off of the Pentagon’s recent estimate that China may increase it’s nuclear stockpile by “over 1000 operational warheads by 2030.” Talks between Beijing and Washington around nuclear deterrence faltered in July after China backed out of talks citing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, according to Air and Space Forces.
