Military Strategist If Russia and China Want a Nuclear Arms Race, the US Is Prepared

President Trump is directing the Pentagon to start testing nuclear weapons. Joining us to discuss is Rick Fischer, senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategic Center. Good afternoon, Rick. Um, so I mean is this nuclear escalation where Trump is saying that he is increasing or actually restarting nuclear testing in response to other nations nuclear testing. Is this different or does it have parallels to what happened during the cold war where the US and the Soviet Union used nuclear tests for deterrence? President Trump apparently uh has has assessed that other countries are also conducting some level of of nuclear testing. Uh that is what he expressed in his announcement uh uh a short time before he met with uh uh Chinese Communist Party leader Xihinping. Uh uh and and his decision is probably based in in a lot of context around around the timing. Uh, President Trump in his first term uh tried mightily to convince both Russia and China to engage in uh uh the beginning of discussions that he hoped would lead to a cap on the nuclear arms race. Uh Russia and China have consistently refused, utterly refused to uh engage in in any kind of nuclear control, nuclear limitation dialogue. And uh I I think that uh President Trump's decision uh to resume nuclear testing to uh better assure the reliability of the American nuclear stockpile is is his way to try to signal both Russia and China that uh this dialogue is preferable to a nuclear ar a resumption of a nuclear arms race. But China and Russia are both building up their nuclear arsenals both at a theater level and at a strategic level. So it is like before when President Trump decided to leave the intermediate nuclear forces treaty. uh uh he is preparing to to lead uh the unilateral moratorum that the United States has followed on nuclear testing uh to prove to Russia and China that uh if they want a nuclear arms race uh the United States is is prepared to follow suit. >> Okay. So earlier you mentioned um the reli reliability aspect of all this. How reliable is uh the nuclear stockpile right now? >> Well, there there have been doubts expressed about uh uh the reliability of the entire nuclear stockpile. Uh there are some warheads in the stockpile that are very old. Uh uh uh others contend that uh uh advanced supercomputing based testing is is sufficient. But uh ultimately you you just don't know unless you've uh actually done a test. Now will the United States be resuming tests of of full warheads? Uh that's not clear. Will it simply be conducting uh tests of components of of nuclear weapons? Uh again, not clear. But the timing of President Trump's announcement uh is part and parcel of his long-standing attempt to try to convince Russia and China to engage in real nuclear reductions. He's clearly frustrated that of with their refusals and uh believes that the United States as a consequence may not have any choice but to attend to our nuclear modernization plans and to ensure our nuclear deterrent capability by ensuring the reliability of those weapons which could include some form of testing. How do our adversaries feel about the US's nuclear capabilities? Well, China and Russia don't brag about the possibility that they may be cooperating with uh their offensive uh nuclear weapons, but they are willing to talk about at times about the degree to which they cooperate in uh uh defensive strategic uh uh uh uh activities. And it's it's this cooperation in defensive strategic activities that uh warns many including myself that they may be also cooperating in offensive strategic activities. Uh so the United States in a sense in my opinion at least has had a longstanding justification not just to expand its nuclear arsenal but also to resume testing to assure the reliability of that nuclear arsenal both to assure our own people and to assure our allies that if China and Russia undertake nuclear aggression that they will suffer uh uh uh guaranteed retaliation with weapons that actually work. >> So Rick, how how fast would you say is China's uh advancement in its nuclear capabilities and arsenal? Because President Trump says Russia is second and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Well, that that assessment of uh being even in 5 years uh exceeds recent uh Pentagon assessments by another 5 years. Uh so if if President Trump is uh convinced that uh China is going to have as many deployed nuclear weapons as the United States in 5 years, that is uh a very rapid acceleration of China's nuclear arsenal. uh and we don't know whether China will be satisfied with par nuclear par with the United States and perhaps Russia by by all by by previous uh conduct uh China wants superiority in everything and uh I would I would also uh be very concerned that China is actually building toward a position of nuclear superiority against the United States. So you said earlier that President Trump uh talked to these countries about you know reducing their nuclear weapons. Um the fact that President Trump has now announced that the US is going to start testing nuclear weapons does that mean there's no path towards d nuclearization anymore between all these countries? What is your assessment? >> Uh quite the opposite. Don, uh, the Chinese and the Russians could, uh, pick up a phone call and initiate, uh, or convey their desire to begin these discussions at any time. Uh the United States has reached out uh on many occasions and really just recently I believe within the last 24 hours the the Chinese foreign ministry has refused uh to consider uh the idea that it would enter into uh uh negotiations that would limit its nuclear weapons. It simply doesn't want to. It it wants nuclear superiority in my my assessment first and foremost to be able to coersse the United States from defending its allies and partners especially uh the democracy uh on Taiwan. Uh and to its credit to his credit, President Trump wants a robust American nuclear posture uh while uh pursuing both a national missile defense policy to make sure that Americans don't suffer from a nuclear attack and holding out the hand of negotiations. uh President Trump is pursuing a a practical uh multifaceted approach to this uh terrific challenge. >> Right, Rick, good to speak with you today and sorry for my being a little bit under the weather. Thank you very much. Thank you, Don.