Last week, Russia fired an intermediate range ballistic missile at Ukraine. The missile, according to nuclear deterrence and missile defense expert Robert Peters, is designed to carry multiple nuclear warheads, sending a clear message to Washington to “knock it off.”
Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, America has told Ukraine that it could use the provided weapons only within the “borders of Ukraine to expel the Russian forces,” says Peters, who before becoming a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation served as the lead strategist at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Then, in mid-November, President Joe Biden gave Ukraine permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia. Ukraine wasted no time in firing one.
Almost immediately afterward, Russia issued a new doctrine on its use of nuclear weapons. As Peters…
