Russia’s firepower
Take Putin’s claims seriously, maybe not literally
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin announced in a campaignspeech Thursday that Russia now has new weapons that can bypass the defensive measures the United States has in place. His claim, or maybe boast, adds a new dimension to United States-Russian relations and potentially to U.S. planning.
Mr. Putin, in a sort of state-of-thenation message in Moscow, declared, among other points, that Russia has now developed new weapons, including fast, stealthy, intercontinental, nuclear-powered and armed cruise missiles and new nuclear torpedoes. They, in effect, cannot be intercepted by U.S. defenses. He made this declaration in response to U.S. deployment of new missile defense systems in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia, increased U.S. military spending, and threatening noises emanating from some U.S. leaders. Those noises have not come particularly from President Donald Trump, who has refrained from declaiming on the subject of Russia’s intentions and capabilities.
Mr. Putin’s overall pre-election line was that he as leader could deal with Russia’s formidable economic problems, brought about by quivering oil prices and, to a lesser extent, by international economic sanctions deployed against it for its bad behavior in Ukraine. Furthermore, he believes that Russia under his direction would be restored to a position of real military credibility with new weapons, effective against whatever defenses the United States could devise.
Mr. Putin will almost certainly win Russia’s March 18 elections, in no small part because he has obliterated his opposition in advance. The more interesting question that day will be turnout. He wants 70 percent. That is, according to observers, unlikely. After-elections delivery on his promises in the speech of improvements in health care, pensions and, most important, jobs is equally unlikely, given that Russia’s economic situation has not changed substantially in years. Its growth rate is projected by the World Bank at 1.8 percent this year and 1.9 percent in 2019, not much below the projections for America, but not amounting to a lot. Another big question about Mr. Putin’s new weapons claims is whether they are true, or just him whistling “Dixie” for the elections and trying to bluff the United States, Western Europe and the Chinese, another unspoken rival of Russia. Russian leaders’ lying and bluffing are not new; nor are U.S. intelligence agencies misreading their claims. For example, the United States did not see coming the collapse of the Soviet Union after the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe — or saw it coming and continued to overestimate deliberately the Soviet Union’s strength, in the interest of maintaining large U.S. expenditures on “intelligence” and “defense.”
The worst possible outcome of Mr. Putin’s claims would be a new spurt in the global nuclear arms race. U.S. and Russian presidents in recent years have devoted insufficient attention to international arms reduction, thus increasing the threat of extermination for the human race, as well as for their own populations. Mr. Putin mentioned possibly using Russia’s new weapons in response to threats to Russia “or its allies.” If he means North Korea or Syria by that, it is a matter of concern to the world.
It is hard for leaders like Mr. Putin not to enjoy being seen watching parades including new rockets rolling down the streets of their capitals, as does Kim Jong Un. It’s just that it’s not healthy for the rest of us in our spending or in our arming practices.