With President Donald Trump’s formal notice to Russia that the US will pull out of the Treaty on Intermediate-range Nuclear Force, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened an arms race.
Our American partners apparently believe that the situation has changed to such an extent that the US should have such weapons.
What answer will they have from our side? It’s simple: we’ll do it too.
In addition to that,
The head of the Russian armed forces warned that if the deal collapses, the targets of subsequent military exchanges would be US missile sites hosted by allies within striking distance of Russia rather than American soil.
Well, of course they will. That’s what they’ve been threatening for some time with their deployment of tactical nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad, their redeployment of their tactical nuclear forces toward their western border—and their development and testing of the treaty-prohibited IRBMs.
If Putin wants an arms race, let him bring it. The last one these guys had with us didn’t end well for them, and Russia’s economy is in worse shape than was the Soviet Union’s.