Popcorn in one hand and the ‘Red Phone’ in the other, Vladimir Putin is now watching America’s next move in the nuclear arms race.
Like the rest of the world, the Russian president is only relying on Donald Trump’s post on TruthSocial to decipher whether a new Cold War has just started.
It has been busy 24 hours for both leaders.
First, Putin said that Russia has tested the ‘Poseidon’ – a nuclear torpedo billed to be ‘practically indestructible.’
Following up, his US counterpart ordered his Department of War to begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 33 years.
So far, the Kremlin has not flinched – just yet.
After all, Russia will have observed Trump’s past behavior and ‘drawn the conclusion that one cannot design policy on the basis of a comment by Trump on his pet Twitter substitute,’ said Keir Giles, a leading analyst on European defence and Russia.
Right now, it is a carrot-and-a-stick press release of sorts by both Russia and Trump.
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If the US actually follows through – big if – the world’s two biggest nuclear nations would be reentering a new arms race.
Commenting on the speculation following Trump’s comments, Giles told Metro: ‘We can see what Trump has said – but what we cannot see is what the US is actually going to do. As always, they are likely to be two different things.
‘There can be a big divergence between the headline quotes and what the US actually follows through with.
‘Does Trump mean that the US is going to resume full-scale nuclear testing after a gap of 33 years? Does it mean that the US is going to engage in an arms race with the new generation of Russian weapons?
‘This would indicate that the US is taking them seriously as a problem. Is the energy going to be focused on the most appropriate means of deterring Russia, or is it instead, Trump, chasing or generating headlines which have little to do with the real problems?’
Pointing at a different kind of response, Giles said the US could focus on lower level of testing, which does not actually involve detonations,
He added: ‘All of these are potentially covered by what Trump has written, so we just need to see just what exactly they are going to do.’
Some of Russia’s ‘super weapons’ include the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missile, the Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile, and the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle.
If the US restarts nuclear weapons testing, it is not immediately clear what the goal would be.
Nonproliferation experts have warned any scientific objective likely would be eclipsed by the backlash to a test – and possibly be a starting gun for other major nuclear powers to begin their own widespread testing.
Experts warned in a February article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: ‘Restarting the US nuclear testing program could be one of the most consequential policy actions the Trump administration undertakes.
‘A US test could set off an uncontrolled chain of events, with other countries possibly responding with their own nuclear tests, destabilizing global security, and accelerating a new arms race.
‘The goal of conducting a fast-tracked nuclear test can only be political, not scientific.
‘It would give Russia, China and other nuclear powers free rein to restart their own nuclear testing programmes, essentially without political and economic fallout.’
Nuclear weapons policy – once thought to be a Cold War relic – increasingly has come to the fore as Russia has made repeated atomic threats to both the US and Europe during its war on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, China is building more ground-based nuclear missile silos, and North Korea just unveiled a new intercontinental ballistic missile it plans to test, part of a nuclear-capable arsenal likely able to reach continental US.
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