Putin, Russia up the ante on missile defense

Maxim Marmur | AFP | Getty Images

File photo shows Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) watching a launch,18 February 2004 at the Artic cosmodrome in Plesetsk.

Russia just upped the ante for the missile defense world, although it did not come as a surprise to the United States.

During a two hour long state-of-the-nation speech on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin unveiled an arsenal of nuclear weapons that will significantly boost the Kremlin’s military capabilities. The weapons include a nuclear-powered cruise missile, a nuclear-powered underwater drone and a new hypersonic missile.

“They didn’t sneak up on us,” Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNBC. “This is kinda the state of play for the missile threat and missile defense challenge of the day.

“Congress has already highlighted the Russia threat and guess what Vladimir Putin today is confirming the rightness of that diagnosis,” Karako added.

Still, Karako said, the weapons Putin described, less than three weeks before he is expected to claim re-election, render NATO’s mostly U.S.-led missile defense systems useless.

“Unfortunately, we are kinda behind the curve in terms of our cruise missile defense capabilities,” Karako said. “This is why, I’m a broken record on this, this is why we have to open the aperture and look at the full spectrum of missile threat challenge. It’s not just about ballistic missiles anymore.”

Putin’s speech cited other nations’ actions as a key factor in supercharging Russia’s arsenal.

“I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country’s development: all what you wanted to impede with your policies have already happened,” Putin said. “You have failed to contain Russia.”

In an effort to back his bellicose rhetoric, Putin spoke in front of a projection showing video clips of the new weapon platforms.