Oreshnik Again

Jeffrey Lewis 0:07

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a distinguished scholar of global security at Middlebury College and a non-resident distinguished fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Aaron Stein 0:25

You got it. No longer the librarian. I'm Dr. Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It's good to see you, Jeffrey. We haven't done this in a long time.

Jeffrey 0:37

Yeah, I mean... There has been a lot of crap going on. You'll notice I sound echoey. That's because I am in an empty house in Vermont that has been made available as an office space for the winter term that I am teaching here at Middlebury College. It's freaking cold here.

Aaron 1:03

Vermont. I was in Vermont last week. We did not overlap. It's definitely cold up there. Although today in Philly, it's like in the 40s, and it feels like I should be out there suntan and shirtless. Lucky for everyone else, we're not doing a video pod. No. But... I mean, you tweeted that you just got a million miles from United.

How do you get a million? I thought I was good because I had like gold card status and get access to the Centurion Lounge. A million miles is a lot.

Jeffrey 1:39

I fly too effing much. I mean, there was a point at which I was global services. I was flying so much. And honestly, I'd have hit a million miles 10 years ago, except I had kids. And I basically took... 10 or 12 years of traveling off. Just flying. And used to fly business class, although so much less now that both fares have gotten expensive and San Francisco is like the most expensive place to fly out of.

Aaron 2:09

Well, do you know what flies not quite a million miles? Oh, oh, oh, oh, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron. You and the team were busy in that you found the deployment for Oreshnik. Oreshnik. I just want to call it the RS-26.

Jeffrey 2:27

Well, the Russians certainly don't call it the RS-26. To do that would raise some uncomfortable question about what cheating cheaters they are.

Aaron 2:36

You have found sort of the missile, was it 2025 or 2024, the INF circumventioning?

Jeffrey 2:45

Yes, it was the circumvention. We can talk all about why Oreshnik violates. The Russians have managed to build a treaty, rather, they've managed to build a missile that is somehow going to violate both the INF and the New START Treaty.

Aaron 3:03

No, it's really quite magical what they've managed to pull off here because they – anyways, let's talk about it. So you found the deployment site. Perhaps let's start there.

Jeffrey 3:13

Yeah. So actually this made me pretty happy because a couple of weeks ago – Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said that they had information on where Russia was going to deploy a Oreshnik, which is a both conventional and nuclear armed intermediate range ballistic missile. He claimed they knew where they were going to deploy it in Belarus.

The Belarusians had made a big deal about how in addition to nuclear weapons for their aircraft that Russia was providing and in addition to nuclear weapons for Iskander missiles that Russia was providing, the third leg of this stool of stupid extended deterrence was going to be Oreshnik. And Zelensky said, we know where it's going to happen, but he didn't want to say where.

So I decided that we were going to find out where before either the Ukrainians or the Russians told us.

Aaron 4:13

Yeah, let's describe the missile. So the RS-26 is a Russian, at least intercontinental ballistic missile declared under New START because they test flew it to the range, not quite a million miles, in the New START treaty and then declared it as an intercontinental ballistic missile, right? Right. So what the Russians did was exactly what they did in the 1970s

Jeffrey 4:44

Which is what caused the Euro missile crisis, right? So like NANA's like 99 Luftballons, like this is the missile. The Russians took an ICBM that had three stages and they took off the third stage. So it was now a two-stage missile. And then they packed it full of freaking warheads. And so it had a much shorter range.

Now, the Russians did this in the 70s to cheat on SALT. Yes. So they were like, oh, it's not an ICBM. It's an intermediate range ballistic missile.

Aaron 5:17

Correct. Correct. It was the other way.

Jeffrey 5:19

And and that was a problematic missile because what it meant was Russia could target targets in Western Europe from the Soviet Union itself, which made it hard for the U.S. to respond. Correct. Because, you know, they're using their homeland to hit our allies, but they aren't hitting our homeland. Are we willing to turn around and hit their homeland?

And so, you know, the natural solution to that was euro missiles. We put nuclear armed missiles in Europe and said, you know what, that's fine. German and Italian and, you know, other, you know, countries will host U.S. missiles and we will just hit you from there.

Aaron 6:03

Yeah, and those were Pershing and ground-based Tomahawk.

Jeffrey 6:07

So we, you know, in the end, you get the INF Treaty in 1987, which just bans all these missiles. Yeah. And, like, things were fine until, like, about 10 years ago when the Russians decided to do that again. And they took the Yars, which is their current mobile ICBM. They took the third stage off of it. They packed it.

