In interview, Professor David C. Logan explores challenges for nuclear weapons strategy
With China’s nuclear forces entering a period of unprecedented growth, Professor David C. Logan’s research helps clarify the risks and dynamics shaping today’s headlines. In an interview with the Fletcher School, he traces the program’s historical roots, examines its rapid evolution and highlights how Fletcher students engage directly with nuclear policy challenges, while outlining what these developments mean for the future of global security.
When did China first attain nuclear weapons?
China conducted its first nuclear test on October 16th, 1964. Most researchers assess this was driven by security concerns from the Korean War and the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1954-55. Chinese leaders became concerned that they might suffer a nuclear strike by the United States, and they believed that acquiring their own nuclear weapons would protect against the “nuclear blackmail” of other nuclear-armed powers.
How has China's nuclear program evolved since then?
China's program developed much more slowly than that of other nuclear weapons states.
After the first test in 1964, roughly 15 years passed before China fielded missiles capable of striking the United States, in the early 1980s. Its nuclear weapons stockpile remained relatively limited for decades. The United States and the Soviet Union were producing tens of thousands of bombs, while China fielded only 200-300 until the late 2010s.
A lot of that has changed in the last several years. China now is estimated to possess perhaps 600 nuclear warheads. That number is expected to grow in the future. And while previously these warheads were only on relatively unsophisticated ground-based ballistic missiles, now China's nuclear-capable delivery systems are increasingly sophisticated and are assigned to the navy and air force as well, providing a nuclear triad.
You were recently quoted in a New York Times article exploring new discoveries about the Chinese program. Could you tell us about the findings?
The recent report was focused on a missile brigade that would be relevant in Taiwan Strait scenarios.
The missile forces are growing in size, not only on the nuclear side, but also on the conventional side. The conventional missiles would be important in a Taiwan conflict, potentially targeting U.S. ships or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets on Taiwan.
Interestingly, this reporting showcases skills that students get here at Fletcher. In my class on technology and international security, we use commercial satellite imagery to look at rocket force brigades and ICBM silos. These are the kinds of tangible professional skills that help students get and succeed in jobs after grad school.
What’s been the U.S. attitude towards China's program, historically?
Before China's first nuclear weapons test, the U.S. was aware of China's program. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations considered a preemptive strike.
That strike didn't occur. The Johnson administration believed that the United States could manage a nuclear-armed China.
But over time, U.S. attitudes and responses towards China’s nuclear weapons program have shifted, as Beijing has expanded and modernized its nuclear forces.
I'll highlight two ways in which U.S attitudes have shifted. One concerns China’s theater-range nuclear systems. These are not intercontinental, so they couldn’t strike the homeland of the United States, but they'd be relevant in a conflict near Taiwan. Some commentators believe the U.S. should field similar systems in response.
The second set of concerns are around whether U.S. nuclear forces are adequate to simultaneously deter Russia and China. Previously, when China had a much smaller nuclear stockpile, U.S. strategists could configure nuclear forces for Russia and include China within those plans. Now with the growth of China's nuclear weapons stockpile, some worry this may no longer be sufficient.
You've published research about elite-public gaps in attitudes towards nuclear weapons, finding that the general public is often more open to the idea of using nuclear weapons than elites. Do Chinese attitudes follow this pattern?
It’s hard to know what Chinese leaders think about nuclear weapons, especially as power is increasingly concentrated within a small group of individuals, and it is increasingly difficult to conduct research in China.
We do have limited research about what the Chinese general public thinks about using nuclear weapons.
As in other nuclear states, Chinese public opinion is fairly malleable. It can shift depending on circumstance, casualty estimates or predictions of effectiveness.
Still, it does appear that the Chinese public may be less willing to support nuclear use than their counterparts in other nuclear states, including the United States, Israel and France.
Will advances in Chinese nuclear programs, coupled by questions about U.S. reliability, lead neighboring states to develop nuclear weapons programs?
China's nuclear modernization and expansion have increased concerns about nuclear proliferation among U.S. allies and partners in the region, including South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Three of these four had previously explored nuclear weapons programs. We’ve seen a loosening of the normative constraints in discussing nuclear weapons, especially in South Korea and Japan.
Research tells us that states that are very dependent on countries like the U.S. are also very vulnerable to nonproliferation policy. This suggests that the U.S. will have significant leverage in stemming nuclear proliferation in the region. But the growing concern about the credibility of U.S. commitments is a significant variable.
Are there particular crisis triggers that you worry about?
The first concern, which has received a lot of attention, is whether China would launch a war of choice and launch an all-out amphibious invasion to take Taiwan. I'm relatively less concerned about that. It's certainly something the United States needs to plan for and is perhaps more likely than in the past, but what I'm increasingly concerned about is a war of accident.
We don't have well-institutionalized channels between high levels of government. We have high levels of strategic distrust. In this environment, it can be easy to misperceive actions on the other side as deliberate, escalatory or menacing, even if they're not intended to be so.
In 2001, a U.S. plane and a Chinese plane collided. The crew of the U.S. plane was forced to land on Chinese territory in Hainan Island. If something like this were to occur today, it might be harder to deescalate.
You’ve helped assess the capabilities of actors, including for The New York Times. What does your assessment suggest about how a crisis might unfold?
It's very difficult to assess the outcome of a conflict. There have been some attempts to war game a potential U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. The results depend a lot on assumptions about where forces are at the start of the conflict and how quickly they can be moved into the combat zone.
One of the main takeaways from the exercises is that a conflict would be incredibly costly for all sides, regardless of the outcome. Hopefully this provides an incentive to avoid conflict in the first place.
How did you first become interested in researching this topic?
From 2012 to 2014, I was living and working in China, teaching English. I decided to focus more of my time on studying the Chinese language, so I went to Beijing and enrolled in a program at a Chinese university.
Half my time was spent at a research institute, where I served as an assistant to a Chinese scholar who was focused on nuclear security questions. He was an incredible mentor and provided a different perspective from what I had been exposed to previously. That focus on teaching and mentorship is something that I've tried to bring to my own work here at Fletcher.
What opportunities do Fletcher students have to work on nuclear security issues?
I teach classes on U.S.-China security relations, nuclear weapons and the connection between technology and international security. In all my classes, we have hands-on, experiential learning opportunities.
In my nuclear weapons class, students recently completed a problem set reverse-engineering the enrichment capacity of Iranian centrifuges using actual data from International Atomic Energy Agency reports. In my class on technology and international security, students use commercial satellite imagery to examine Chinese radar installations on artificial land features in the South China Sea. There's a lot of opportunities for hands-on learning.
I'm also a faculty affiliate with Fletcher’s International Security Studies Program. This semester, we're organizing a Red Team exercise. Students will perform a simulation built around a nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. The simulation is run by experts who have trained senior U.S. military officers and leading CEOs.
Have Fletcher students gone on to shape this field professionally?
In only two years here, I've seen students go to work on these issues in government, international organizations and research centers around the world. They’ve become U.S. foreign service officers, intelligence officers and officials for ministries of national defense in East Asian countries.
A former student wrote a capstone assessing the impact of artificial intelligence on nuclear escalation dynamics, then went to work at a U.S. national lab studying these exact issues. Another student wrote a capstone explored escalation in the Taiwan Strait, then briefed that research to officials at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. It’s rewarding to see Fletcher graduates applying what they’ve learned here to shape real-world decisions on nuclear security and crisis management.