Trump and Rubio are playing ‘the art of the squeal’ in Cuba



Commentators keep treating President Trump’s moves against Venezuela and Iran as random, emotional, or “impulsive.” They aren’t. They read like strategic actions aimed at the real peer adversary — China — which now finds itself short roughly 20% of a key commodity that powers everything from industrial output to military operations: oil.

Orange Man Bad managed to hit another long-term communist adversary at the same time: Cuba.

Trump isn’t sending Marines to Havana. He’s squeezing the regime into an economic takeover.

After the Maduro snatch-and-bag operation — and after Washington threatened heavy tariffs on Mexico if it kept shipping petroleum products to Cuba — Havana’s fuel supply has reportedly fallen to roughly 35% of its monthly needs.

In 2025, Cuba imported about 13.7 million barrels of oil — roughly 112,000 barrels per day of crude and refined petroleum products — supplied primarily by Venezuela (about 61% of imports) and Mexico (about 25%), with Russia and Algeria covering most of the rest.

Trump’s executive order in late January authorized heavy tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba. Mexico suspended shipments to avoid U.S. retaliation. At the same time, a de facto maritime quarantine has targeted “ghost tankers” attempting to evade sanctions. Even Russian deliveries have run into trouble. Reports say the tanker Sea Horse, carrying roughly 200,000 barrels of Russian gas and oil, diverted in late February to avoid seizure or sanctions risk.

Cuba now faces a severe fuel crunch.

International observers — including U.N.-linked agencies — have described the situation as catastrophic. The island’s power grid has slid toward collapse, and the global fuel spike tied to U.S. action in Iran has only tightened the vise.

The petroleum deficit has reportedly cut national electricity generation capacity by about 65%. That leaves roughly one-third of needed power available at any given time. In Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo, residents report blackouts lasting more than 20 hours a day. In Havana, scheduled cuts reportedly jumped from four hours to as many as 18 hours a day. Hospitals have reportedly performed surgeries by cellphone light. Water systems that rely on electric pumps have failed across large areas. Garbage collection in Havana has stalled because the trucks are out of gas.

The communist government has responded with wartime austerity measures. Major airports have suspended refueling for international flights. Airlines such as Air Canada and Air France have canceled or rerouted flights, gutting tourism — one of the regime’s few remaining sources of cash. State companies have shifted to reduced schedules to conserve power.

RELATED: Iran, China, and Trump’s ‘art of the squeal’

Photo by the White House via X Account/Anadolu via Getty Images

Washington has offered one narrow escape valve. On February 25, the U.S. issued a limited license allowing American companies to sell oil to Cuba’s emerging private sector. Analysts have described it as “a drop in the bucket.” It isn’t enough to run the heavy thermoelectric plants the national grid needs.

Last week, Trump publicly floated the idea of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba. The phrase stays diplomatically vague, but the surrounding actions and rhetoric suggest a specific approach. Trump described Cuba as a failing nation because it has “no money. They have no anything right now.”

He isn’t going to send a Marine expeditionary force to Havana. He’s pressuring the regime to cut a deal that looks like gently coerced economic integration: end the communist monopoly over banking and energy, allow U.S. firms to buy and operate failing infrastructure (telecom, ports, the power grid), and expand the private sector until the Communist Party can’t enforce centralized control.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has echoed that direction. He has argued that Cuba needs a “different economic model” and said the U.S. would welcome reforms that open space for economic and political freedom. Reports also suggest back-channel contact, though the administration has not confirmed details.

Cuba’s current leader, Communist Party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel, now sits in the position of a man about to get a colonoscopy. He should pray Orange Man Bad feels generous with the sedation — or he’ll learn the hard way what “the art of the squeal” means.

‘Not just about Iran’ — former Navy SEAL reveals Trump’s REAL endgame in the Middle East



For nearly half a century, every U.S. president has drawn a firm red line against Iran — only to watch the regime cross it time and again.

Now, following President Donald Trump’s decisive military strike last weekend that targeted hundreds of sites and eliminated key figures in Iran’s top leadership, Glenn Beck sits down with former Navy SEAL and bestselling author Jack Carr to unpack what this pivotal moment truly means for the region and beyond.

