United States Tempers Nuclear Weapons Escalation with Russia

Video Above: Russia-Ukraine and the Prospect of Nuclear War

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has postponed a long-scheduled test firing of the existing Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile to send a strong, unambiguous message to Putin and the world that the United States will not engage in irresponsible escalatory and dangerous rhetoric related to the possible use of nuclear weapons. 

The postponement was announced at the Pentagon in response to Putin’s recent move to put his nuclear forces on alert, something which many US and international leaders see as reckless and extremely dangerous. 

Russia Nuclear Escalation

“Last weekend, as you saw, President Putin directed a special alert of Russian nuclear forces. The United States and other members of the international community rightly saw this as a dangerous and irresponsible, and as I’ve said before, an unnecessary step. 

Both the United States and Russia have long agreed that nuclear employment could have devastating consequences, and we both agreed, most recently this year in the context of the P5 statement, that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters, according to a Pentagon transcript. 

Austin’s move seems significant, given the significance and potential implications associated with Putin’s move, because test-firing or demonstrating the upgraded Minuteman IIIs have been an important element of the Pentagon’s deterrence strategy.