They tested it once with one warhead to an ICBM range. Just just barely announced that it was an ICBM under new start and therefore not, which had a high, which had a high ICBM for a number of reasons, although not for this. They did the best they could. And then they packed it full of warheads. And so they're basically deploying an SS-20 clone in violation of the INF Treaty, except for they've availed themselves of the New START Treaty to make it legal.

Aaron 7:07

Correct. And so we were calling it the circumvention because it wasn't technically illegal, but it violated the spirit of the treaty.

Jeffrey 7:18

So, I mean, I guess the thing I would say to people is when the INF Treaty was negotiated, this was always a loophole that we knew existed.

Aaron 7:25

Yes.

Jeffrey 7:26

But the answer at the time, which was a good answer, was we will just make the delivery vehicle limit in start low enough. That this would be a stupid, expensive way for the Russians to cheat. That if they cheat in this manner, it's going to cost them more than they'll get.

Aaron 7:46

Yes, because they would be notionally at a disadvantage versus the U.S. in terms of long-range launchers.

Jeffrey 7:51

Right, because they're spending precious ICBM slots that could target us on these stupid intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The problem is we forgot that when we negotiated the New START treaty, and we wanted a higher delivery vehicle limit than the Russians did. And so the Russians had leftover ICBM slots, and they were like, I know what I can do with that.

Aaron 8:15

That's right. It was really – we made so many dumb assumptions with New START. But anyways, keep going. Right.

Jeffrey 8:22

So this did not legally violate – The INF treaty, but it circumvented it in a way that we all understood at the time would be fatal to the treaty. And then they cheated on it in a second way, and that really was fatal to the treaty, which has a cruise missile, it's a whole other thing.

Aaron 8:43

Yeah, the actual U.S. withdrawal from the INF was not about RS-26, it was about the 9M729, which is a cruise missile.

Jeffrey 8:51

Because even though RS-26 was a dick move, it was legal.

Aaron 8:55

It was legal, and so you could lawyer your way out of it. The cruise missile was not. And the cruise missile was basically ground-launched Tomahawk as ground-launched caliber.

Jeffrey 9:03

So now, to be clear, the Russians then told us they canceled RS-26s. I remember that. Yeah. And then this thing has reemerged as Oreshnik with a brand new name. They renamed it. I think I said on Twitter, I was at a wedding once and this guy was like a burner, you know, like went to Burning Man. He like changed his fucking burner name.

And I literally asked another attendee, it's like, is that because he cheated on his girlfriend, like now wife? And if he just changes his name, he gets a clean restart? And my friend was like, yes, actually. I'll let you know how that marriage turned out.

Aaron 9:44

Yeah, I imagine he's paying child support, but go ahead.

Jeffrey 9:47

Well, not much, not paying.

Aaron 9:50

I mean, he's obligated.

Jeffrey 9:53

So... Putin announces this new thing, Oreshnik. The U.S. intelligence community says it's the RS-26.

Aaron 10:03

They use it.

Jeffrey 10:05

Oh, I think so, because they haven't been testing any other rockets.

Aaron 10:11

Then they ultimately use the RS-26 in Ukraine. That's right.

Jeffrey 10:15

And they showed us the RS-26. The U.S. intelligence community is going to be able to see its burn time for the booster rocket. And so given that the Russians aren't testing other systems that we know of and given that the IC should be able to tell down to the second how long that thing burns and so they should know, I think Putin just renamed it a Oreshnik.

But it's like an SS-20. It's a two-stage ICBM and it can have like probably six nuclear warheads or six packages of Flushets.

Aaron 10:54

Yes. And the second violation – so the INF does go up in smoke, right? So the INF is no more. Right.

Jeffrey 11:05

So then the Russians are perfectly happy to say, oh, it's an IRBM, which is why they changed the name. They're like, oh, no, no. It's not the thing we said was an ICBM. It's got a new name.

Aaron 11:13

Yes. Yes. And so when the INF goes up in smoke – Right. That's right. And so it's the same missile that was ostensibly on ice after the circumvention. Once the INF goes up in smoke because they cheated, of which they've never acknowledged, by the way. Right. They keep saying, we're crazy. We're taking crazy pills. And no, no, no.

Ground-based caliber doesn't exist, which is nonsense. They changed the name. They use it against Ukraine. Right. Right. But if you accept the assumption that it's still the same missile, we still have NuSTAR, which I think goes up in smoke next month. In like a couple of weeks, the first week of February. Next month. So it goes up in smoke next week.

