NATO members are debating deploying more nuclear weapons to counter rising hostile powers, especially China, according to NATO’s secretary-general.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is facing an unprecedented threat with a nuclear armed Russia and another rising nuclear power in China. To counter the threat and establish deterrence, the alliance is considering moving some nuclear weapons out of storage and making them operational.

“I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Stoltenberg told The Telegraph in an interview published over the weekend.

“In a not-very-distant future,” he said, “NATO may face something that it has never faced before, and that is two nuclear-powered potential adversaries – China and Russia. Of course, this has consequences.”

The secretary-general said that, unlike in years past, NATO should embrace transparency about its nuclear capabilities. Transparency is the key to deterrence, he said.

“Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance,” Stoltenberg said. “NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons, but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China, and North Korea have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerous world.”

China in particular worries the NATO chief. Beijing’s stockpile of nuclear warheads could grow to 1,000 by the end of the decade. The Chinese military is investing heavily in other forms of advanced weapons, as well, Stoltenberg said.

NATO has 32 member countries, but only three of those are nuclear powers: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Americans tactical nuclear weapons are positioned in several other countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey, according to Politico.

Among NATO members, the U.S. has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons at 5,428. Last year, the U.S. State Department said that 1419 warheads were deployed. Russia is believed to have the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world at 5,977. In 2022, Russia said that it had 1,549 warheads deployed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov bashed Stoltenberg’s comments, calling them “nothing else but an escalation.” The Kremlin spokesman went on to add that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not talk about nuclear weapons “at his own initiative as he takes the issue seriously,” according to Politico.

A judge appeared to back off threats to hold a Tennessee news executive in contempt of court for publishing articles on the writings of a transgender-identifying shooter who killed six people at a Christian school in Nashville last year. 

Tennessee Star Executive Michael Patrick Leahy was ordered to appear on Monday for a contempt of court hearing over his publication of the articles that quote from the writings of the Covenant School shooter. But at the start of the highly anticipated hearing, Davidson County Judge I’Ashea Myles said she was just trying to “understand the landscape” of developments surrounding the case, and that contempt proceedings would not commence. 

Daniel Horowitz, a lawyer representing Leahy, said after the hearing that he was confused about the point of the hearing, but was glad that there was no initiation of contempt proceedings against Leahy, who has sued the city of Nashville seeking a full release of their report on the Covenant School shooting. 

“I don’t know how this evolved or why, but I’m glad the press isn’t being threatened with jail time today. That’s a welcome development,” Horowitz told reporters, including The Daily Wire, after the hearing. “I don’t want reporters going to jail for lawful reporting. That’s why we were here today.” 

Horowitz added that he was encouraged that it seemed like “we have veered off a very dangerous road threatening reporters for lawful reporting.” 

The hearing was the latest in the legal back-and-forth over the writings of the shooter who killed three children and three adults in a March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School. The city of Nashville has so far blocked any release of the shooter’s documents, while a group of parents from the school have also sought to have the writings sealed from public view. 

The Tennessee Star began publishing a series of articles earlier this month quoting from the shooter’s writings, noting that it had obtained images of roughly eighty pages of one of the shooter’s journals. Last week, Myles suggested that Leahy might be held in contempt over the articles for violating an unspecified court order. However, Myles said on Monday that the hearing’s purpose was for her to determine whether the publication of articles on some of the shooter’s writings should impact her ruling regarding the full release. 

Myles initial order last week said that Leahy must demonstrate why the “publication of certain purported documents” does not “violate the Orders of this Court subjecting them to contempt proceedings and sanctions.” Leahy was not given the opportunity to make this case. 

In a statement after the hearing, Leahy said that he would continue to practice his First Amendment rights. 

“We started The Tennessee Star so I could exercise my First Amendment rights. I think we have served the public well, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to continue to exercise our First Amendment rights,” Leahy told reporters. 

In a follow up order on Friday denying an appeal from Leahy to dismiss the contempt hearing, Myles amended her order for Monday’s hearing, saying that it would be for the court to “ascertain the veracity of any alleged leak which may have occurred in this matter and if true, any effect on the status of these proceedings.”

At the end of Monday’s hearing, Myles said that she now “understood” what she needed to know about the case, and that she would issue a ruling. It is unclear if this ruling will be about whether there will be a future contempt hearing for Leahy or if it will pertain to the lawsuit against Nashville. 

Last week, The Daily Wire published photos of the attacker’s journal obtained by a source familiar with the Covenant investigation. The pages showed a woman who had been consumed by transgender ideology and conveyed her anger at Christianity and her parents over their traditional views.