“This crisis in Ukraine is just the prelude”

Admiral Charles A. Richard, 62, Commander-in-Chief of Stratcom, the U.S. nuclear command, calls the war in Ukraine merely the “warming” or “prelude” to the great war to come. Richard warns that China and Russia are ahead of the US on nuclear issues. That America’s nuclear deterrent is no longer effective.

“The crisis in Ukraine we are now in is just heating up,” Richard said in a speech to the Naval Submarine League in Virginia on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense reports on its website. “The big crisis is yet to come,” says Richard. “And it won’t be long before we’re being tested in ways we haven’t seen in a long time.”

The war in Ukraine is only the prelude to greater military challenges for the United States. Meanwhile, America is losing its lead in nuclear capabilities. “As I estimate our level of deterrence towards China, the ship is slowly sinking,” Richard said. “It’s going down slowly, but it’s going down because they’re basically bringing skills into the field faster than we are.” According to Richard, the US would dominate underwater warfare only with submarines.

Pentagon: “We need to do more”

The Stratcom commander demands that the US be inspired by the way things were done in the 1950s, when America was becoming a global power. “We need to quickly and fundamentally change the way we approach the defense of this country. We used to know how to act quickly, and we have forgotten that.” Anders warns the admiral: “China will just overtake us and Russia will not disappear any time soon.”

The Pentagon is apparently aware of Richard’s warnings. Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh, 34, said in a news conference Friday, “We are very confident in our capabilities when it comes to China.” Admiral Richard outlined his defense strategy, according to which “China remains our greatest challenge. But we know,” Singh admitted, “we need to do more in terms of our own preparedness and exercises to compete with China.”

Moscow and Beijing show ‘little interest’ in nuclear disarmament

The Pentagon paints a bleak picture of the nuclear balance between the US, Russia and China in its National Defense Strategy, published Oct. 27. “Our main competitors,” it says, “continue to build and diversify their nuclear capabilities to develop new and destabilizing systems and non-nuclear capabilities that can be used for strategic attacks.”

According to the 80-page paper, China poses “the greatest and most systemic challenge”, while “Russia poses an acute threat”. Both Beijing and Moscow have shown little interest in reducing their dependence on nuclear weapons. In contrast, the United States is focused on the timely replacement of legacy systems in use that are rapidly approaching the end of their useful life.”

China aims to have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of 2030. US and Russian arsenals are limited to 1,550 warheads each by the Start Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. However, both sides have the potential to deploy many more nuclear weapons.