Earlier this week, the U.S. test-fired a cruise missile. Now China and Russia are demanding a United Nations Security Council meeting on a recent U.S. missile test.

Yes, that takes some gall.

That cruise-missile test was within the range that had been banned by the now-defunct Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Beijing and Moscow say that the U.S. action is thus a grave endangerment to international security.

They are hypocritical liars of the highest order.

The U.S. is only conducting these tests is because the Chinese and Russian governments are doing the exact same thing at a far greater scale. The U.S. pulled out of the INF Treaty this summer following Russia's sustained breach of treaty protocols. The Russians deny this but are regarded by the entirety of NATO's 29 member states to be lying in vintage deza-form.

And what of China?

Well, never a party to the INF Treaty in the first place, China has spent the past decade developing a vast portfolio of short- and intermediate-range missiles. It uses these to threaten American bases, ships, and planes across the Indo-Pacific.

America's newly recommenced short-intermediate range missile tests are simply an overdue response to these Chinese-Russian threats. As Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told Fox News' Jennifer Griffin on Wednesday, "We want to make sure that we, as we need to, have the capability to deter Chinese bad behavior by having our own capability to be able to strike at intermediate ranges." Esper recognizes that China requires deterrence via variably ranged counter-force.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are upset that the United States is playing them at their own game. The U.S. should welcome this U.N. Security Council meeting and speak plainly in defense of the idea that America has the right to defend itself.