Do you ever get the feeling that we're spending most of our energy arguing about the wrong things?
The U.S. government has spent the last four years propping up a zombie president - and is now going all-in on the ascendancy of girlboss Kamala Harris - and they've been neglecting other, moderately more important tasks such as, oh, I don't know:
U.S. military forces are not ready to respond to tactical nuclear weapons strikes by China in a protracted war, a recent Pentagon-funded study said.
China's rapid expansion of nuclear forces, coupled with the dual conventional and nuclear warhead configuration of its missile forces, means it is more likely to employ low-yield nuclear attacks, according to the report from the Center for a New American Security.
The review, funded by the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, found that "the emerging nuclear dynamics between the United States and China appear to have different dynamics than those between the United States and the Soviet Union and carry a greater risk of limited nuclear use."
Translation: Xi is more likely to drop a nuke somewhere in the United States.
The dismaying news comes after reports that nominal President Joe Biden "altered the U.S. strategic nuclear plans toward opposing China's burgeoning nuclear arsenal and preparing for the possibility of nuclear coordination among China, Russia and North Korea."
Very unsettling, to say the least. And the U.S.'s ability to respond to such a crisis looks grim, to say the least:
The exercises found that a lengthy war between the U.S. and China would set conditions for tactical nuclear weapons strikes that are 'both appealing to the PRC and difficult to manage for the United States.'
'In a protracted conflict, nuclear use is unfortunately plausible as either a substitute for conventional arms or as a gamble for termination' said Andrew Metrick, one of three co-authors of the report.
'In this future, the U.S. lacks the capabilities and concepts needed to achieve effective intra-war deterrence.'
Part of the problem is that our strategies are so out-of-date: "U.S. nuclear thinking and systems remain tied to the Cold War, and current capabilities suffer from a lack of signaling tools and employment difficulties."
And in case you were wondering about how many nukes China has, the answer is more each day.
Chinese strategic stockpiles are estimated to have 500 warheads and will increase to as many as 1,500 by 2030. The number of tactical nuclear warheads is unknown.
The commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, testified to Congress in February that the size and rapid pace of Beijing's nuclear buildup is "breathtaking."
In the past five years, China's nuclear expansion has included new mobile DF-31AG and DF-41 multiwarhead missiles, enhanced JL-3 submarine-launched missiles and modernized H-6N bombers.
The most dramatic increase was the deployment of more than 300 hardened intercontinental ballistic missile silos in western China.
Bottom line: We need to get our act together, stat.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
