The news is advanced by The New York Times, which reports that the country’s Department of Defense believes that in the next decade Beijing will have a nuclear arsenal that will be able to rival Washington.

The highly classified document goes beyond the challenges that exist beyond China: Russia and North Korea.

‘Nuclear Employment Guidance’ is a document that is updated every four years, according to the Times, but this review and subsequent approval was kept secret, as the White House did not announce this change.

⇒O secret document.

The New York Times also details that the document is so secret that there are no digital copies and that only a few Pentagon officials have access to some copies.

But the Times also writes that two officials have been given the ‘green light’ to mention this change. One of the times concerns a nuclear strategist who works for the Pentagon, Vipin Narang.

“The president recently issued a nuclear weapons deployment guide to take into account multiple adversaries,” he said earlier this month, adding that “in particular” the lines of thought had changed and “the significant increase in the size and diversity” of China’s nuclear arsenal had been taken into account.

Also in June, an official of the National Security Council, Pranay Vaddi, referred to the document. The new strategy underlines “the need to simultaneously deter Russia, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea”.

The Times further emphasizes that this new document will “remind” the next U.S. president that the scenario in terms of nuclear arsenal in the world is very different from what it has been until now.

Fonte: The New York Times