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The Chinese armed forces now have more intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers than the US does, the US military warned recently. But it noted that the US still has a nuclear edge over its great power rival.
Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of the US Strategic Command, sent memos to both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees in late January detailing the status of China’s ICBM activities as of October 2022.
“The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States,” Cotton wrote in letters sent to the respective committees on January 26, letters obtained by Insider. US Strategic Command — or STRATCOM — is responsible for nuclear operations, command, control, and communications.
Cotton added that the number of ICBMs in China’s active inventory “has not exceeded the number of ICBM in the active inventory of the United States.” He also said that the “number of nuclear warheads equipped on such missiles of China has not exceeded the number of nuclear warheads equipped on such missiles of the United States.
