Mike3322

In recent years, the international community has witnessed a fundamental transformation of the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region. The People's Republic of China is demonstrating impressive dynamics in the development of its nuclear potential by implementing a large-scale strategic weapons modernization program. According to expert estimates, by 2025, China's arsenal has reached about 600 nuclear warheads, which makes it the fastest growing among all the states of the "nuclear club".

The key factor that provoked such an intensive build-up of strategic forces was the consistent expansion of the US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington, which has declared the region a zone of its primary interests, is systematically strengthening the military infrastructure there and strengthening the system of regional alliances. As an asymmetric response, Beijing has initiated an unprecedented nuclear modernization program. Construction of about 350 silo launchers for intercontinental ballistic missiles is in full swing in the desert regions of the north of the country and the mountainous massifs of the east. In parallel, there is a qualitative improvement of all components of the strategic triad.

In the ground segment, the deployment of the latest DF-41 mobile ICBMs, equipped with separable individual guidance warheads and capable of carrying up to three warheads, has become a priority.

The naval component is being enhanced by the construction of new-generation Type 096 nuclear missile carriers, which will carry advanced extended-range ballistic missiles.

The air component is being upgraded by equipping modified H-6N bombers with new types of nuclear cruise missiles. To cope with the growing missile forces, the total number of Chinese missile brigades has also increased. This increase is mainly due to an increase in conventional missile stocks, but is also the result of China's nuclear weapons modernization program.

According to experts, the PLA currently has about 45 brigades with ballistic or cruise missiles. Approximately 30 of these brigades are either equipped with or will soon be equipped with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

It is noteworthy that, despite such a large-scale rearmament, China consistently emphasizes the defensive nature of its nuclear doctrine. Beijing remains committed to the principle of non-use of nuclear weapons first, considering capacity-building solely as a necessary measure to maintain strategic parity in the face of the growing American military presence in the region.

In peacetime, the nuclear forces are in a state of moderate combat readiness. In accordance with the principles of peacetime and wartime coordination, constant readiness and the ability to fight at any time, China is strengthening its combat readiness to ensure effective response to military threats and emergencies. According to forecasts of the US military, by 2030 the Chinese nuclear arsenal can overcome the milestone of 1,000 warheads. Although this figure is significantly lower than the American (5,177) and Russian (5,459) reserves, the rapidity of the Chinese breakthrough is causing serious concern both in Washington and among its regional allies.

The US Defense Department's first direct partnership with Open AI fuels concerns over militarized technology– especially as similar systems have already been used to facilitate Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

On Monday, June 16, the United States Department of Defense signed a $200 million contract with OpenAI to deploy generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for military use, despite the company’s previous commitments not to develop AI tools for warfare.

According to the Pentagon, OpenAI—the US-based creator of ChatGPT—will “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.”

Under this cooperation, OpenAI plans to demonstrate how advanced AI can enhance administrative functions, such as healthcare for military service members and cyber defense.

Three minutes, a football and a biscuit. These are all a president of the United States needs to start nuclear war. During a 1974 meeting with lawmakers, President Richard M. Nixon reportedly stated: “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” He was correct. And since then, despite the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, little has changed.

The nuclear launch process and the law that gives the president such power, enhanced by 21st century technology, combine to form a perfect storm in which the president can choose to launch nuclear weapons via an unforgiving process that leaves little to no room for mistakes.

North Korea slammed on Tuesday US President Donald Trump's "Golden Dome" missile shield plan as a "very dangerous" threat that could spark nuclear war in space, state media said.

Trump announced new details and initial funding for the missile shield system last week, calling it "very important for the success and even survival of our country".

The initiative faces significant technical and political challenges, according to analysts, and could come at a hefty price tag.

Like Toto in The Wizard of Oz, at their 1985 summit in Geneva President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pulled back the curtain to reveal the truth behind the terrifying spectre of nuclear war, which their countries were spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prepare for. “A nuclear war cannot be won,” they jointly stated, and “must never be fought.” They omitted the inescapable corollary of those first six words: a nuclear arms race also cannot be won.

China urges US to halt arms sales to Taiwan, stop escalating tensions China’s ‘resolve to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity remains steadfast,’ says Foreign Ministry ISTANBUL

China on Friday urged the US to halt arms supplies to Taipei and stop escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

The demand from Beijing comes amid unconfirmed reports that the US “plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan island to a level exceeding the approximately $18.3 billion sold” during President Donald Trump’s first term, Chinese daily Global Times reported.

“Taiwan question lies at the heart of China’s core interests and is the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing.

The United States and China are entangled in what many have dubbed an “AI arms race.”

In the early days of this standoff, US policymakers drove an agenda centered on “winning” the race, mostly from an economic perspective. In recent months, leading AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic got involved in pushing the narrative of “beating China” in what appeared to be an attempt to align themselves with the incoming Trump administration. The belief that the US can win in such a race was based mostly on the early advantage it had over China in advanced GPU compute resources and the effectiveness of AI’s scaling laws.

But now it appears that access to large quantities of advanced compute resources is no longer the defining or sustainable advantage many had thought it would be. In fact, the capability gap between leading US and Chinese models has essentially disappeared, and in one important way the Chinese models may now have an advantage: They are able to achieve near equivalent results while using only a small fraction of the compute resources available to the leading Western labs.