Communist China and Russia just announced an ominous ramping up of their strategic military cooperation. The truth is that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have been intensifying such collaboration for years, including in simulated joint nuclear attacks against this country.

Even more ominous is the extent to which both of these adversaries have been assiduously modernizing their respective thermonuclear arsenals, while our deterrent has been inexorably obsolescing. The cumulative effect of these inverse trends has been to raise serious questions about whether Moscow and Beijing now feel they have checkmated the United States and can therefore act with impunity on their respective plans for aggression in Ukraine and/or the Baltics, and Taiwan and/or India.

For too long, we’ve contended that nuclear war in unwinnable and unthinkable. Unfortunately, our enemies believe neither is true. It behooves us to restore our deterrent ASAP.

This is Frank Gaffney.