Biden Administration Issues New Super-Secret Nuclear Policy

According to an article in the Aug. 20 New York Times, President Joe Biden approved last March a nuclear strategic plan for the United States that is so highly classified that only a few printed copies of it exist. Entitled Nuclear Employment Guidance, it reorients, for the first time, America’s strategy of deterrence to focus on the rapid expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, and not only Russia’s capabilities.

The article by David Sanger reports that two Biden Administration officials have alluded to the secret document in public speeches. In June, the National Security Council’s senior director for arms control and nonproliferation, Pranay Vaddi, said the new strategy emphasizes “the need to deter Russia, the P.R.C. [China] and North Korea simultaneously”. The Guidance, according to Sanger, examines “whether the United States is prepared to respond to nuclear crises that break out simultaneously or sequentially, with a combination of nuclear and nonnuclear weapons”.

The article also quotes Vipin Narang, an MIT nuclear strategist who served in the Pentagon until recently. He said earlier this month that President Biden “recently issued updated nuclear-weapons employment guidance to account for multiple nuclear-armed adversaries”, taking in particular into account “the significant increase in the size and diversity” of China’s nuclear arsenal.

Beijing responded immediately to the information, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning telling reporters they were “gravely concerned” about it. She pointed out that Washington uses the alleged “nuclear threat” coming from China to “expand its own nuclear arsenal and seek absolute strategic predominance”. However, China’s nuclear arsenal is nowhere near as large as that of America’s, and contrary to the U.S., China adheres to a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons.

“In contrast, the U.S. sits on the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world. Even so, it clings to a first-use nuclear deterrence policy, and has invested heavily to upgrade its nuclear triad and blatantly devised nuclear deterrence strategies against others,” Mao explained.

Another aspect of this highly secret document has been raised by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, namely that it sheds a new light on the NATO summit that was held in Washington, just a few months later, in July. At the time, Chancellor Scholz wholly endorsed the Biden Administration’s decision to install long-range missiles in Germany, evidently in the framework of this new strategy.