President Joe Biden has approved revisions to a classified nuclear strategic document that redirects Washington's deterrent strategy to focus on China's nuclear arsenal expansion for the first time, according to a report.
Updates to the strategic document, titled "Nuclear Employment Guidance," were approved by Biden in March. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the document is updated roughly every four years and is highly classified. No electronic copies of it exist, only a few hard copies that are distributed to national security and Pentagon officials, the Times said.
The Times cited recent public comments by two senior Biden administration officials that alluded to a change to Washington's nuclear deterrence guidance. In June, the National Security Council's senior director for arms control disarmament and nonproliferation, Pranay Vaddi, emphasized while speaking before the annual Arms Control Association meeting that the U.S. needed a strategy "to deter Russia, the PRC [People's Republic of China] and North Korea simultaneously."
Earlier this month, Vipin Narang, a former acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said in a speech that Biden had "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 nuclear arsenal."
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Updates to the strategic document, titled "Nuclear Employment Guidance," were approved by Biden in March. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the document is updated roughly every four years and is highly classified. No electronic copies of it exist, only a few hard copies that are distributed to national security and Pentagon officials, the Times said.
The Times cited recent public comments by two senior Biden administration officials that alluded to a change to Washington's nuclear deterrence guidance. In June, the National Security Council's senior director for arms control disarmament and nonproliferation, Pranay Vaddi, emphasized while speaking before the annual Arms Control Association meeting that the U.S. needed a strategy "to deter Russia, the PRC [People's Republic of China] and North Korea simultaneously."
Earlier this month, Vipin Narang, a former acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said in a speech that Biden had "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 nuclear arsenal."
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Biden's secret nuclear weapons strategy: Everything we know about new plan
In March, Biden approved revisions to a highly classified nuclear strategic plan, according to a report.
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