And so we will be without arms control. Yes. But we are not at the moment without arms control. But we are not at the moment without arms control. And... We talk about this because we like the idea of thinking about missiles in Australia. But what can't you do with New Stark?

Jeffrey 12:11

You may not base strategic offensive forces subject to the treaty like, I don't know, the fake ICBM you declared outside your national borders. Because if you could, we would be putting road mobile solid ICBMs in Australia. Yeah. That's right.

Aaron 12:30

Which, you know, let's put a pin in that for future podcasts. But so you can't put declared ICBMs under New Start abroad. No, it is strictly forbidden. It's very clear. You may not do this. And the Yars, or RS-26, is a declared ICBM under New START.

Jeffrey 12:51

Yes. And General Yassin, who was, I think, the deputy commander of the Strategic Rocket Force, he's now retired, it was very clear that they declared the system as a 6,300 kilometer range variant of the Yars. Okay.

Aaron 13:10

So it's a Yars. Okay. The RS-26. The RS-26 is the Ereshnik. Probably with a different bus and maybe some different warheads. I mean, I think it is.

Jeffrey 13:20

Oh, and listeners should know, bus does not change the definition, you know?

Aaron 13:25

No. No, it's range.

Jeffrey 13:28

Well, you know, it's like diameter of the booster. I mean, there are technical definitions. I would be shocked. Shocked. If the Oreshnik technical parameters are different enough to qualify as a new type missile under New START. Correct. Correct. There are rules.

Aaron 13:55

Yeah, it's not non-smoky. There are rules. It's not non-smoky. Exactly. You caught the reference there. There are rules. They are spelled out in very detailed annexes and provisions in New Startup. New Startup, I mean, people can't see it. It's not like it's two pages.

Jeffrey 14:10

And by the way, like, you don't have to over-lawyer all this because it's very clear. We both know what we meant. Oh, of course. It isn't like this is some – it's not like it's the Constitution and you're trying to figure out 200 years later some obscure – like it's pretty obvious. Like when you declare a system under the treaty, it's supposed to stay under the treaty.

It's supposed to stay inside your national borders. Yes.

Aaron 14:41

Because if you could put stuff outside your national borders, then you're – You're like violating the treaty. You would violate the cap. It's like NBA salary cap. I think about the Clippers, right? It's like you have a salary cap, right? But then you pay a guy a $50 million endorsement deal for not showing up. Like you realize you're violating the cap.

They know what they're doing. Okay. I think the listeners got it. And so RS-26 is the arresting. And then the arresting shows up in Belarus.

Jeffrey 15:10

So they're deploying it outside the country. Yeah. So somehow the safe missile has violated two different arms control treaties that do not control the same missile. It's just because the Russians keep lying about things. It's truly stupendous. I'd make fun of the Russians, but we're about to invade Greenland. I was about to say, there's all this stuff going on.

We're recording this on the precipice of an invasion of Greenland.

Aaron 15:40

It's getting entirely wild. So talking about these sort of, I guess, the legal definitions of the treaty that will expire in a month sort of seems quaint. I mean, it is. Yes, it is quaint.

Jeffrey 15:54

But all of which is to say, the deployment of the system in Belarus is important. It's important, not because it's physically closer, because it's actually kind of further away than some places in Russia, but because it represents this shift in Russian thinking about the deployment of what are essentially strategic assets abroad. You know, like I would not be shocked if we see, you know, Yars, ICBMs in their three stage version showing up in Belarus someday.

And by the way, the Russians are going to hate it when we do the same thing.

Aaron 16:42

Yes. And I think it's important as much as we're joking, because I really can foresee that Putin and Trump handshaking, making a handshake agreement on like sort of the broad based parameters of New START without any of the technical annexes. Do you know what I mean?

Jeffrey 17:01

Yeah. Well, this was my concern is that. Yeah. Putin has offered a one year voluntary extension of the central quantitative limits of the treaty. But this behavior shows that that's not really all that useful because if they want to violate the central quantitative limits of the treaty, they're just going to reinterpret it so that things don't count.

So, you know, like, you know, we're going to be like, hey, the treaty says you can have 700 delivery vehicles. Why do you have 950? And they're, you know, they're going to say, what, the other 150 are wheels of cheese. Right. And we're going to be like, no, no, there are definitions. And they're going to be like, no, no, we're it's a voluntary agreement by the central quantitative limits.

There are no definitions anymore.

