Another week, another Russian nuclear superweapon – but this time, it’s a bit of a head scratcher. The new Burevestnik missile essentially revives a concept (the intercontinental cruise missile) that both the USSR and USA discarded back in the 1960s.Despite its intimidating NATO reporting name (SSC-X-9 Skyfall), Russia’s nuclear powered cruise missile is arguably worth looking at not so much because of what it can do, but because of what it likely can’t. The question of why a country would choose to fund something like this over and above thousands of other much reasonable and urgent priorities gives us a chance to dig into Russia’s priorities and the historical tendency of many states to back blingy superweapons at the expense of more boring, useful investments.
