'What I would fear more...': Pentagon official warns of nuclear war after ex-Trump aide's massive claim

A Pentagon official has warned that regional conflict can lead to use of nuclear weapons leading to wider escalation and endangering the world. He said that such a regional conflict poses a greater danger than a surprise mass attack on the United States. The official has been identified as Elbridge Colby, Under Secretary of War for Policy. He said that the consequences of a large-scale nuclear strike on the United States would deter countries capable of launching one.

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“What I would fear more is a regional war,” Colby told the 2026 United States Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium. He described the danger as “a kind of local war, conventional war that might have local employment, God forbid, of nuclear weapons that could escalate from there as it expanded outward.” “That would lead very rapidly to an incredibly pressurised situation that would be almost by definition not in our interests,” he said. He batted for safer options: “It’s not taking away options for the president. It’s adding credible options." He called the modernisation of America’s nuclear deterrent “the single most important initiative for the American military.”

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Highlighting on the nuclear aspect with respect to China, he said that it has “created an unprecedented strategic problem.” “Unlike during the Cold War, the United States now faces two potential nuclear peers — China and Russia. I remain cautiously optimistic about the ability for us to maintain effective deterrence in the context of three sort of great power nuclear states. I’m not sanguine about that. If you can try to mitigate these pressures through engagement, through respectful dialogue, that’s totally consistent with being strong,” he said.

What Marjorie Taylor Greene said?

This comes after former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed that the Trump administration is discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran in high-level strategy meetings. But she has not provided any evidence to support this allegation. “They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings,” Greene said in a post on X on Sunday (Aug 16). “It’s real. I’m not speculating, I know,” she added.