When he first heard the news that the U.S. and Israel had launched a joint military attack on Iran, Carr’s initial reaction was one of “sadness.”

“It made me sad because diplomacy had failed,” he says, arguing that Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign against Iran was doomed to fail because acquiescence to any of the three non-negotiables — no nuclear weapons, no ballistic missiles, and no supporting terrorist proxies — would make the Iranian regime look “weak,” something it cannot suffer if it wants to stay in power.

“Any covert action we’d attempted over the last year or in previous administrations over the past decades, that has failed also, and now we’re in a full-scale military engagement with Iran,” he laments.

Glenn agrees wholeheartedly: “Jimmy Carter said, ‘This can’t stand.’ ... Ronald Reagan said, ‘They got to stop.’ ... H.W. Bush, ‘It’s got to stop. They got to get to the negotiating table.’ Clinton said that, W. Bush said that, Obama said that, Trump said that in the first term, Biden said that.”

“I mean, at some point you’re like, this is insane. We’ve tried giving them billions of dollars; we’ve tried holding money back; we’ve tried carrots and sticks, and nothing works,” he continues, calling Trump “the first one to say, ‘I’m not kicking the can down to the next president. It’s over.’”

“Some of [those former presidents] actually helped Iran get either more powerful or gave them more options when it came to building up these different weapons programs, to crushing any popular uprising or protests. So I’m not surprised that we got to this point,” Carr says.

“When people declare war on you and tell you that they want to destroy you, you probably don’t want that person to have a nuclear weapon or to have options that can lead to your demise,” he adds.

But Glenn thinks this military operation against Iran is “much bigger” than preventing the terrorist regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“This is about Trump redesigning the entire world and going after CRINK,” he says, arguing that Trump is aiming to “take the I” out of CRINK, “which hurts oil for China, hurts money through the oil for Russia,” and weakens Iran’s supply of drones to Russia.

“To look at this just as Iran, I think you’ll never understand why we did this. Do you believe that’s true, or am I wrong?” he asks.

“You’re absolutely right,” Carr says.

He explains that Trump’s military strike on Iran disrupts China’s crucial economic and technological lifeline to the regime. China buys huge amounts of discounted Iranian oil to evade U.S. sanctions and has committed $400 billion over 25 years to Iran — including selling advanced surveillance technology that helps the Iranian government monitor and suppress its own people.

By weakening or breaking this support, the U.S. not only destabilizes Iran’s regime but also frees up American attention and resources to address bigger long-term threats — confronting China over Taiwan (the island China claims as its own) and the tiny but vital computer chips known as semiconductors (the essential “brains” powering phones, computers, cars, AI systems, and military equipment), most of which are produced in Taiwan — while also handling threats from Russia.

“So you’re exactly right. This is not just about Iran,” he says.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.

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The Iran Attack Presents A Series Of Reality Checks For The World

American military power is unrivaled, while Europeans and Canadians give speeches about shoving the American military aside and becoming rival powers. This is not real.

Khamenei, Haman, and a Purim for the Ages

This evening, Jews around the world will celebrate Purim, one of the narrowest escapes and greatest triumphs in biblical history. Around 2,500 years ago, Esther and her uncle Mordecai thwarted Haman’s scheme to convince King Ahasuerus to slaughter all the captive Jews in Persia. The skill with which these heroes staved off destruction has heartened Jews and haunted their enemies ever since.

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World leaders respond to regime-change strikes on Iran: 'Peacekeeper is at it again'



The joint American and Israeli military operation launched against Iran on Saturday — dubbed Operation Epic Fury — has prompted mixed responses abroad.

While Russian officials were among the most critical of the strikes, several European leaders similarly condemned the American-Israeli initiative.

Amid reports of massive explosions in numerous Iranian cities as well as retaliatory attacks on American bases in the region and Israel, a spokesman for the British government stated, "We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict."

The British spokesman — whose government previously blocked a request from President Donald Trump to use U.K. air bases during a preemptive attack on Iran —added that "Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and that is why we have continually supported efforts to reach a negotiated solution."

