On nuclear weapons, Vladimir Putin will prefer Biden to Trump

As with their respective energy policies, when it comes to nuclear weapons, Vladimir Putin would prefer Joe Biden’s policy to that of Donald Trump.

This is not to say that Putin wants Biden to defeat Trump in November. The opposite may well be true. That said, Moscow views the status and development of U.S. nuclear forces as a high priority concern. But where Trump has modernized U.S. nuclear capabilities and strategy, Biden opposes the U.S. reservation to employ nuclear weapons preemptively, rejects the deployment of low-yield warheads, and believes the U.S. nuclear forces budget can be cut.