The United States must to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China by expanding their conventional forces, strengthening their alliances and strengthening their nuclear weapons modernization program, recommends a bipartisan congressionally appointed panel.

The Strategic Posture Committee’s report was released amid tensions in US relations with China over Taiwan and other issues, and with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

A senior official involved in drafting the report declined to say whether the information gathered by the committee indicated any possible cooperation between China and Russia on the issue of nuclear weapons.

The panel’s conclusions may overturn the current US national security strategy of winning one war and preventing another. It would also require a huge increase in defense spending, which is not certain to be approved by Congress.

“We recognize the fiscal reality but also believe that the state must make these investments,” wrote Madeleine Crindon, the Democratic chairwoman of the committee, and her vice chair, Republican former Sen. John Kyle, in the introduction to their report.

The report runs counter to President Joe Biden’s view that the existing US nuclear arsenal is sufficient to deter the combined forces of Russia and China.

The US and its allies must be prepared to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously. The US-led international order and the values ​​it represents are threatened by the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia,” the report claims.

Congress created this committee, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, in 2022 to assess the threats facing the US and recommend changes to the country’s conventional and nuclear forces.

Threats from China and Russia will intensify over the period 2027-35 and for this “decisions must be made now so that the nation is prepared”, the 145-page report says. It also stresses that the 30-year nuclear weapons modernization program – which began in 2010 and was estimated in 2017 to cost $400 billion by 2046 – must be fully funded to upgrade all nuclear warheads, launch systems and infrastructure. The operational operation of ballistic missile submarines must also be extended and more tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Asia and Europe.