'Take all firm measures necessary to confront Iranian violations.'

Whereas the U.K. government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer appeared less than enthusiastic about the strikes, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch expressed solidarity with the U.S. and Israel "as they take on the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its vile regime."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke critically of "Iran's murderous regime and the Revolutionary Guards," but claimed that the "developments in Iran are greatly concerning" and urged "all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to protect civilians, and to fully respect international law."

Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs noted that it "is deeply alarmed by today's strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran," and echoed von der Leyen's request that warring parties "exercise maximum restraint, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure."

RELATED: Iran sparks regional war after retaliating against US military assets over 'massive' US-Israel strike

Aftermath of an Iran strike on the main headquarters of the US Navy's 5th Fleet in Manama. Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images.

Some European leaders similarly expressed concern about escalation while signaling their opposition to the Iran regime, the health of which is now in doubt.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that "the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security."

Macron, presuming there is something left of Iran's "Islamic regime," suggested Tehran "now has no other option but to engage in good faith ... negotiations to end its nuclear and ballistic programs."

Espen Barth Eide, Norway's foreign affairs minister, did not similarly balance his critical remarks about the strikes with criticism of Iran, suggesting instead that the initial strikes were unlawful.

"The attack is described by Israel as a pre-emptive strike, but it is not in accordance with international law. A pre-emptive attack would require the existence of an imminent threat," said Eide.

Spain's leftist prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, spoke scathingly of the strikes as well as of Iran's retaliation, stating, "We reject the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order."

"We likewise reject the actions of the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guard," continued Sanchez. "We cannot afford another prolonged and devastating war in the Middle East."

Russia, which recently held joint military exercises with Iran, went further in its condemnation of the strikes.

RELATED: U.S. and Israel launch 'massive' strikes against Iran: 'We may have casualties'

Photo by Bedirhan Demirel/Anadolu via Getty Images

Mikhail Ulyanov, a Russian foreign services official, said in a statement shared by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, "The new aggression of Israel and the US against Iran is fraught with the danger of significant deterioration and destabilisation in the Middle East."

Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, stated, "The peacekeeper is at it again."

"The talks with Iran were just a cover. Everyone knew that. So who has more patience to wait for the enemy’s sorry end now?" continued Medvedev. "The US is just 249 years old. The Persian Empire was founded over 2500 years ago. Let’s see what happens in 100 years or so."

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, the foreign minister of Cuba, an Iranian ally, referred to the attacks as "treacherous aggression," adding, "These irresponsible actions undermine international peace and security, and constitute a clear transgression of International Law and the UN Charter."

Communist China, which has in recent years developed a strong strategic partnership with Iran, was relatively quiet about the latest joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in West Asia. As of early Saturday morning, Beijing appears to have limited its public communications on the matter to words of caution to Chinese nationals in the region.

Saudi Arabia and other American strategic partners in the Middle East focused their ire on Iran.

The Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry called "on the international community to condemn these blatant attacks and to take all firm measures necessary to confront Iranian violations that undermine the security and stability of the region."

Qatar echoed Saudi Arabia, calling the Iranian strikes a "flagrant violation of its national sovereignty, a direct infringement on its security and territorial integrity, and an unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and stability of the region."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney avoided criticizing the attacks, noting instead, "Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security."

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Trump Avoids Drama To Focus on Foreign Imminent Threats

State of the Union addresses are usually sedate affairs, but the Supreme Court turned this year’s into must-see TV. The 6-3 decision invalidating the Liberation Day tariffs landed like a bomb last Friday. Many expected President Trump to train his ire on Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues on Tuesday night, especially after his post-ruling outbursts.

The post Trump Avoids Drama To Focus on Foreign Imminent Threats appeared first on .

What will replace the old world order?



The pivotal question of what will follow the crack-up of the liberal international order dominated the highest levels of European politics at the recent 2026 Munich Security Conference.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave his own forceful answer, following Vice President JD Vance’s provocative speech last year. Rubio delivered an equally spirited address that issued an ultimatum: Rationalizing collapse and weakness is no longer the policy of the United States — and it should no longer be Europe’s policy either. America has no “interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” he said.

