The Nuclear Arms Race Is Back

Topol-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.(RIA Novosti / Syisoev)

David Axe, Daily Beast: Russia’s New Missile Means the Nuclear Arms Race Is Back On

Team Putin is talking up fearsome new hardware that could accelerate a nuclear contest not seen since the Cold War.

Russia has a new nuclear missile -- one that Zvezda, a Russian government-owned T.V. network, claimed can wipe out an area "the size of Texas or France."

Actually, no, a single SS-30 rocket with a standard payload of 12 independent warheads, most certainly could not destroy Texas or France. Not immediately. And not by itself.

Each of the SS-30's multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle warheads, or MIRVs, could devastate a single city. But Texas alone has no fewer than 35 cities of 100,000 people or more.

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WNU Editor: We are not even close to what the arms race was like during the Cold War, but the trend lines are worrying.