New Pentagon Report on Chinese Military Forces
 |
| The 2009 Pentagon report shows hardly any changes of Chinese nuclear forces. |
By Hans M. Kristensen
The new annual report on Chinese military forces published by the Pentagon shows essentially no changes in China’s nuclear forces compared with the previous report from 2008.
Perhaps most interestingly, the report shows that China has not increased the number of new DF-31 and DF-31A ballistic missiles, a deployment that has to pick up if the recent Defense Intelligence Agency projection that China’s “number of ICBM warheads capable of reaching the United States could more than double in the next 15 years” is to come true.
Even without weapons present, the addition of a large nuclear air base in northern Europe is a significant new development that would have been inconceivable just a decade-and-a-half ago.
Empowering U.S. allies to do more so Washington can do and spend less sounds attractive. But enabling, or looking the other way at the spread of nuclear weapons is not in America’s interests anymore today than it was in the 20th century.
As long as nuclear weapons exist, nuclear war remains possible. The Nuclear Information Project provides transparency of global nuclear arsenals through open source analysis. It is through this data that policy makers can call for informed policy change.
FAS estimates that the United States maintains a stockpile of approximately 3,700 warheads, about 1,700 of which are deployed.