Alliances should be made, renewed, or even disbanded depending on whether they help secure America’s interests in the present.

Instead, Rubio urged a reformation of the “global institutions of the old order” to defend and strengthen the key pillars of Western civilization.

The problem in Rubio’s mind was that the 20th-century web of international alliances, designed to counter the Soviets in the wake of two devastating world wars, took on a life of its own. Its keepers began putting the preservation of their supranational relations “above the vital interests of our people and our nations.”

Institutions such as the United Nations have utterly failed to protect national interests, and they simply have no answers to the most pressing problems in international affairs today. Instead, they actively encourage deindustrialization, mass migration, and shortsighted climate policies, causing a loss of confidence in the very sources that have supplied the West’s vitality for centuries.

To counter this, Rubio proposed that the U.S. partner with Europe to lead a “reinvigorated alliance … that boldly races into the future.” It will focus on “advancing our mutual interests and new frontiers, unshackling our ingenuity, our creativity, and the dynamic spirit to build a new Western century.” If the West wants to safeguard and promote its historic ways of life, then an international realignment is inescapably necessary.

The themes Rubio articulated were also the subject of this year’s “Budapest Global Dialogue,” an annual conference put on by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation. This year’s gathering focused on what HIIA President Gladden Pappin presented as the choices currently before the world: endless conflict that’s likely to spin out of control or the emergence of a foundation for long-term security, peace, and prosperity.

Keynote speakers and panelists agreed that continuing to prop up a decaying international order was not a viable option. Though necessary for its time, it is clearly inadequate in a world that looks far different from the one that featured creeping death in the form of the USSR. As Rubio recently told a gaggle of reporters before his address in Munich, “The old world is gone.” He noted that nations must re-examine their roles in our “new era in geopolitics.”

RELATED: What’s Greenland to us?

Photo by Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

The urgency of this project has been amplified by the European Union’s various machinations against popular government. Its censorship machine is attempting to export the EU’s liberty-denying laws to America and other Western nations. Unsurprisingly, the problem of censorship, which has been a chief focus of Vice President Vance, took up much of the conversation of the opening-night panel.

Headlined by Sarah B. Rogers, the U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, and Balázs Orbán, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political director, panelists discussed the countless issues stemming from the EU’s Digital Services Act. It uses “trusted flaggers” like HateAid — an organization funded by the German government — to censor online speech, including that of Americans.

Pappin and other participants also noted the myriad problems stemming from unchecked globalization. Nations happily traded away the most basic elements of sovereignty for a mess of pottage in the form of lower prices on select goods. This was justified using free-market language, in which attaining the highest GDP possible seemingly became the summum bonum of political life. Former Trump administration official Andrew Peek termed this problem “economics without politics.”

In the United States in particular, key supply chains were mostly shipped out of the country, the folly of which was fully exposed during the COVID debacle. The U.S. essentially followed a systematic deindustrialization plan as we helped build up other countries, especially China.

China’s rise didn’t happen solely due to its sheer geographic size or population. It occurred because the Clinton administration and Western leaders decided the best way to fend it off was by inviting the Chinese into the heart of the world’s economic system. This was a catastrophic choice that helped hasten the collapse of the old order.

Now, China is by far the world leader in many positive economic indicators. The country is also looking to become the world’s first electrostate, adding another gigawatt of capacity to its grid every year.

Meanwhile, the United States is facing mounting problems with our electric grid, which will be further exacerbated by the construction of data centers and older plants going offline. No nuclear power plants were built in the U.S. between 1996 and 2016. Additionally, as noted in a Department of Energy report last year, utopian green energy mandates have helped bring the U.S. closer to the brink of a full-blown energy crisis.

RELATED: America won’t beat China without Alaska

Photo by Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images

Though the conference featured discussions on other pivotal topics — especially the promise and peril of artificial general intelligence — there wasn’t a dedicated panel on immigration. But that didn’t stop speakers from addressing the topic. Alexandre del Valle, a professor at France’s IPAG, called mass Islamic immigration to Europe a long-term bomb. And in a keynote address that served as a campaign speech of sorts, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó celebrated the fact that illegal migration to Hungary is nonexistent.

