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In the middle of the last century, as the United States and Russia rapidly amassed thousands of nuclear weapons, China stayed out of the arms race, focusing its energy on growing its economy and broadening its regional influence. Beijing did build hundreds of nuclear weapons during those years, but the nation’s leaders insisted their modest arsenal was merely for self-defense. Since China’s first nuclear weapons test, in 1964, the country has pledged loudly to never go first in a nuclear conflict — no matter what. Now there is increasing unease in Washington about China’s nuclear ambitions. China’s transformation from a small nuclear power into an exponentially larger one is a historic shift, upending the delicate two-peer balance of the world’s nuclear weapons for the entirety of the atomic age.

Organizations: Pentagon Locations: United States, Russia, China, Beijing, Washington

In America, it’s the president who decides whether the country goes to nuclear war. In this audio essay, W.J. Hennigan argues against the United States’ sole decision-making authority on nuclear weapons. The country’s nuclear power structure, he says, is “too much power for one person to have, to decide whether or not the world as we know it will exist.”(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)

Persons: Hennigan Organizations: United States ’ Locations: America

The national security writer W. J. Hennigan has spent many years ringing the alarm about the world’s new nuclear era — the subject of At The Brink, a new series from New York Times Opinion — and the crisis on the horizon. For anyone whose interest was piqued by the origin story of nuclear weapons in “Oppenheimer,” Mr. Hennigan, who happens to be a movie buff, recommends three essential films that illuminate our new nuclear era. An edited transcript of the above audio essay by Mr. Hennigan follows:W.J. For the past quarter-century, an entire generation has come of age without really having to worry about the bomb. This has not something that’s been front of mind.

Persons: Hennigan, “ Oppenheimer, ” Mr, Mr, haven’t, that’s, Christopher Nolan, it’s Organizations: New York Locations: Ukraine

Opinion SoleAuthority Forty-five feet underground in a command center near Omaha, there’s an encrypted communications line that goes directly to the American president. Buried below is a military command headquarters constructed in case of a missile attack amid a national emergency. Yet regardless of who wins this election, or the next one, the American president’s nuclear sole authority is a product of another era and must be revisited in our new nuclear age. The jet’s crew can contact the president, verify his or her identity and relay a nuclear attack order to bomber squadrons, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missile silos. It is, however, unacceptable for an American president to have the sole authority to launch a nuclear first strike without a requirement for consultation or consensus.

Persons: —, Anthony Cotton, Biden, Donald Trump, Harry Truman, Truman, Truman’s, Jake Sullivan, ” Mr, Sullivan, “, Richard Nixon, wasn’t, Trump, Henry Kissinger, Nixon, Mark Milley, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Woodward, Robert Costa, Kissinger, Milley, Robert Kehler, Stratcom, Kehler, we’ve, That’s Organizations: U.S . Strategic Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, Joint Chiefs, Staff, American, White House, Strategic Command, White, North, Democrats, Chiefs, Air Force, Senate, U.S ., United Locations: United States, Omaha, U.S, America, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Soviet, North Korea, Trump’s

☆ Nuclear War: The Rising Risk, and How We Stop It - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( W.J. Hennigan | W.J. Hennigan Writes About National Security For Opinion. | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

The United States estimates Russia has a stockpile of up to 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads, some small enough they fit in an artillery shell. But the detonation of any tactical nuclear weapon would be an unprecedented test of the dogma of deterrence, a theory that has underwritten America’s military policy for the past 70 years. Possessing nuclear weapons isn’t about winning a nuclear war, the theory goes; it’s about preventing one. If Mr. Putin dropped a nuclear weapon on Ukraine — a nonnuclear nation that’s not covered by anyone’s nuclear umbrella — what then? Many in the administration believed the Kremlin’s dirty bomb ploy posed the greatest risk of nuclear war since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Persons: Putin, Sergei Shoigu, Lloyd Austin, Russia Sergei Shoigu, Britain Ben Wallace, Defense Turkey Hulusi Akar, Sebastien Lecornu, General Austin, Mark Milley, Biden, Putin’s, William J, Burns Organizations: United, of American, NATO, Defense, State, Defense Turkey, National Defense, Defense Minister American, Russian, Biden, Joint Chiefs, Staff, Moscow, White House, State Department, The Energy Department, Strategic Command, ’, Pentagon, Unmute Defense, Central Intelligence Agency Locations: Washington, Ukraine, Russia, United States, Kharkiv, Kherson, Russian, U.S, Crimean, Moscow, Poland, China, India, Turkey

☆ At the Brink: Confronting the Risk of Nuclear War - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Kathleen Kingsbury | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

In New York Times Opinion’s latest series, At the Brink, we’re looking at the reality of nuclear weapons today. Within two years, the last major remaining arms treaty between the United States and Russia is to expire. Part of the answer is that both of those active conflicts would be far more catastrophic if nuclear weapons were introduced into them. Their efforts helped to end atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, which, in certain cases, had poisoned people and the environment. The United States could insist on robust controls for artificial intelligence in the launch processes of nuclear weapons.

Persons: We’ve, Vladimir Putin, Biden, Hennigan, aren’t, Donald Trump, I’ve, “, —, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase Organizations: New York Times, JPMorgan Locations: Ukraine, United States, Russia, Iran, China, Poland, Japan, Saudi Arabia

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