Aaron 17:57

Those are wheels of cheese. Right. And so I think it goes towards. I guess it would be ultimate intentionality through actions, right? The agreement is worth only so much as the two sides are willing to abide by it. But if you're just not willing to abide by it but then lie your way out of it, then the agreement is fundamentally worthless, even if there's parameters or – Let's say, benefits from having discussions about capping limits on strategic forces?

Jeffrey 18:30

Yeah. You know, there's a point I try to make about arms control all the time. And really, it's about treaties in general, which is sometimes you think you have a mutual interest in restraint. And you have to coordinate that mutual interest. But the treaty is only going to last as long as it's in both parties' interest, right?

Like the treaty isn't a substitute for the hard work of making a durable and just peace that both parties can live with. Like if you can't do that, if you can't find some common ground and it doesn't have to be like we want to live together because we love each other. I can literally just be like we don't want to have a nuclear war this week.

But the problem is we actually kind of do. Like both parties, and I think the Russians especially, the Russians want an elevated nuclear risk because they think it restrains us in Ukraine. They don't want to eliminate or reduce nuclear risk at the moment. They want to increase it. So at the moment, there just, I think, isn't much to talk about.

Aaron 19:39

No, I think that's right. Yeah, so it...

Jeffrey 19:44

When there is, I will be the first person to say we should hear them out.

Aaron 19:49

Well, it sort of goes against our... Well, it goes against the last 20 years of our field, which has been put into this box of we've got to figure out a way to talk to people about limits. And I think what's uncomfortable for people in our field is that, no, maybe we don't for the next decade or so.

And we need to think about... I mean, I don't know how you describe it, but you start thinking about hard-nosed deterrence. What does this mean for strategic stability, et cetera, et cetera?

Jeffrey 20:21

Well, and I think there's a corollary to that, which is part of the reason we're in this place is because we haven't been willing to have the hard conversations that we don't want to have. We have never wanted to talk about limiting defenses, right? Correct. No, never. And so that puts the Russians and the Chinese in a certain position and a certain frame of mind where they want to defeat those defenses.

And so the entire enterprise of arms control becomes pretty dubious when you're not willing to control half the equation. Right. And so, you know, there are many ways in which I think we were kind of a crappy arms control partner for the Russians and the Chinese. Like we sucked and now they suck back. And like, I just don't think like we're still not willing to talk about limiting Golden Dome.

Like we love Golden Dome. No. And they're not interested in limiting their offensive forces to penetrate it. No, totally. So I just – again. Totally.

Aaron 21:33

I would like – But RS-26 – but do you view RS-26 and the IRBM as a way to defeat missile defense? Or do you think that they've always felt – I don't either. And so I don't know what RS-26, the impetus for it was other than that they like having – An intermediate capability to hold Europe at risk and then to coerce the United States and sort of how they run war games.

So it's less about missile defense and more about how they view Europe as weak and trying to break the U.S. from Europe, which Trump helps with.

Jeffrey 22:04

Yeah, I think the favor bureaucratic kind of analyses and the way I look at it is it's not like a mechanistic, like we build a defense and they build an ability to defeat it like one-to-one. It's more like we behave in a certain way and create certain incentives And that changes who wins arguments in Moscow. And when the people I like the least begin winning arguments in Moscow, that changes who wins arguments back home.

Yes. You know, like, so I'm not somebody who thinks like if we just woke up tomorrow and we're like totally reasonable. I don't know that we got the guys on the other side that we want to talk to at this point. But we are building, I think, a feedback cycle that will probably get worse before it gets better.

Aaron 23:00

People will say, well, is this independent of Trump? But I think it is. I think Trump is – it's definitely independent of Trump. I don't think the Russians view their sort of security frame through a four-year presidential cycle. I think they base it on sort of capabilities of the U.S. in a worst-case assessment. But they will try and leverage sort of – Trump's desire to reach agreements with people to get favorable outcomes for themselves, which is why I can see them saying, well, OK, you know, we don't we will as part of our talks with you over Ukraine or something like that, reach agreement on sort of very top line numbers to keep New START basically in place because we don't actually have an incentive to build up above it.

But without making, say, a concession on like the Ereshnik or anything like that.

Jeffrey 23:50

I mean, I do think one thing that's slightly restraining the two sides at the moment is just that it's expensive and expanding these systems is going to take some time. So, you know, sometimes I think people rightly say there isn't really an arms race because it doesn't have the intensity. But I do think you clearly have this interactive process.

And I think like with any kind of exponential change, It'll just keep getting more intense and we'll wake up one day and we'll be like, well, wow, but it is now an arms race. So I think we're in that transitional period.

