Robert Rust's Avatar

Robert Rust

@rrucs.bsky.social

China Analyst, Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program. US-China relations, especially on nukes, arms control and the like. Views my own, likes/RTs ≠ endorsements. I'm not here representing Hardbodies.

97 Followers  |  67 Following  |  111 Posts  |  Joined: 13.12.2023  |  2.0939

Latest posts by rrucs.bsky.social on Bluesky

The Uncanny Valet

11.10.2025 12:47 — 👍 320    🔁 79    💬 9    📌 3
Preview
Could China’s New Nuclear Weapons Signal a New Era of Arms Control? China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal may actually create an opportunity for the United States to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

China's larger arsenal and confirmed nuclear triad are concerning, but as Chinese arms control expert Wu Riqiang recently argued in International Security, they may also increase the possibility of Beijing engaging in nuclear risk reduction. My blog: blog.ucs.org/robert-rust/...

02.10.2025 18:06 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
02.10.2025 15:06 — 👍 126    🔁 24    💬 1    📌 0
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE | Official Trailer | Netflix
YouTube video by Netflix A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE | Official Trailer | Netflix

hi, just piling on to say that the premise of a single icbm causing a "we have to act now or risk annihilation" crisis is, and I know I have complained about this a lot lately, murdering my few remaining brain cells www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wpw...

01.10.2025 13:48 — 👍 147    🔁 21    💬 6    📌 5

I was at an early screening this week and couldn't stop thinking this the whole time. The "use it or lose it" scenario is completely irrelevant when facing one single missile.

01.10.2025 13:57 — 👍 10    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
Preview
China in Focus #9: China's Holocaust "But the rape of Nanking had, for the Japanese, its own devastating revenge. It 1) solidified China into an indomitable will to resist the invader ; 2) so demoralized Japanese military discipline that...

(From 2012): "U.S. officials feel no embarrassment when they think and speak about the history of the China-Japan relationship in this way. “Never again,” in this context, is a lesson they either never learned or have long forgotten." blog.ucs.org/gregory-kula...

26.09.2025 16:40 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Post image 26.09.2025 14:25 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Wheat paste poster that says the all the world is dying and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters. There's a picture of Elmo

Wheat paste poster that says the all the world is dying and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters. There's a picture of Elmo

Morning walk

26.09.2025 12:09 — 👍 12480    🔁 3256    💬 68    📌 104

Found this super weird from the start, especially once that super over-produced DHS video about it dropped

25.09.2025 18:03 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
The SIM Farm Hardware Seized by the Secret Service Is Also Popular With Ticket Scalpers The tech the Secret Service claims can be used to "disable cell phone towers" is very commonly used by ticket scalpers to game Ticketmaster.

The much-hyped SIM farm the Secret Service seized uses readily available off the shelf tech that, very interestingly, has also become critical to ticket scalping. I, like others, am extremely not buying the idea that this was intended to take down the cell network

www.404media.co/the-sim-farm...

25.09.2025 16:33 — 👍 226    🔁 60    💬 12    📌 4

Great discussion.

25.09.2025 18:02 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Biden admin banned Russian LEU imports in May 2024, but there were waivers for several categories. The fact numbers have actually gone up is still very interesting. Also looks like there's no circumvention via China, which was a potential concern in late 2024.

23.09.2025 19:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
How to Make the Next Trump-Kim Meeting a Success Kim Jong Un could be willing to agree to a nuclear weapons-free zone in Northeast Asia because it would threat North Korea the same as China, Russia, and the United States.

My colleague @gkucs.bsky.social on what the US needs to do to successfully talk to North Korea: blog.ucs.org/gregory-kula...

23.09.2025 17:51 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Video thumbnail

David Petraeus greeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Concordia Summit in NYC. When Petraeus was a 3-star in Iraq in 2004-6, Sharaa was fighting the US as a member of the al-Qaida branch there; when Petraeus was a 4-star, Sharaa was teaching fellow Camp Bucca detainees classical Arabic

22.09.2025 16:18 — 👍 199    🔁 44    💬 7    📌 23

I know exactly who you are talking about, but you should probably clarify for everyone else

19.09.2025 18:23 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

With regard to modern Taiwan policy and pushing for reunification, there is a clear political motivation behind this. After all, to Beijing there is only one China, and it includes the RoC. Building a victory narrative excluding them would run contrary to the narrative of one Chinese nation.

