Democrats like to suggest President Trump is weak on Russian President Vladimir Putin. In light of what Russia was up to on Wednesday, they should ask similar questions of their own nominee.
After all, the Russian navy claims to have test-fired its new Zircon hypersonic missile successfully. Designed to smash into American aircraft carriers operating hundreds of miles away, the Zircon can travel at speeds of more than 6,000 miles per hour. The latest missile test was apparently fired into the Barents Sea by the Northern Fleet frigate Admiral Gorshkov.
Unfortunately, while the Zircon is not a joke, Biden’s missile-strike strategy most certainly is. Facing Putin’s heavy investment in capabilities that are singularly designed to overcome missile defenses and degrade U.S. nuclear dominance, Biden says he would restrain nuclear strike developments specifically established by the Trump administration to counter Russian advances. Biden would also undermine U.S. nuclear deterrence posture, which must deter Putin across the range of nuclear potentials.
The Russians are not playing games here. Evincing as much, they chose to launch the Zircon from their White Sea bastion. The choice of that location at the heart of the Northern Fleet headquarters, rather than a Barents Sea location, was not made flippantly. Instead, it was almost certainly made in order to mitigate the threat of American air and undersea sensor platforms measuring the missile’s performance and its potential vulnerabilities. Takeaway: The Russians aren’t testing the Zircon to scare Americans or make a propaganda point (though Putin does see value in that). This is about preparing to win a major war with the United States, possibly even a nuclear war.
That takes us back to Biden’s totally inadequate strategy for dealing with this threat. The Democratic nominee says he’ll hold Putin to account, but he’s simultaneously pledging to weaken a critical U.S. means of doing so. It gets worse. Because the Zircon is only one element of an array of next-generation Russian strike platforms. These include Putin’s new nuclear-armed Kanyon torpedo, its new Khabarovsk submarine, advanced satellite weapons, and a range of hypersonic glide vehicles. These developments require countering. And that means leadership to ensure Russia does not attain a strategic-strike advantage over the U.S. Because if Moscow does attain, or even believe it has attained that advantage, it will act far more aggressively in the nuclear weapons domain. Whether leveraging its weapons for blackmail or attack, Putin’s new confidence will be bad news for America.
To be sure, Trump’s attitude toward Putin is often delusional. But Biden’s looming inaction is prospectively a far worse threat to U.S. interests. If he wants to protect America and our allies, the former vice president should reassess his nuclear strategy.