Aaron 24:26

Yeah, or you'll look back and it's like, whoa, like that was a lot of stuff that was happening, which I didn't quite realize all of it was going on. Like you wake up to a JSOC raid in Venezuela, even though all the pieces are there, like you're not sort of waking.

Jeffrey 24:41

Some people literally woke up to a JSOC raid in Venezuela.

Aaron 24:46

I just happened to wake up. Hey, who is that guy? Steve, how did you guys find it? We sort of skipped the juicy part.

Jeffrey 24:54

Yeah, I mean, this was really fun. So Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, had said he was looking at like 30 sites. And that was really interesting because we knew that meant it wasn't just old SS-20 sites because there were only 15 of those.

Aaron 25:13

Okay, but you could quickly go look at the old SS-20 sites.

Jeffrey 25:15

So we looked at all the old SS-20 sites plus disused military facilities, partly because you're going to want the same kind of infrastructure. They were there for a reason in the first place, but also you want areas that are easy to take. Lukashenko also said he wanted something close to the border with Smolensk. So that kind of caused me to look in a particular area first.

Some people thought they might be in this place near Slutsk, but Decker and Decker, Eveleth and Michael Dutzman had looked at that site and said it did not look like a missile base to them. And I agreed. And then Lukashenko came out and said it was not at Slutsk. OK. OK. We think he was reading your email.

No, I think. Other people were really pushing it, and I think he enjoyed making fun of them.

Aaron 26:15

Okay.

Jeffrey 26:15

Okay. And then the last little bit is, you know, when he made fun of them saying it's not in Slutsk, he said it won't stay secret long because we built it in such a short time. So, like, I had some idea it was going to be, like, really rapid construction. And just going through, I went through some old locations, and there's this airbase called Krichev 6, which is five kilometers from the border.

Oh, nice. And... I was a little shocked because it was an air base. But the first thing I saw was that there was rapid construction of new buildings on the runway. We thought it had been a lumber mill. It turns out it was a charcoal plant. It was a disused military airfield that had become a charcoal plant.

But they knocked most of those buildings down. And across the runway, they started building new buildings, which meant they weren't making it a runway again. And then the thing that really gave it away was it had a railhead, a secure railhead, and they rebuilt it. And every Russian strategic forces base has a secure railhead.

Aaron 27:23

Yeah.

Jeffrey 27:23

Yeah.

Aaron 27:24

Yeah.

Jeffrey 27:24

Yeah. Yeah. I mean. I mean, so, you know, like they might as well have, you know, planted an RVSN topiary in the front yard. And then, you know, you just look at the base and it just has vibes. You know, it's the buildings are a certain size. They're laid out in a certain way. They put down some concrete pads for heavy vehicles and they covered them with dirt to try to hide them.

You know, like it was a missile base. And then you put it out. I forgot which outlet. Reuters. John Landay.

Aaron 28:01

Reuters. Yeah, that's right. So you went to Reuters with that.

Jeffrey 28:05

I did see some chatter from the community online, you know, about, you know, like we're not idiots. Like, I'm not saying we get everything right, but I mean, I don't know. The reception was not what I had hoped for.

Aaron 28:20

There was some chatter and, I mean, we have been podcasting for more than a decade. I do know what goes into this and how careful you guys are. So I was like, they're probably right. I mean, I'm not saying that you're always right.

Jeffrey 28:33

No, I mean, you get to 90, 95%, you're going to be wrong one out of 10, one out of 20 times.

Aaron 28:38

So I was like, but... Yeah, but I was like, I do know the team that you work with. I was like, they're all pretty good. So I was like, that's probably it, right? And then Lukashenko just said, okay. They released a video.

Jeffrey 28:48

Yeah, Dmitry Stepanovich put the video out, found it in Russian. They released it. He noticed it. He tweeted it. And then a Russian military blogger, who I think is anonymous, I know the person's name, but we can put in the show notes. If not, I don't want to get me in trouble. Geolocate it. It was like, yes, it's the same place.

And then we double-checked his geolocation, and it's right. It's the same place. I mean, unless there are two identical bases.

Aaron 29:17

And I guess the U.S. match this is Dark—oh, God, I forgot the name of the missile system. How could I forget the name of the missile system? Dark Eagle. Dark Eagle. Yeah, it is.

Jeffrey 29:25

Kind of, yeah. Yes, it's an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Aaron 29:30

Yeah, and then Typhon in Germany. Right, which is Tomahawk.

