Nevertheless, U.S. planners might argue that however improbable the extreme scenario of a combined Chinese and Russian nuclear first strike might be, the size of their combined forces could provide a measure of coercive bargaining power vis-a-vis NATO and the United States. Images do matter, and nuclear swaggering is not unknown in Cold War and post-Cold War history. China and Russia might backstop each other’s image of nuclear surety in the face of U.S. or allied pressure in favor of Taiwan or Ukraine. But if so, it would be more likely that a “gap” between the numbers of non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons held by Russia (especially) and China and located in the immediate theater of military operations, compared to those available to the United States or NATO, could provide a local deterrent effect against conventional escalation by the latter. Of course, any decision to cross the threshold of nuclear first use would be monumental in itself, given the precedent of eight decades of nuclear abstinence since the bombing of Nagasaki. But tactical nuclear first use would be arguably more credible in the circumstances of an ongoing conventional war than a strategic nuclear war opening the door to civilizational destruction. 

China’s emergence as a nuclear superpower adds complexity to the challenge of managing nuclear-strategic stability. Still, it does not preclude the development of creative policies and strategies for stable deterrence, nuclear arms control, supporting the nonproliferation regime, and the avoidance of nuclear war. China’s nuclear deterrent cannot be understood in isolation from its conventional force modernization and its desire to push back against the international rules-based order favored by the United States and its allies in Asia. China and Russia have entered into a military and security alliance that is transactional more than existential. China’s global objectives align with those of Russia to some extent, but not totally. 

In particular, President Xi has shown much less willingness to make nuclear threats for coercive diplomacy than President Putin. Also, China, compared to Russia, is more intensive in its involvement in international ad hoc coalitions to resolve shared problems (climate change, pandemics, mass migrations) within a collaborative framework. Russia, on the other hand, under Putin, supports a rejectionist front that includes North Korea and Iran, dabbling in backward-looking imperialism, hothouse nuclear diplomacy, and support for transnational terrorism.

Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous books and articles on international security issues. 

Lawrence Korb, a retired Navy Captain, has held national security positions at several think tanks and universities and served as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.

Image: Maxal Tamor / Shutterstock.com.