While much of the world is watching drones transform the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East, another military revolution is taking place largely out of sight.
It is happening beneath the oceans.
Russia and China are rapidly developing underwater nuclear capabilities designed around one of the most important principles of nuclear warfare: survival. Missiles sitting in fixed silos can be targeted. Air bases can be monitored by satellites. But a nuclear submarine that disappears beneath millions of square miles of ocean presents a completely different problem.
And both Moscow and Beijing are investing heavily in making that problem much more difficult for the United States.
Russia’s newest contribution is particularly ominous.
The nuclear-powered submarine Khabarovsk reportedly began sea trials in Russia’s White Sea in August. Launched in November 2025, the vessel is the first of a new class specifically designed to carry Russia’s Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater weapon. Reports indicate that Khabarovsk could eventually carry as many as six Poseidons.
Poseidon is unlike the ballistic missiles that dominated Cold War nuclear planning. It is essentially an enormous autonomous underwater vehicle powered by its own nuclear reactor and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Russian claims surrounding the weapon have often been dramatic and should be treated cautiously, but the concept itself is serious. Instead of sending a warhead through space on a predictable ballistic trajectory, Poseidon is designed to travel enormous distances underwater before approaching its target.
That makes it primarily a weapon of retaliation.
If Russia’s land-based missiles, bombers and military installations were devastated during a nuclear exchange, Moscow wants an enemy to know that weapons hidden beneath the ocean could still be coming.
That is why Poseidon has earned the disturbing nickname “doomsday weapon.”
China, meanwhile, is pursuing a somewhat more conventional but potentially even more consequential expansion of its underwater nuclear forces.
On July 6, Beijing conducted a rare test of a strategic missile launched from a nuclear-powered submarine toward the Pacific. China said the missile carried a dummy warhead and described the launch as routine training, but the test demonstrated something Washington and its Pacific allies cannot ignore: China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent is becoming increasingly capable.
The missile was widely believed to be China’s JL-3, although Beijing did not publicly identify it. The JL-3 has an estimated range of roughly 10,000 kilometers, giving Chinese ballistic-missile submarines the ability to threaten portions of the continental United States without traveling nearly as far into the Pacific as earlier Chinese systems required.
China currently operates six Jin-class Type 094 ballistic-missile submarines and has been upgrading them with longer-range JL-3 missiles. Even more important is what comes next: Beijing is developing the quieter Type 096 ballistic-missile submarine while rapidly expanding its broader nuclear-powered submarine fleet.
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U.S. naval intelligence warned Congress earlier this year that China’s undersea forces could eventually challenge American regional maritime dominance. China’s submarine fleet already exceeds 60 vessels, while its shift toward increased production of nuclear-powered submarines represents a significant change from its historical dependence on diesel-electric boats.
