NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance members are negotiating to deploy more nuclear weapons in the face of growing threats from Russia and China. He said this in an interview The Telegraph.
Stoltenberg added that the bloc should show the world its nuclear arsenal to send a direct message to its enemies.
He said there had been live consultations among members about removing missiles from storage and putting them on standby, and called for transparency as a deterrent.
"I won't go into the operational details of how many nuclear warheads should be operational and how many should be stored, but we need to consult on those issues. This is exactly what we do," — Stoltenberg said.
Nuclear transparency must be a cornerstone of NATO's nuclear strategy, he said, so that the alliance is prepared for what he called a more dangerous world.
"Transparency helps send a direct message that we are, of course, a nuclear alliance. Of course, the goal of NATO is a world without nuclear weapons, but as long as there are nuclear weapons, we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons and NATO does not is a more dangerous world." said the Secretary General.
He warned that China, in particular, was investing heavily in modern weapons, including its nuclear arsenal, which Stoltenberg said would grow to 2030 warheads by 1000.
"And this means that in the not-too-distant future, NATO may face something it has never faced before, namely two potential adversaries with nuclear weapons - China and Russia. Of course, this has consequences," — the head of the alliance noted.
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