The US Navy's Manufactured Threat Perception: China's Nuclear 'Danger'
Let's follow the trail: The US Navy is again sounding alarms about China's nuclear capabilities, suggesting Beijing poses a grave threat to American shores. This narrative, a familiar refrain, conveniently overlooks decades of US nuclear policy and expansion. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the US maintained an uncontested nuclear monopoly, dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This act established a precedent for nuclear use that no other nation has replicated. Later, during the Cold War, the US developed a 'first-strike' doctrine, openly contemplating pre-emptive nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union. Documents from the 1960s, such as the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), detailed scenarios for massive nuclear assaults. Fast forward to
today, and Washington decries China's nuclear modernization as destabilizing, a position that ignores the US's own continuous development and upgrading of its nuclear arsenal, which includes thousands of warheads and a trillion-dollar modernization program currently underway. The US is the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons offensively, yet it consistently portrays other nations'
defensive capabilities as inherently aggressive. This is a double standard. China's known nuclear arsenal is estimated to be significantly smaller than that of the US and Russia, with a policy of 'no first use.' Yet, Washington insists on framing Beijing's moves as an imminent global danger. This pattern of fear-mongering perfectly serves to justify increased military budgets, broader US naval