Over the next five to 15 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin will pose an increasing threat in the fields of nuclear strike and long-range missile capabilities.
That’s the key takeaway from Putin’s speech on Thursday, in which the Russian leader pledged to counter U.S. military power at the highest end of capability. While Putin was partly motivated by buffering domestic support with nationalistic messaging (an election is coming up in two weeks), he also gave us insight into his tactical and strategic thinking.
To be sure, some of Putin’s claims seemed exaggerated.
Consider the Russian leader’s description of a new cruise missile that he says can fly “with a nuclear payload with a practically unlimited range and an unpredictable flight path, which can bypass lines of interception and is invincible in the face of all existing and future systems of both missile defense and air defense.”
This isn’t just tactically silly — how does Putin know that all future systems can’t defeat his as yet undeveloped program? — it’s inaccurate in the present.
First off, Russian delivery platforms for this cruise missile would struggle to penetrate an integrated air defense network of the kind that the U.S. military operates. That’s primarily due to the vulnerability of Russian strategic bomber aircraft — which would carry the missile to its launching point – to U.S. aircraft interceptor forces.
That said, this speech was more useful in terms of where Russia’s missile development focus is centered.
After all, with his focus on long-range hypersonic weapons, Putin is showing an absolute determination to achieve deterrence parity with the U.S.
This should temper U.S. confidence that our missile defense systems will ever provide the kind of certain confidence that some presume. While the hypersonic vehicle video that Putin showed (see below) was not terribly advanced in its graphics, it does speak to ongoing Russian efforts to match the U.S. and China in pursuing the next generation of strategic missile forces. We must be astute to that.
On a side note, as this new race for hypersonic dominance escalates, it might be a good idea for the Department of Defense’s primary research agency, DARPA, to stop publishing all their own research online. And as it pertains to China, speed up its development of advanced anti-ship cruise missiles.
Ultimately, it’s clear why Putin wants to develop his hypersonic missile forces: they will give him the gradual ability to render impotent advanced U.S. ballistic missile defense platforms such as THAAD. The key here is that cruise missiles do not go up into orbit like ballistic missiles and instead fly very close to the ground. This makes them hard to track and destroy. They also give Putin a greater ability to supplement his warfighting doctrine (area denial) at the conventional level.
So how should the U.S. respond to Putin?
Simple.
By seeking to maintain dominance at every level of capability. Although expensive, that’s the best way to deter foreign adversaries and thus maintain the peace. Fortunately, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is focused on doing just that.
