Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States is facing nuclear-armed adversaries in both Europe and Asia for the first time in its history, arguing that the twin challenge from Russia and China has made the moment “very perilous.” Gates made the remarks in an interview that aired on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan on May 17, 2026, as the transcript was updated at 10:24 AM EDT.
Gates said China, once it completes its strategic nuclear modernization, along with Russia, will have nearly twice as many strategic nuclear warheads deployed as the United States. He said the scale of the challenge is unlike anything Washington has confronted, pointing to China’s manufacturing and industrial power, which he said now rivals or exceeds that of any country the U.S. has faced since at least the British Empire.
He also argued that China is not just a military competitor. Gates said Beijing has more non-military instruments of power than any adversary the United States has faced, “certainly more than the Soviet Union,” and said China remains ahead in some areas while trailing in others. “For the first time in our history, we face nuclear-armed adversaries in both Europe and Asia,” he said, adding that China is a near peer but not yet equal to the United States.
The interview came as Washington continues to frame its competition with Beijing and Moscow as a long-term strategic contest rather than a short crisis. Gates said the United States still holds an economic and technological lead over China, but he noted that China is ahead in shipbuilding and also faces domestic problems in its economy and demography. Those pressures do not erase the broader challenge, he said, because the combination of Russian and Chinese power makes the security environment more dangerous than before.
Asked by Brennan about President Trump, Xi Jinping and the idea of a new G2, Gates rejected the notion that the two leaders had settled into a new global condominium. “I don't think so yet,” he said. He said the main objective for the administration was to keep a lid on the relationship with China, maintain a floor under it so it does not deteriorate, and preserve the trade truce that had been in place for about a year.
Gates said that trade truce had been sustained “by and large,” and that avoiding a renewed economic clash was a central goal. The transcript also points to a recent period of managed rivalry, with working groups on artificial intelligence and tariffs alongside the Trump-Xi meeting, but Gates’ bottom line was blunt: the relationship is being contained, not resolved. That is the state of play now, and it is what makes his warning about China and Russia land so sharply.