Jeffrey 29:34

So it's Tomahawk. Yeah, Tomahawk and SM-6. And, you know, one thing that is interesting about this site is it's small.

Aaron 29:45

Why do you think it's small?

Jeffrey 29:47

Don't know. Maybe they're going to have the permanent deployment in Russia and they're just going to rotate stuff in. Or maybe there's another one of these and we just haven't found it yet.

Aaron 29:58

We should say, we assume Oreshnik is conventionally our, it has the option, it's both. But when you looked at the site, did there look to be like nuclear facilities there?

Jeffrey 30:11

This sucks. It is so freaking cloudy. The last new picture we have in high resolution is a month and a half ago. So you don't know. We're looking at lower resolution imagery. And I would not rule out there being warheads on site. But until I get a high resolution picture, I can't say for sure. I mean it does have storage bunkers.

It has UGF. So there's places they could stick the warheads if they wanted. But I need a clean, clear picture to know for sure.

Aaron 30:54

Five kilometers from the border suggests political singling to me.

Jeffrey 30:57

I think so because there are parts of Russia that are closer to targets than this place. Because the border isn't – Straight line.

Aaron 31:06

Yeah, no, it's a lot like Montreal being south of Boston. That's right.

Jeffrey 31:10

So you can get, if your goal was to maximize range, there are better places in Belarus and there are better places even in Russia. Yeah, so – And it's – again, it looks small.

Aaron 31:25

So I don't think they're going to have – I mean, five kilometers from a border makes you very vulnerable.

Jeffrey 31:30

Well, it's five kilometers from the Russian border. I think they think that's safer.

Aaron 31:34

Oh, sorry. Actually, to be honest with you, I had it backwards in my head.

Jeffrey 31:38

Oh, yeah. No, no. It's next to the Russian border.

Aaron 31:40

Oh, so it's just right over the border with Russia. Sorry. I thought you meant it was five – okay.

Jeffrey 31:44

That was my mistake. Yeah, they can see Russia from their house. Oh, that makes a lot more sense.

Aaron 31:49

Oh, that makes a lot more sense. So it's really political signaling. Oh, yeah. It's literally like a strong urine away from one side of the Russian border. Yeah, interesting. You could cross-country ski it, my friend. Yeah, well, I downhill ski. Gravity is my friend. A lot like reentering ICBM. You know, we like the pull of gravity. Yeah.

I think we hit it. I mean, I don't know if there's anything else left to say other than – I mean, I just think we're arms control. We're arms racing. I don't know what else to say. I was reading here. It just flashed across my Twitter. Trump was asked about this in this two-hour interview with the New York Times.

They did ask him. I'm just seeing a summary. And his response was – If it expires, it expires. We'll just do a better agreement, he added, insisting that China, which has the fastest growing arsenal in the world, should be incorporated in any future agreement. You probably want to get a couple of other players involved also. So I think we have that to look for.

Jeffrey 32:52

I mean, it's very funny. The minute he says that, that is such a violation of longstanding policy that we won't negotiate away the British and the French deterrence. I bet the Brits and the French are just delighted to learn who those couple of other players are supposed to be. Exactly.

Aaron 33:08

You know, that sounds like a good roundtable discussion for in Europe, if we don't invade that too. It's 2026. It's January 8th. And we haven't done this for a long time. But maybe the next time we podcast, we'll be talking about other things. Who knows, man? Who knows? Buckle up.

Jeffrey 33:34

Does it violate New Start if we see Greenland and put IRBMs there?

Aaron 33:39

I don't know. I honestly don't know.

Jeffrey 33:42

Can you imagine trying to dig through that permafrost? I mean, you know that's what Project Iceworm was.

Aaron 33:47

I do.

Jeffrey 33:48

I do. God, we should do a podcast on that one. All right.

Aaron 33:51

That's nice. Oh, okay.

Jeffrey 33:53

That's the signal.

Aaron 33:53

We're off the rails. That's it. Off the rails. You know, not railheads. Patreon.com slash ACW podcast. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not. Support the show. We will be doing more of these. Jeffrey just has to stop flying so much, and we have to stop submitting as many proposals. We actually are doing a lot of research.

We are. We are doing a lot of research together that we will have to start previewing on the podcast coming up.

Jeffrey 34:17

I'm going to be spending a lot more time in Philadelphia.

Aaron 34:21

We've got a lot of cool stuff, maybe some live shows. We'll get it all rolling again, get the infrastructure built, and just as rapidly as it is in Belarus. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.