“Many will agree with Valeriano and Maness. After all, nuclear weapons and tanks are thought to be irrelevant. The sheer destructiveness of modern war has supposedly rendered it unthinkable. But the destructive power of a weapon is precisely what makes it useful, especially when your objective is the total capitulation of your enemy. With better missile weapons, and better anti-missile weapons, Russia has begun to inch towards strategic nuclear supremacy. This is the kind of supremacy where America’s strategic deterrent is either destroyed in a first strike, or destroyed by Russian interceptor rockets. Meanwhile, the United States has an ABM defense so feeble, so decrepit, there is little chance it could stop a Chinese rocket let alone an advanced Russian Topol-M.”