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Joe Biden approved secret nuclear strategy focusing on ‘Chinese threat’: New York Times
By Igor Patrick
Lyle Goldstein of the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities said the shift in U.S. nuclear strategy reflected a simple calculation based on the assumptions of a worst-case scenario: war against multiple nuclear-armed adversaries at the same time.
But Goldstein, who for decades was a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, believed “there is little or no evidence to suggest a serious degree of coordination between Moscow and Beijing, let alone with Pyongyang, on the use of nuclear weapons”.
“While it is impossible to rule out some informal cooperation—and there is the quite real possibility of sharing of technology and even doctrinal principles—the actual possibility of coordinated use of nuclear weapons among these three states against the U.S. seems extremely unlikely and even far-fetched,” he said.
The moves could be motivated in part by the war in Ukraine and growing cooperation between Russia and China, Goldstein added.
The view to date, he said, was that Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang “had acted with a decent amount of restraint in terms of formalizing their military and strategic coordination”.
“Washington would be well advised to avoid hysterics, apply realism and restraint to various foreign-policy dilemmas and search for areas of future cooperation among the great powers, including a re-engagement with arms control.”
Lyle Goldstein is director of the Asia Engagement program at Defense Priorities and director of the China Initiative at Brown University. Formerly, Lyle served as research professor at U.S. Naval War College for 20 years.