China is pursuing the “most rapid expansion” of its nuclear arsenal in history, according to a report published earlier this week by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
The “Nuclear Challenges” report explained that Russia, China, and North Korea are “modernizing their legacy stockpiles by incorporating advanced technologies to penetrate or avoid missile defense systems.” Countries are also “developing nuclear weapons with smaller yields, improved precision, and increased range for military or coercive use.”
China, for example, is “currently exceeding 500 deliverable nuclear warheads in its stockpile,” the report says, noting that it will likely have more than 1,000 “operational nuclear warheads” by 2030.
The country is “undergoing the most rapid expansion and ambitious modernization of its nuclear forces in history,” the report explains, “almost certainly driven by an aim for enduring strategic competition with the U.S. and a goal to actualize intensified strategic concepts that have existed for decades but are now being realized.”
China’s expansion of nuclear capabilities is occurring at a “faster pace than any time in its history,” the report warns.
Discussing Russia’s nuclear arsenal, the report notes that the country is “nearing the completion of the current round of modernization of its strategic nuclear forces,” one of its top priorities over the last decade.
North Korea has “demonstrated the capability to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium, and continues to increase the stockpile of these materials to support its nuclear weapons program,” the report says.
The report adds that Iran “almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons and has publicly agreed not to seek, develop, or acquire nuclear weapons.” It has, however, developed a “civilian nuclear program with the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons.”
