"Russia's nuclear forces are now completely modernized, but ours are not," the newspaper Izvestia quoted Hayten as saying in a Brookings Institution podcast.
He called for accelerating the modernization of American nuclear weapons to compete with Russia and China.
According to him, the main US strategy at the moment is to avoid the risk of war with Russia and China.
Earlier, John Hayten said that the United States needs to establish a dialogue with China in order to improve relations between the countries.