Szijjártó also devoted time to underscoring the stakes of the upcoming Hungarian parliamentary elections. The April 12 contest will feature a rather personal battle between current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Péter Magyar, who resigned from Fidesz in 2024 and then joined TISZA, the Respect and Freedom Party. The campaign billboards and posters I saw plastered around Budapest, which were nearly all pro-Orbán, showed Magyar gladly acquiescing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence to send Hungarian armaments to Ukraine.

Fidesz is asking voters if they want to keep Orbán’s government in power or elect those who would sacrifice the country’s blood and treasure in war. President Trump clearly wants the former. During Rubio’s trip to Budapest after his Munich speech, he said that the American president is “deeply committed” to Orbán’s victory in April.

As the Trump administration sees it, the path forward is clear: maintaining alliances when political goals and traditions are shared, as is the case between Hungary and the United States. And as Rubio was careful to point out in Munich, when alliances become strained, renewal through strategic thinking that connects means and ends is essential. One such example is Elbridge Colby’s recent discussion of the creation of NATO 3.0, in which U.S. allies bear more of the financial burden.

What won’t work, however, is elevating prudential considerations to the level of principle, as world leaders and bureaucrats have done far too often in recent decades. They have frozen in amber the specific circumstances of the second half of the 20th century, thinking that those paradigms must forever dictate how nations should act. But as Dhruva Jaishankar, the executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America, pointed out, the ballroom in which the 2026 Budapest Global Dialogue was held was built in 1896. Five international orders have come and gone in that time.

Contrary to the Anne Applebaums of our foreign policy elite class, who have helped drive the West into a ditch, the Nazis aren’t marching just over the horizon, and Vladimir Putin isn’t the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. Alliances should be made, renewed, or even disbanded depending on whether they help secure America’s interests in the present. As Daniel J. Mahoney is fond of saying, it isn’t always Munich 1938. Serious leaders acknowledge current realities and marry their rhetoric to actions that will lead to peace, prosperity, and the good of the West — and the good of America above all.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

Hillary Clinton fumes as Czech politician calls out her Trump derangement syndrome



Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton continued her failed campaign against President Donald Trump during a Munich Security Conference discussion on Saturday, characterizing him as a betrayer and destroyer.

After one of Clinton's more loveless Valentine's Day rants, an official from the Czech Republic highlighted her Trump derangement syndrome and defended the president, stressing that the man whom Clinton so despises is a "reaction" to the extremism and failures that preceded his rise to power.

'Can I please finish my points?'

When asked whether America's shifting relationship with international law "brings a new rift within the West," Clinton — a champion of the Iraq War and other foreign entanglements that proved ruinous — attacked Trump's efforts to broker an end to the Ukraine-Russia war, calling his position toward Kyiv "disgraceful" and claiming the embattled nation, which hasn't had presidential elections for nearly seven years, is "fighting for our democracy and our values of freedom and civilization on the front lines."

The moderator of the Rockefeller Foundation-backed panel discussion, Bronwen Maddox, director of Chatham House, pressed Clinton further on whether she thinks Trump "has destroyed the West."

Clinton — the point woman on the Obama administration's "reset" policy with Russia — enthusiastically responded, "He has betrayed the West. He's betrayed human values. He's betrayed the NATO Charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

RELATED: How Hillary Clinton turned empathy into a political cudgel

Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Asked by Maddox whether he agreed with Clinton's assessment, Czech Republic Deputy Prime Minister Petr Macinka made clear that his outlook isn't colored by the same personal animus.

Macinka, a right-wing populist, turned to Clinton and said, "First, I think you really don't like him."

"You know that is absolutely true!" Clinton responded. "Not only do I not like him, I don't like him because of what he's doing to the United States and the world, and I think you should take a hard look at it if you think that there is something good that will come out of that."

'Too far from reality.'

Macinka proceeded to note that Trump and his actions in America are a "reaction" to "policies that really went too far — too far from the regular people, too far from reality."

