David Sanger

By current Pentagon assessments, they've got slightly more than 600 nuclear weapons now, so they've tripled.

They're on the way to 1,000 by 2030, maybe 1,500 deployed weapons, which is about what the U.S.

and Russia deploy currently, by 2035.

And there are no nuclear arms control talks underway with China.

And the Chinese say, we're not even going to start such discussions until we've got an arsenal comparable to yours.

So that's problem one.

Problem number two is that the last arms control agreement, as you suggested, with Russia expired on February 5th.

So, Terry, with the Russians, we now have no form of arms control, nuclear arms control, in place for the first time in more than 50 years.

And I'm not predicting an imminent breakout of a new arms race, but there are no legal constraints on that right now.

And what worries us about the Russian nuclear program is both the development of these exotic weapons, undersea nuclear torpedoes that could hit the west coast of the United States, not be picked up by normal missile interceptors and so forth because they're running underwater,

hypersonic weapons that both the Chinese and the Russians are working on.

So all kinds of new nuclear weapons.

But more concerning is the fact that President Putin has shown no compunction about threatening nuclear use at various points in the conflict with Ukraine.

He hasn't done it.

So there's a lot to pay attention to here.

And I'm not sure that the Iranian program is the one that I would put on the top of my list.

It's certainly a nuclear concern, but maybe not the most immediate one.

We assume there is.

Look, the fact of the matter is the Ayatollah is 86 years old.

If he didn't have a succession plan prior to this latest confrontation with the United States, then something is wrong with the Iranian system.