America is falling behind China, warns US military nuclear chief

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The commander of US Strategic Command overseeing the US nuclear weapons program called on US forces to amp up their defense capabilities, as a precautionary measure claiming that China was developing nuclear weapons faster. "The big one is coming," he said.

The Daily Mail reported that Navy Admiral Charles A. Richard believed that China's nuclear threat posed a "near-term problem" and issued the rare blunt warning on Wednesday.

"As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking," Richard said, expressing that "it is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are."

He stated that the US needed to regain the dynamic and spirit it had in the 1950s and 60s, "As those curves keep going, it isn't going to matter how good our [operating plan] is or how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are — we're not going to have enough of them," he said, adding, "This Ukraine crisis that we're in right now, this is just the warmup." 

Addressing the Naval Submarine League's annual gathering in Arlington, Virginia, Richard said, "The big one is coming. And it isn't going to be very long before we're going to get tested in ways that we haven't been tested a long time."

Richard's duty, as described by the DoD, entails providing recommendations and consultations to the President and Secretary of Defense regarding crucial military capacity to keep the US safe and fulfill its strategic aims.

Richard voiced his concerns by stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear developments meant the situation was dire for the US, which needs urgent reassessment of its military force. "We have to do some rapid, fundamental change in the way we approach the defense of this nation." 

"I will tell you, the current situation is vividly illuminating what nuclear coercion looks like and how you, or how you don't stand up to that," he said.

Back in May, US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday said the US Navy's fleet is too small to be able to handle more than one conflict. The Navy would struggle to achieve its operational requirements in the European theater if it were to withhold forces in the Pacific theater to dissuade Chinese activity, according to Gilday.

However, the admiral highlighted the US' underseas capabilities and submarine fleet as the country's strength. This remark also underlines Richard's experience serving on multiple submarines before rising to command Submarine NR-1, the US Navy's only nuclear-powered, deep-submergence submarine, before he was named Director of Undersea Warfare at the Pentagon. 

"Undersea capabilities is still the one ... maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have against our opponents," Richard said. "But unless we pick up the pace, in terms of getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going... if we can't figure that out we are not going to put ourselves in a good position to maintain strategic deterrence and national defense," he added.

The US, according to Richard, "lost the art" of prompt response to threats, noting that 60 years ago, the US military was previously resourceful and innovative. "We used to know how to move fast, and we have lost the art of that," he said, referring to the invention of the AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missile in 1960. 

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"The Air Force went from a request, almost written on a napkin," he said. "They figured out in the late 1950s that the Soviet integrated air defense systems were getting to the point that the B-52 just wasn't going to make it in, and we needed a thing called up 'cruise missile," he added.

"And so, they envisioned what a standoff weapon looks like," he said.

"We had two squadrons of B-52s equipped with this 800-nautical-mile Mach two-plus, one megaton nuclear warhead with accuracy that was really good for its day, hanging off the wings of B-52s in less than three years," he relayed. 

"This weapon was so cool you could actually turn the engines on, on its cruise missiles on your wings, to give you additional thrust on takeoff," he continued, saying, "We have got to get back into the business of not talking about how we are going to mitigate our assumed eventual failure."

He further urged lawmakers to "flip it to the way we used to ask questions in this nation, which is: What's it going to take? Is it money? Is it people? Do you need authorities? What risk?"

"That's how we got to the Moon by 1969. We need to bring some of that back," he said, adding, "Otherwise, China is simply going to outcompete us, and Russia isn't going anywhere anytime soon."