Associated Press
The Russian military on Wednesday began a third round of drills with tactical nuclear weapons, part of the Kremlin’s messaging intended to force the West to limit its support for Ukraine.The Russian Defense Ministry said the drills will feature units of the central and southern military districts armed with Iskander short-range missiles. They will practice receiving nuclear weapons from storage and deploying them to designated launch areas. The maneuvers will also include air force units that will arm their warplanes with nuclear weapons and perform patrol flights.
JOSHUA POSANER, NETTE NÖSTLINGER AND GORDON REPINSKI | POLITICO
Not everyone loves the idea of more American longer-range missiles on German soil. That's especially true for the members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD). The decision by Scholz to agree to allow the United States to base missiles in Germany from 2026 that are capable of striking targets at distances of 2,500 kilometers — easily able to hit Moscow from Berlin — has some in his own party up in arms.
Courtney Albon | Defense News
The Space Force has launched a study to consider what capabilities to host on future satellites that detect and track advanced, high-speed weapons. Col. Rob Davis, who oversees space sensing acquisition efforts for the service, said Thursday that as part of that work, the Space Force is weighing the right approach for ensuring such spacecraft can survive a nuclear threat.
Korea Times
South Korea and the United States staged their first-ever table-top exercise on integrating Seoul's advanced conventional forces with Washington's nuclear capabilities this week to better respond to North Korea's nuclear threats, officials said Thursday. The three-day discussion-based exercise, named "Iron Mace 24," concluded earlier in the day at the U.S. Forces Korea's (USFK) Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, after the allies signed a joint guidelines document on nuclear deterrence last month.
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
North Korea wants to reopen nuclear talks with the United States if Donald Trump is re-elected as president and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy, a senior North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea told Reuters. The escape of Ri Il Gyu from Cuba made headlines globally last month. He was the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to defect to the South since 2016. In his first interview with international media, Ri said North Korea has set Russia, the U.S. and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities for this year and beyond.
Andreas Kluth | Bloomberg
The “no-limits friendship” between Russia and China raises the specter, as a congressional commission concluded, “of combined aggression” — that is, of them ganging up. So the next US president could infer that the American arsenal must deter not only the Kremlin or Zhongnanhai separately but also a joint attack. That could imply that the US needs to roughly double its nuclear arsenal. If Washington were to start adding weapons, though, Beijing and Moscow would each become paranoid and accelerate their own arming efforts, forcing the US to increase its arsenal even faster. The question then becomes whether the US could “win” the ensuing arms race, and what such a victory would look like.