Published on August 21, 2024, 12:30 am

During my boyhood days in northeast Iowa at the height of the Cold War, our reality was filled with school drills designed to prepare us for nuclear warfare. Close by, a significant industrial site—the John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works—was purportedly on the first-strike nuclear target list of the Soviet Union. This potential threat is not a thing of the past; today we face significant shifts in nuclear strategy as nations strategize and make their moves under the shadows of secrecy.

Most recently, breaking news involving real leaks has disclosed that President Biden has allegedly endorsed a new US nuclear approach. This grand strategic plan not only considers Russia but also factors in China’s growing arsenal and North Korea’s potential firepower.

In an apparent pivot towards East Asia, Biden authorized a top-secret nuclear strategic plan earlier this year that pivots America’s deterrent strategy around China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon perceives that over the next decade, China’s stockpiles will be prodigious enough to match those of the United States and Russia.

The shift toward Oriental horizons bears significance as it endeavors to ready America for possible axis-style threats from Russia, China, and North Korea. Called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” this modified blueprint is so highly classified there are no electronic copies, with just a handful of hard copies disseminated among national security officials and Pentagon commanders.

This proposed defense scheme envisages scenarios likely in case of nuclear conflict. Like one might find a plan to invade Canada lurking somewhere within the maze of Pentagon files, similar plans concerning our own outdated stockpile of nukes exist too. The current set-up seemingly assigns substantial weightage to Western concerns about increasingly aggressive posturing from China alongside North Korea’s advancing nuclear weaponry efforts.

Concerning our international standing on these matters, there are some realities that cannot be overlooked. For instance, we seem ill-prepared for dealing with triple threats simultaneously — Does our arsenal contain enough nuclear weapons to deter China, Russia, and North Korea concurrently? Handling such challenges could complicate our deterrence strategies further.

And then there’s Iran. A country whose actions have evoked concern worldwide does not appear to be adequately considered in the new strategy. The Iranian threat stands alone, as the initial sign we might get of their successful development of a nuclear weapon is if one explodes in Western or Middle Eastern cities.

With threats growing around us and the provocations of rivals becoming increasingly audacious, it seems we’re going back to our Cold War-era manuals, triggering memories of school drills that at once feel nostalgic yet ominously prescient. We certainly live in interesting times.

While discussing topics like these can be unnerving, getting trusted news about global politics and security from a Christian worldview helps us stay informed and prepare for whatever may come next. Secure sources are vital for making sense of current events that influence all of us living under the broad umbrella labeled “global security.” It is through this lens we can hope to interpret mouse clicks or keyboard taps translated into decisions laying the groundwork for international peace or unanticipated catastrophes.