Fresh off his 2024 tease, John Bolton issued a somber wake-up call to the United States over the intensifying threat posed by China’s strengthening nuclear capabilities.
Lamenting how the U.S. response to a more assertive China has been “dangerously inadequate and far too slow,” Bolton implored the country to shore up its nuclear defense capabilities and bolster its nuclear warhead stockpile to stave off the growing threat from the Asian giant.
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“America must also urgently progress beyond the limited national missile defense program then-President George W. Bush launched over 20 years ago,” Bolton wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner. “Comprehensive homeland defense measures capabilities are inescapable when facing the combined Chinese and Russian threats.”
Bolton, who has long been watching China and Russia, fretted that a “dangerous and complicated” tripolar nuclear world is now upon the U.S. because China’s bona fide nuclear triad now touts a ferocious ability to “respond with devastating nuclear force.” China is believed to have the third-largest nuclear stockpile after the U.S. and Russia.
His assessment of the tripolar threat counters the declassified edition of the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review that said such a tripolar threat will arise “by the 2030s,” stressing the danger is already here. Knocking the administration for underestimating China, Bolton also cautioned against naively cutting armament deals with Beijing or Moscow.
“One trap to avoid is believing that arms control agreements with China will solve or at least mitigate its rising threat to Washington and our allies. We should quickly jettison the alluring view, already in the air, that arms control will restrain China any more than it restrained Russia or rogue states like Iran and North Korea,” Bolton contended.
“Continuing to invite Chinese participation in future nuclear weapons negotiations serves one important purpose,” he added. “If Beijing still declines to participate, it will demonstrate its clear hypocrisy. And if China joins the negotiations, it will almost certainly gridlock them.”
Bolton also issued a rallying cry for the incoming Congress and 2024 presidential candidates to produce policy solutions to the rising threat from Beijing.
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Bolton, 74, recently teased that if he doesn’t see GOP presidential contenders “repudiate Trump, I’m prepared to get in the race.” The former national security adviser has been an outspoken critic of Trump and has prodded the GOP to move on from him.
Trump debuted his 2024 campaign last month. Relations between Trump and Bolton have deteriorated, with Trump panning the latter’s hawkishness in the foreign policy arena and Bolton condemning Trump’s character.