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

That accords much more with their general messaging, celebration of foreigners who worked closely with Chiang/the KMT etc. I don't particularly buy that Beijing is doing big time historical revisionism. They celebrate their guys, but they also celebrate the United Fronts and other joint efforts.

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

This is just one example, but it comes from the lead article in the People's Daily a few days before the big military parade, and should thus be seen as authoritative. To me, the general approach of the CCP is: "we played an important role, but it was a victory for the Chinese people as a whole."

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I saw this translated as "the CCP was THE mainstay of the fight against Japan," but I read it more as “the CCP was A mainstay." I've also run this through several different machine translations, and they tend (with context) to translate the sentence as "the CCP played a pivotal role..."

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

The key part is 发挥中流砥柱作用. 发挥...作用 basically means "play a role" or exert a certain effect. 中流砥柱 literally means "a firm rock in midstream," i.e. an important factor/contributor or what would sometimes be translated as being "a rock" in English.

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Here's a key sentence from the article above: 中国人民抗日战争胜利是中国共产党发挥中流砥柱作用的伟大胜利,是全民族众志成城奋勇抗战的伟大胜利. My translation: "The Chinese people's victorious War of Resistance against Japan was a great victory in which the CCP played a key role, a great victory in which the entire nation bravely fought as one."

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
弘扬伟大抗战精神 奋进民族复兴伟业

There's been a lot of talk accusing Beijing of taking undue credit for leading the resistance to Japan in WWII. My feeling has been that the CCP celebrates its own important role while emphasizing that it was a whole-of-China fight. One example from PD on 8.28: paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/cont...

19.09.2025 17:07 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Yeah that all tracks. I think Ankit could also be right that it's a nugget from a briefing that has stuck with Trump, so he mentions it whenever Bagram pops into his head.

19.09.2025 16:07 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Solved, sort of. bsky.app/profile/wesl...

19.09.2025 14:50 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Ah ok, so he's been doing this for a while.

19.09.2025 14:49 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Also not accounting refueling. And I don't really know why the US would want to be within striking distance of Lop Nur as opposed to other nuclear sites. Maybe Mianyang is irrelevant because South Korea/Japan are closer anyway. Who knows. Again, I want to know where he got this idea from.

19.09.2025 14:17 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

As the article notes, it's unclear what he's talking about. China's main weapons lab at Mianyang in Sichuan is 2500 miles from Bagram; an F-35 at max speed (not counting refueling) would take over two hours. He probably means the Lop Nur testing site, which is about an hour away by F-35 max speed.

19.09.2025 14:09 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Preview
Trump's hope to 'take back' Bagram airbase dismissed by Taliban official Bagram airbase was handed over to the Afghan military shortly before the Taliban returned to power.

What I really want to know is what Trump heard, and from whom, that got processed and spit back out as "we need Bagram air base cause it's an hour from where China makes their nukes." www.bbc.com/news/article...

19.09.2025 13:40 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
Preview
It’s Time to Rethink US Nuclear Weapons Manufacturing There is no technical justification for replacing the entire US nuclear arsenal—but the government is willing to spend more than $2 trillion to do just that.

The DOE has ordered a review of a key part of nuclear modernization - plutonium pit production. Here’s my take on why it (and plans for other parts of the US triad) deserve reconsideration and rescoping. At present, ambition and reality don’t align.

17.09.2025 19:24 — 👍 3    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Israel blames China, Qatar for global isolation after Doha strikes This week’s article comes to you from Amman, Jordan where I am settling for a few weeks conducting research.

Netanyahu takes aim at China, accusing it of running disinformation campaigns intended to isolate Israel internationally. Curious this is happening at the same time as Trump seems to have closed a sale of the US side of TikTok (it's not actually curious.) substack.com/home/post/p-...

17.09.2025 14:03 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@rrucs is following 20 prominent accounts