Trump’s Team Should Shake Off Biden-Era Anxiety About Russian Nukes

The Biden administration was too receptive to Moscow’s nuclear hostage-taking tactics. Trump should strike a more stolid posture.

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Left: President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., May 28, 2025. Right: Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, October 29, 2024.

Leah Millis, Sputnik, Mikhail Metzel/via Reuters

As I wrote on Monday, there is a tendency among foreign policy sophisticates to react with doom and gloom whenever our partners abroad demonstrate any guile in their fight against our shared adversaries. Ukraine’s spectacularly impressive attacks deep inside the Russian Federation on Moscow’s long-range strategic aircraft have proven no exception.

“I’m telling you, the risk levels are going way up,” Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, recently told Fox News. “When you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their triad — the nuclear triad — that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side’s going to do.”

Noah Rothman

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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