Two Can Play. After U.S. Arms Ukraine, Putin Sends Hypersonic Missiles.

I recently traveled to Buenos Aires and saw a brilliant cafe performance of tango dancing by highly skilled professional dancers. (No worries, I didn’t try to tango myself).

Of course, the classic dance reminds me of the expression, “It takes two to tango.” The same is true in military escalation.

The process is one by which an adversary raises the stakes with new weaponry or new lines of attack. The adversary answers in kind with its own improved weaponry or attacks in places previously not thought to be part of the battlespace. The process continues with each side increasing its level of aggression, only to be answered by the other side until an original small war or proxy war has grown into something resembling a true world war.

That escalatory tango is now well underway between the U.S. and Russia in Ukraine. The U.S. has supplied missiles, anti-missiles, long-range artillery, cash and much more. Next, some U.S. tanks and possibly F-16 fighter jets are not far behind.

Russia has not stood still. Keeping with the tango metaphor, Russia has used cruise missiles, massive artillery barrages, drones, sophisticated laser pointers to guide missiles to targets, and relentless assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure. Hypersonic missiles are waiting in the wings if things go much further.

As a show of force, Russia has ordered a navy frigate to move toward the U.S. The frigate carries hypersonic missiles. It’s not known if the missiles carry nuclear warheads, but such matters are never announced publicly and are always assumed to be true.

The hypersonic missiles travel at Mach 9, over 7,000 miles per hour, and cannot be shot down by existing anti-missile technology. Putin does not plan to attack the U.S. with these missiles as of now. This is what’s called a show of force.

Still, it’s a reminder that Russia can escalate just as quickly and lethally as the U.S. Biden cannot pursue his reckless escalation without expecting more of this kind of pushback from Russia. It takes two to tango.

Corporate leaders and institutional fiduciaries looking to incorporate state of the art predictive analytics to their risk mitigation and strategic analysis should click the link to learn more about Raven Predictive Analytics®.