China’s Continental Conundrum: Nuclear Geopolitics and American Strategy in the Western Pacific

Kyle Balzer | Dan Blumenthal

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While American policymakers and defense analysts have identified the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the greatest threat to US national security, there is no consensus on the CCP’s ultimate political objectives and its strategy to achieve them. Moreover, 

absent from this debate on China’s strategic intentions is an assessment of how the CCP’s ongoing nuclear force buildup fits into its grand strategy.

Analysts have generally focused on military-technical issues divorced from the broader geopolitical picture The nuclear debate has therefore centered on narrow issues such as weapons capabilities, employment strategies, 

and arms-race stability at the expense of more fundamental political questions. Yet China’s vast nuclear buildup can be fully appreciated only in the context of the CCP’s geopolitics.