Steven Pifer

Part of [Ukrainian President] Yanukovych’s obstinacy may result from an inflated sense of Ukraine’s geopolitical weight.

In the next several years the U.S. has to make some very expensive decisions about how to modernize the legs of the U.S. strategic triad [bombers, submarine and land-based missiles]. For example, replacing the Trident submarine will cost, according to the Navy, $6 to $7 billion a piece.