In October 2022, President Biden stated that Putin was serious in his nuclear threats, and, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Yet the Biden administration insists on maintaining a peacetime non-crisis nuclear deterrent posture. In March 2022, U.S. STRATCOM commander Admiral Charles Richard said, “Today’s nuclear force is the minimum required to achieve our national strategy.” Chris Gordon, writing in Air and Space Forces Magazine, has pointed out, “The governments of the U.K., France, and the U.S., all nuclear powers, issued a joint statement that said the allegation against Ukraine was false and warned Russia not to “use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.” Still, the Biden administration, while saying it takes Russian nuclear threats seriously, is continuing to do nothing to improve our nuclear deterrent posture. The Biden administration’s view appears to be based on ideology rather than any form realistic assessment of the threat.

The Biden administration’s refusal to enhance our nuclear alert status has minimized our deterrent posture to Russian tactical nuclear weapons use. It gives Putin the option of eliminating all of our low-yield nuclear weapons except for the portion of the relatively low-yield Trident nuclear warheads which are actually at sea, with an attack involving as few as ten to twenty mainly low-yield nuclear strikes.[5] Unless we put our nuclear-capable aircraft on alert, such an attack could eliminate almost our entire deployed heavy bomber force, our deployed dual capable fighter aircraft and half of our ballistic missile submarines. This is hardly a good deterrent posture. …

In stark contrast to the Biden administration, France was not shy about enhancing its nuclear deterrent in the face of Putin’s February 2022 nuclear threats. After France’s Foreign Minister reminded Putin that NATO is a nuclear alliance, France, for the first time since 1981, deployed more than one of its nuclear ballistic missile submarines to sea at one time – indeed, three submarines. In addition, France put its aircraft carrier, which is part of its nuclear deterrent, under NATO command. This is essentially what we would call generated alert. France also tested its supersonic nuclear cruise missile. It sent a clear message to Russia during a period of unusual tensions in Europe.

The Pentagon’s assertion that “We are completely ready” to deal with nuclear threats from Russia appears to be wishful thinking since the Pentagon has repeatedly said no action has been taken to improve our alert posture. There is always the possibility that things have been done which have not been announced, but we can’t just assume that. I believe we need to do everything that we can in the short run to beef up our nuclear deterrent capability and make sure the Russians know about it.