Robert S. Rust

Mar 7, 2025 | blog.ucs.org | Gregory Kulacki |Robert S. Rust |David Watkins

China’s top diplomat repeatedly told US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan his government does not believe the United States and China are engaged in a struggle for global supremacy. It was one of the most important issues—second only to Taiwan—that Foreign Minister Wang Yi raised in August during the latest in a series of secretive backchannel talks with Sullivan that began last year.

Mar 7, 2025 | blog.ucs.org | Robert S. Rust |David Watkins

This blog was co-authored with UCS Policy and Research Analyst Jennifer Knox. In October 2023, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released its report evaluating US nuclear strategy and posture. The Federation of American Scientists called the Commission’s Strategic Posture Review (SPR) a “full-throated embrace of a U.S. nuclear build-up,” and it’s not hard to see why.

Mar 7, 2025 | blog.ucs.org | Robert S. Rust |David Watkins

Earlier this year, the New York Times published an article claiming that Chinese military strategists are looking to use China’s nuclear weapons in a new, more aggressive way. The article’s main source was a 2012 speech given by China’s President Xi Jinping to China’s Second Artillery (now the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force), which is responsible for China’s conventional and nuclear missiles.