On Nukes, Obama is Playing Right into Putin’s Hands

Baker Spring / December 30, 2009

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he plans for Russia to respond to the fielding of missile defense systems by the United States by modernizing Russia’s nuclear force in order to overcome the defense.

This is not surprising because Russian officials have been stating for some time that they plan to seek offensive nuclear capabilities to counter U.S. non-nuclear defenses and have been actively pursuing a nuclear modernization program. The Russian offensive nuclear response to the U.S. non-nuclear defensive program is grounded in Prime Minister Putin’s view that an adversarial relationship between the U.S. and Russia is appropriate and should be pursued on the basis of Russia having both the right and the capability to annihilate the U.S. with nuclear weapons. (more…)