BACKGROUNDER
No. 3787 | SEPTEMBER 13, 2023
CENTER FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE
This paper, in its entirety, can be found at https://report.heritage.org/bg3787
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Russia and China Are Running in
a Nuclear Arms Race While the
United States Is Jogging in Place
Robert Peters
The United States is entering a new period
of nuclear instability with Russia and
China.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
During this period, the incentives for
Russian and China to employ nuclear
weapons during conflict may increase.
The U.S. should ensure that it has the
right policies, plans, and capabilities to
deter Russia and China from using nuclear
weapons during conflict.
T
he expansion of nuclear arsenals in Russia and
China, coupled with the increasing number of
threats against their neighbors, points to an
uncertain security future. Indeed, given this expan-
sion, and the slow pace of U.S. nuclear modernization,
the incentives for Chinese or Russian nuclear deploy-
ment during times of crisis will increase.
In a purely conventional conflict in which a U.S. adversary
enjoys a superiority in theater nuclear systems (systems
that can deliver nuclear warheads to targets several hun-
dred to a few thousand miles away), that adversary may
be willing to employ nuclear weapons to either force the
United States out of the fight or to regain the initiative
in a conventional conflict if it concludes that it is losing.
Compounding this fact, the current American
nuclear arsenal was developed to deter aggression and
nuclear coercion from a single actor: the Soviet Union.