Despite multiple interruptions from Clinton, the Czech suggested Trump rose in reaction to cancel culture, the "woke revolution," the "gender revolution," and climate alarmism.

"Which gender [revolution]?" Clinton interrupted. "Women having their rights?"

After clarifying that he was referring to the incursion of radical gender ideology into the mainstream and anticipating another interruption, Macinka said, "Can I please finish my points? I'm sorry that it makes you nervous. I'm really sorry for that."

While audience members booed, Clinton said, "Doesn't make me nervous. It makes me very, very unhappy."

Macinka proceeded to point out that Ukraine is not fighting for a collective freedom and future but its own, then cast doubt on the supposed beneficence of those in the West trying to help out Kyiv.

While Clinton was attacking him in Germany on Saturday, Trump reshared a Feb. 5 message from Steve Witkoff, his special envoy for peace missions, which noted that "delegations from the United States, Ukraine, and Russia agreed to exchange 314 prisoners — the first such exchange in five months. This outcome was achieved from peace talks that have been detailed and productive."

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Nukes by the numbers: A problem we can’t wish away



Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Russia and China increasingly lean on nuclear weapons to pursue their national interests. Together, they could surpass the U.S. strategic nuclear force in numbers, creating a multiple-challenger problem and raising the risk of coordination between adversaries.

Put plainly: The nuclear balance is moving against the United States.

The DIA projects more than missiles and warheads. It predicts that China will deploy 60 fractional-orbit bombardment systems by 2035 — systems designed to complicate warning and response.

Start with Russia. The DIA projects a force of 400 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Fifty would be Sarmats, each reportedly capable of carrying up to 20 high-yield warheads — about 1,000 warheads. The remaining 350 would be Yars missiles, with roughly four medium-yield warheads each — about 1,400 more. That puts Russia at roughly 2,400 warheads on land-based ICBMs alone.

Russia’s sea-based force adds more. The Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile reportedly carries six warheads. Under the DIA’s forecast, that comes to about 1,152 additional warheads, pushing the combined ICBM/SLBM total to roughly 3,552. Russian strategic bombers can carry still more — around 1,000 warheads on air-launched systems.

That implies a Russian long-range strategic force as high as 4,552 warheads — far above the 2010 New START ceiling.

China’s trajectory looks even more unsettling. The DIA now projects 700 Chinese ICBMs by 2035, a striking revision given the agency’s history of underestimating Beijing’s growth. China reportedly produces 50 to 75 ICBMs per year. With roughly 400 already fielded, an additional 300 by 2035 are well within reach even at a slower production rate.

Warhead potential varies by missile type. The DF-31A can carry three re-entry vehicles. The DF-41 can reportedly carry up to 10 warheads. Depending on the mix, China could field anywhere from roughly 2,100 to 7,000 ICBM warheads.

The DIA also forecasts 132 Chinese SLBMs by 2035: 72 JL-3 missiles and 60 additional missiles for three new Type 096 ballistic-missile submarines. If the JL-3 carries three warheads, that yields 216 SLBM warheads. If the new SLBM carries at least six, that adds 360 more. In that scenario, China fields about 576 SLBM warheads — bringing the total for Chinese ICBMs and SLBMs to roughly 2,616 to 7,616 warheads.

The DIA projects more than missiles and warheads. It predicts that China will deploy 60 fractional-orbit bombardment systems by 2035 — systems designed to complicate warning and response. It also anticipates roughly 4,000 hypersonic weapons, many of which can evade current defenses and approach from unpredictable trajectories. Some could potentially carry nuclear payloads. China also produces hypersonic vehicles at scale and at far lower cost than the U.S.

North Korea compounds the problem. The DIA forecasts that Pyongyang could field about 50 ICBMs. That adds a third nuclear challenger and increases the risk of coordination among Russia, China, and North Korea during a crisis.

RELATED: How the military is computing the killing chain

Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images

No quick fixes

Now consider the United States. The modernization plan centers on 400 Sentinel ICBMs deployed in existing silos through roughly 2045, with 400 warheads but potentially 800 to 1,200 in an upload scenario. At sea, the U.S. plans 12 Columbia-class submarines, each with 16 missiles. If each missile carries up to eight warheads, the fleet could carry 1,536 warheads. Combined, that produces 2,736 fast-flying warheads in a maximum-load scenario.

