RITTER: NATO Can’t Fight a Real War

Russia’s newest systems aren’t standalone stunts, Scott Ritter argues—they’re a layered answer to U.S. treaty withdrawals and missile-defence moves: quitting the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, and deploying Aegis Ashore launchers with SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors in Europe. Moscow, he says, saw those steps as Washington building a “shield and spear,” and responded by creating weapons designed to defeat both. Hence a family of systems: the Sarmat heavy ICBM that can approach from the south; Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles; Poseidon, a nuclear torpedo able to create massive coastal destruction; and the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile that can fly “unlimited” routes around air defences (6:30–9:26, 7:27–8:24).

Ritter also describes the Oreshnik (“hazelnut”)—a new, intermediate-range ballistic missile rushed from R&D to deployment after the U.S. installed those European launchers. He says it’s derived from the RS-26 Rubezh, likely using a booster from the Yars missile (SS-27), may use a second stage from the “Cedar” missile, and adapts a modern Yars re-entry vehicle with multiple warheads. Recovered parts suggest components similar to the Bulava submarine-launched missile, showing Russia’s pattern of combining proven modules from earlier designs to field new weapons quickly (1:12–4:11, 3:42–4:04).

All of it, he insists, is about cost and leverage: Washington spends to defend; Moscow spends to bypass. In that arithmetic, every new U.S. “shield” invites a cheaper Russian “sword,” which is why he calls a U.S. “golden dome” fantasy—and why he claims Europe is in no position to escalate in Ukraine even if it wanted to. What follows is Ritter’s case that NATO lacks the logistics, manpower, and political will to sustain a real war.