Good Piece From Scott.

This is precisely the point number of us, recall mine and Larry's statements on this matter, made constantly. I described the new paradigm on strategic weapons for years--here is one of those. Similarly, Scott concludes:

When New START expires in 2026, Russia is positioning itself to pursue its current nuclear modernization programs free of any treaty constraints. This will complicate the nuclear modernization efforts of both the U.S. and U.K., whose follow-on capabilities, being developed at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, will be inferior to the systems Russia is in the process of deploying. Russia will not entertain any negotiating process which seeks to nullify its strategic advantage, especially so long as the U.S. and its Western allies embrace policies which paint Russia as a strategic enemy and seek the strategic defeat of Russia.

If there is to be any hope for a revival of nuclear arms control between the U.S. and Russia, it will not be through a vehicle which sustains the legacy of the Cold War.Instead, a new strategic relationship will have to emerge based upon modern realities, where the U.S. either must spend huge amounts of money to reach nuclear parity with Russia or negotiate from a position of strategic inferiority. The day and age of unquestioned American nuclear superiority has passed.

Keep also in mind a dramatically accelerating gap between the US and Russia in anti air/missile defense, especially against the background of astonishing performance of air defense systems in SMO, which provides crucial boost in the development of already vastly superior Russian AD/ABM systems with S-500 and S-550 being in serial production. Those systems are also the part of the equation because now they are beginning to have a massive mitigating effect on any plans on first decapitating strike by the US on Russia. In simple words, these system and those which are coming soon can blunt dramatically effect of any attack on Russia. The US has nothing comparable to that and is, obviously, lagging dramatically in hypersonic weapons. Read the whole piece by Scott, it is excellent, and this growing gap may open a possibility for a suicidal act from the US when it finally grasps what I am on record for years--the arms race is lost and the technological gap is absolutely massive.