The bomber leg adds more, at least on paper. A force of B-52s and B-21s carrying cruise missiles and gravity bombs could add up to roughly 720 additional warheads, pushing a hypothetical total to about 3,456 strategic long-range warheads. That number may exceed the available warheads in the stockpile and planned cruise-missile inventories, but it illustrates the upper bound of what current plans could support.

Even that maximum posture faces a timing problem. Triad experts estimate that the United States would need at least four years to upload an expanded warhead force. Against a potential Russian and Chinese deployed force with more than 11,000 long-range warheads, the U.S. could face a numerical disadvantage of at least 3-1. More importantly, in this scenario the United States would already sit at its build limits: Sentinel and D-5 capacities would be maxed out.

We could add more bombers, but those aircraft also support critical conventional missions that few allies can perform. Current plans call for 100 B-21s, with growing support for 150 to 200. Additional ICBMs, submarines, or bombers would arrive late — often after 2040. The U.S. has 50 additional, currently empty ICBM silos that could help, but the vulnerability window could still remain open for years.

Time to build — again

Some argue that raw warhead counts do not matter. That view may comfort American planners, but it does not necessarily describe how adversaries think. Arms control — from SALT to New START — rested on the premise that limits matter and that verification matters. President Reagan captured the logic: “Trust but verify.”

If numbers never mattered, verification never would have.

History also suggests that superiority can translate into leverage. President Kennedy believed nuclear advantage helped the United States stare down the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He reportedly called the newly deployed Minuteman force “my ace in the hole.” He similarly saw the Polaris submarine force as insurance against Soviet pressure during the Berlin crisis.

None of this replaces sound diplomacy. Military strength without strategy becomes bluster. Diplomacy without credible force becomes impotent. Henry Kissinger made that point repeatedly, and it remains true in a nuclear age.

If the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission is correct that Russia and China practice nuclear blackmail and coercion, the United States cannot assume shared premises about deterrence, arms control, or restraint.

RELATED: Trump’s space order shows why the Outer Space Treaty must go

Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Consider the recent arms-control record. Under the Moscow and New START agreements, the U.S. and Russia reduced deployed strategic warheads by roughly 4,500 each, bringing the total to roughly 1,700 to 1,800. Russia may have sought to keep U.S. deployed forces below 2,000 for roughly two decades while it modernized, recovered economically, and positioned itself for a new era of confrontation.

If China and Russia achieve meaningful numerical superiority, they may gain coercive leverage that changes behavior across regions. At the same time, abolition advocates urge the United States to abandon deterrence and extended deterrence, leaving America's forces below those of its adversaries. That would signal weakness to NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, undermining confidence and pushing some to consider their own nuclear options.

That outcome would be bitterly ironic. Many critics predicted that pushing European allies to spend more would weaken the alliance. In reality, a stronger NATO — anchored by U.S. power and reinforced by allied conventional buildup — raises the cost of aggression and reduces the risk of miscalculation.

The enemy always gets a vote. Our adversaries have cast theirs. They treat nuclear force not simply as a deterrent, but as a tool of coercion and a shield for aggression — an adjunct to the unrestricted warfare the U.S. now faces.

Because nuclear weapons underpin America’s deterrent strength and provide the umbrella under which U.S. military and diplomatic power operate, the United States must complete — and expand — its nuclear modernization plans. That effort should include credible theater and tactical nuclear capabilities as well as strategic systems. These forces function as a firewall against coercion and attack.

No substitute exists, regardless of how strongly abolition advocates wish otherwise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

America Needs a New START? Our Enemies Never Stopped.

To the shock, horror, and dismay of onlookers around the world, the New START treaty expired on Thursday. U.N. secretary-general António Guterres called it "a grave moment for international peace and security" and lamented that, "for the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the [American and Russian] strategic nuclear arsenals." Nuclear disarmament advocates and their media supporters fear the onset of an arms race and global thermonuclear war.

The post America Needs a New START? Our Enemies Never Stopped. appeared first on .