The United States must be ready for a nuclear war with Russia and China while seeking methods to curb their use of strategic weapons, said the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command—the department that manages the U.S. integrated missile defense and other systems. Adm. Charles Richard wrote that there is a “real possibility” for a regional crisis with China or Russia that “could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state. “Consequently, the U.S. military must shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality,” he wrote for the U.S. Naval Institute’s February journal. “We cannot approach nuclear deterrence the same way. It must be tailored and evolved for the dynamic environment we face.” Richard said the department should “establish unity” to …