White House: No Need to Change 'Strategic Nuclear Posture'

The White House on Friday said there is no need to alter the nation's strategic nuclear posture after President Joe Biden's recent comments on nuclear risk, The Hill reports.

Biden, at a recent fundraiser, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming." 

He also said: "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis."

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later said onboard Air Force One: "We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, nor do we have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons."

She also condemned Putin's "irresponsible rhetoric" on nuclear weapons as "no way for the leader of a nuclear-armed state to speak," adding, "that's what the president was making very clear" in his remarks.

Putin said last month, in a speech that announced hundreds of thousands of troops would be mobilized to help in the invasion of Ukraine, that Russia is prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of its territory, and went on to claim that the U.S. and its allies were engaged in "nuclear blackmail" and attempting to "destroy" Russia.

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