The White House will renew its effort to draw China into discussions about entering arms control talks, President Biden’s national security adviser said on Friday, and will attempt to establish a global accord that specifies that artificial intelligence programs can never be used to authorize the use of nuclear weapons without a human in the decision loop.
The speech by Jake Sullivan, the adviser, was the first to describe with some specificity Mr. Biden’s plans to deal with a world in which, he said, “cracks in our post-Cold War nuclear foundation are substantial.” But the solutions he pointed to were largely aimed at maintaining nuclear deterrence by supplementing America’s deployed arsenal of 1,550 weapons with new technologies — from precision-strike conventional weapons to technological updates of the existing nuclear complex — rather than entering renewed arms races.
For the first time, Mr. Sullivan was explicit on the American response to China’s rapid military buildup, which the Pentagon says could lead it to deploy up to 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, a fivefold increase from the “minimum deterrent” it has possessed for nearly 60 years.
If Beijing hits that number, America’s two biggest nuclear adversaries would have a combined force of over 3,000 strategic weapons, which can reach the United States.
But Mr. Sullivan argued that the U.S. arsenal does not need to “outnumber the combined total of our competitors” to remain an effective deterrent.
Persons:
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s, Sullivan
Organizations:
Pentagon
Locations:
China, Beijing, United States