nuclear forces on alert on television. it's not normal to do it by giving a little speech. these are things that are supposed to be written down, and so i look at this fundamentally as a performance, and it's a way of changing the subject. if vladimir putin had not made this announcement, we would have been talking about how the russian military was performing dreadfully. we would be talking about the civilian toll that was happening. we'd be talking about the sanctions. in short, we'd be talking about how badly things were going for him. by doing this, he changes the subject and gives us something else to talk about. >> yeah, yeah. how concerning, though, is it even as a ploy, and at the same time, does the u.s. have systems that would detect what stage the russians are at with their readiness? >> yes. the united states has satellites and other means of collecting signals intelligence. and so if there was an order that went out or if the alert rate of nuclear weapons forces were to change, the u.s.