A new report has found that in March of this year, President Joe Biden approved a top-secret strategic nuclear plan that reshapes Washington’s strategy and focus.
The report comes from the New York Times, which shared that the White House did not publicly announce that Biden signed the new strategy, dubbed the “Nuclear Employment Guidance.”
Still, an unclassified notification was sent to Congress, and the revision is expected to be approved by Biden before he leaves the White House in January 2025.
So what’s in the plan?
Details are limited, but the Times reports that for the first time, the strategy shifts America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal, the Times reported.
The plan also looks to ensure that the US is prepared for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia, and North Korea.
In 2022, Biden’s administration issued its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, “a legislatively-mandated review that establishesUS nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities, and force posture for the next five to ten years,” according to the Department of Defense.
The Times shared that the document is updated about every four years and that it is highly classified, with no electronic companies and only a few hard copies being distributed at the Pentagon.
White House spokesperson Sean Savett confirmed that the full details would not be shared but that there was no need to worry about any specific threat.
“This administration, like the four administrations before it, issued a Nuclear Posture Review and Nuclear Weapons Employment Planning Guidance,” Savett said. “While the specific text of the Guidance is classified, its existence is in no way secret. The Guidance issued earlier this year is not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.”
The threat of a second cold war continues to be in the minds of Americans as the Pentagon warned in October 2023 that Beijing had grown its nuclear arsenal to more than 500 functioning nuclear warheads and that it estimates the number will surpass 1,000 by 2030.
In recent weeks, former President Donald Trump has also addressed the concerns around China’s nuclear arsenal, sparking a response from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Newsweek reported.
Spokesperson Lin Jian said that the “nuclear arsenal of the US is way bigger than China’s.”
As of last fall, the Pentagon reported that the US had about 3,700 nuclear warheads in its stockpile and around 1,419 strategic nuclear weapons deployed. The Pentagon declassified the numbers for the sake of transparency.