Russian President Vladimir Putin is concerned by escalating French-led support for Ukraine. He wants to intimidate Europe and Germany, in particular, against providing Ukraine with its Taurus cruise missile. In turn, Russia’s soon-to-be re-coronated leader is again dangling the threat of nuclear war.
On Tuesday, Putin sat down for an interview with top state media propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov. Kiselyov has a penchant for theatrical nuclear strategies. Putin claimed it is “generally accepted” that Russia’s “nuclear triad is more modern than any other triad, and only we and the Americans have such a triad.” By triad, Putin is referring to Russia’s ability to launch nuclear weapons from the ground, from aircraft, and from nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Putin added that Russia’s nuclear forces are “more modern” and that “everyone knows this. All specialists know this.”
Not so fast.
Yes, Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and Skyfall nuclear-powered cruise missile systems are advanced. But both capabilities have highly complex performance requirements that are largely untested. They will not fundamentally alter the nuclear balance of power in Moscow’s favor. And although the United States has trailed Russia in deploying hypersonic glide vehicles, U.S. deployments loom within the next five years. Because of the superior U.S. defense technical base, the U.S. systems are likely to be superior to those of Russia.
What about other Russian nuclear weapons systems?
Well, Russia’s ground-launched Sarmat heavyweight intercontinental ballistic missile is a beast that would make likely the annihilation of Washington, New York, and Offutt, Nebraska/other priority U.S. targets during war. But as with Putin’s 2018 announcement of them, other new Russian nuclear weapons systems appear intended more for show than effects. The port-strike-focused Poseidon nuclear powered torpedo system does nothing that a Sarmat couldn’t do more effectively, for example.
That takes us back to Putin’s “we’re the best” comments. Russia’s central problem here is that the air and submarine components of its triad are far more vulnerable than their American counterparts. And it’s not enough to launch a nuclear weapon; you also have to get that weapon into a prime launching position.
Take the new Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile system. That weapon only has an approximately 500-kilometer range once launched by a Soviet-era Tu-22M bomber. Those bombers would be detected and rapidly destroyed by U.S. air forces in the event of war. Indeed, they might not even get off of their runways. That means Kinzhal could hold western Alaska at risk and not much else. While Russia has other air-launched nuclear weapons systems, its nonstealth nuclear bomber force pales in comparison to the U.S. B-2-led stealth bomber force. Comparing the Tu-22M to a B-2 is like comparing this guy to Taylor Swift. Though limited in number, the B-2s can penetrate undetected deep inside Russian territory and strike otherwise heavily guarded targets.
A similar lesson applies to the nuclear ballistic missile submarine front.
Russian submarine forces have advanced in capability and professionalism in recent years. This poses a problem for the U.S. regarding the Russian development of China’s submarine forces. Russia’s Yasen-class cruise missile submarines are quiet and capable of hiding from the NATO attack submarines that trail them. They carry advanced variants of the Kalibr nuclear-capable weapons system. That said, most Russian ballistic missile submarines are old, loud, and poorly maintained. Russia’s newer Borei-class ballistic missile submarines struggle to evade their NATO tales.
This means that the vast majority of Russian nuclear-armed submarines are effectively shadowed by U.S. Virginia-class and British Astute-class attack submarines from the moment they leave port to the moment they return home. They know they are being shadowed but rarely can evade their shadows. In war, many of these Russian submarines would be sunk before they could launch. This is manifestly not the case when considering Russia’s attack submarine threat to U.S. Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
What stands these undersea U.S. nuclear forces apart from their Russian counterparts is their unparalleled intersection of training, professionalism, and technical capability. While Hollywood provided an admirable hint at this proficiency in the 1996 movie Crimson Tide, it’s hard to overstate just how good these crews actually are. His rhetoric aside, Putin knows it. He knows that these submarine forces offer the U.S. a potent means of deterring nuclear war through their being perpetually ready, able, and, if so ordered, willing to end the Russian Federation’s existence as a sovereign state. They offer a first-strike and second-strike potential that Russia simply cannot match. Any nuclear war would cause catastrophic losses for both sides. The U.S. would likely survive as a functioning nation-state; Russia would not.
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Top line: The U.S. dominates the Russian nuclear triad in both the air and undersea domains. And befitting the Russian military’s endemic corruption (a problem that Putin cannot fix), the Russian president can’t even bet on his land-based missile units being able to launch their weapons and hit their targets effectively. Hence why he’s so focused on unconventional weapons, such as in the space domain, that aim for hail mary passes at altering the balance of power.
The key for America, then, is an insistent strategy to ensure Putin and China’s Xi Jinping do not succeed.