Russia Violates Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty

[jimmy olsen]

Bastards! 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/europe/us-says-russia-tested-cruise-missile-in-violation-of-treaty.html?_r=0

Russians' Test Called Breach Of Missile Pact

By MICHAEL R. GORDONJULY 28, 2014

The United States has concluded that Russia violated a landmark arms control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile, according to senior American officials, a finding that was conveyed by President Obama to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a letter on Monday.

It is the most serious allegation of an arms control treaty violation that the Obama administration has leveled against Russia and adds another dispute to a relationship already burdened by tensions over the Kremlin's support for separatists in Ukraine and its decision to grant asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.


At the heart of the issue is the 1987 treaty that bans medium-range missiles, which are defined as ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles capable of flying 300 to 3,400 miles. That accord, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, helped seal the end of the Cold War and has been regarded as a cornerstone of American-Russian arms control efforts.

Russia first began testing the cruise missiles as early as 2008, according to American officials, and the Obama administration concluded by the end of 2011 that they were a compliance concern. In May 2013, Rose Gottemoeller, the State Department's senior arms control official, first raised the possibility of a violation with Russian officials.

The New York Times reported in January that American officials had informed the NATO allies that Russia had tested a ground-launched cruise missile, raising serious concerns about Russia's compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or I.N.F. Treaty as it is commonly called. The State Department said at the time that the issue was under review and that the Obama administration was not yet ready to formally declare it to be a treaty violation.

In recent months, however, the issue has been taken up by top-level officials, including a meeting early this month of the Principals' Committee, a cabinet-level body that includes Mr. Obama's national security adviser, the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of state and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Senior officials said the president's most senior advisers unanimously agreed that the test was a serious violation, and the allegation will be made public soon in the State Department's annual report on international compliance with arms control agreements.



"The United States has determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the I.N.F. treaty not to possess, produce or flight test a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability of 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles," that report will say.

In his letter to Mr. Putin, delivered by the American Embassy, Mr. Obama underscored his interest in a high-level dialogue with Moscow with the aim of preserving the 1987 treaty and discussing steps the Kremlin might take to come back into compliance. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a similar message in a Sunday phone call to Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.

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Because the treaty proscribes testing ground-launched cruise missiles of medium-range, the Kremlin cannot undo the violation. But administration officials do not believe the cruise missile has been deployed and say there are measures the Russians can take to ameliorate the problem.

Administration officials declined to say what such steps might be, but arms control experts say they could include a promise not to deploy the system and inspections to demonstrate that the cruise missiles and their launchers have been destroyed. Because the missiles are small and easily concealed, obtaining complete confidence that the weapons have been eliminated might be difficult.

NATO's top commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, has said that the violation requires a response if it cannot be resolved.

"A weapon capability that violates the I.N.F., that is introduced into the greater European land mass, is absolutely a tool that will have to be dealt with," he said in an interview in April. "It can't go unanswered." Mr. Obama has determined that the United States will not retaliate against the Russians by violating the treaty and deploying its own prohibited medium-range system, officials said. So the responses might include deploying sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, which would be an allowable under the accord.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the administration for dragging its feet on the issue. Ms. Gottemoeller, the State Department official, has had no discussions with her Russian counterparts on the subject since February. And Mr. Kerry's call on Sunday was the first time he had directly raised the violation with Mr. Lavrov, State Department officials said. Administration officials said the upheaval in Ukraine pushed the issue to the back burner and that the downturn in American-Russian relations has led to an interruption of regular arms-control meetings.

The prospects for resolving the violation were also uncertain at best. After Ms. Gottemoeller first raised the matter in 2013, Russian officials said that they had looked into the matter and consider the issue to be closed.

The Russians have also raised their own allegations, a move that American officials believe is intended to muddy the issue and perhaps give them leverage in any negotiations over compliance. One month after Ms. Gottemoeller raised the American concerns, the Russians responded by pointing to the United States plans to base the Aegis missile system in Romania.

The Aegis system, which is commonly used on warships, would be used to protect American and NATO forces from missile attacks. But the Russians have alleged that it could be used to fire prohibited cruise missiles.

When Mr. Kerry spoke with Mr. Lavrov on Sunday, the Russian foreign minister cited Russia's concerns over "decoys." That may have been a reference to Russian charges that the targets that the United States uses in antimissile tests are an I.N.F. treaty violation. American officials regard that allegation, about the issue of the Aegis system and complaints about the use of targets, to be spurious.

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An underlying concern of the Obama administration in dealing with the Russians is that the Kremlin may not be wedded to the I.N.F. agreement. During the George W. Bush administration, some Russians officials argued that the treaty should be dropped so that the Kremlin could augment its military abilities to deal with threats on its periphery, including China and Pakistan.

In a June 2013 meeting with Russian defense industry officials, Mr. Putin described Mr. Gorbachev's decision to sign the accord as "debatable to say the least," but asserted that Russia would uphold the agreement. Even some American conservative analysts say that in pursing the compliance concern, the United States should not provide the Kremlin with an opportunity to back out of the agreement.

"For the United States to declare that we are pulling out of the treaty in response to what Russia has done would actually be welcome in Moscow because they are wrestling with the question of how they terminate," Stephen Rademaker, a former Bush administration official, told the House Armed Services Committee this month. "We shouldn't make it any easier for them. We should force them to take the onus of that."

[Tamas]

[Syt]

User comment:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/us-says-russia-breached-nuclear-treaty

With each passing day, the fascist regime in Washington finds new ways to try and reignite the cold war. Its like a flashback to the scene in Doctor Strangelove, in which George C. Scott's character laments the (then) alliance between the US and Germany, wishing we could become enemies again so we could have a proper war. Only this time the comedy is much, much darker.

I wonder why the Russians do not protest over the US contributions to the nuclear weapons programs of India and Israel, two of the nuclear powers that have not signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. Now that Obama has escallated, perhaps they will. And, oh, by the way, the US routinely tests its own cruise missiles, platforms that are quite capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

[The Brain]

Reset! Reset!

[MadImmortalMan]

User comment:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/us-says-russia-breached-nuclear-treaty

With each passing day, the fascist regime in Washington finds new ways to try and reignite the cold war. Its like a flashback to the scene in Doctor Strangelove, in which George C. Scott's character laments the (then) alliance between the US and Germany, wishing we could become enemies again so we could have a proper war. Only this time the comedy is much, much darker.

I wonder why the Russians do not protest over the US contributions to the nuclear weapons programs of India and Israel, two of the nuclear powers that have not signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. Now that Obama has escallated, perhaps they will. And, oh, by the way, the US routinely tests its own cruise missiles, platforms that are quite capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Worth the one ruble sixty seven he was paid for writing it.

[derspiess]

Reset! Reset!

We're going to need a bigger button.

[Berkut]

Which was worse?





or

[derspiess]

In public perception, the first one is way worse.  Second one doesn't get rehashed nearly as much.

[Berkut]

True. One could argue that the first was, in substance, pretty much harmless though.

The second, in hindsight (and actually even at the time for many of us) was clearly just showing Russia how amateur the Obama Administration was...

[Tamas]

The first one was "hells yeah, we kicked their ass and won the war" and then said war/conflict dragged on and on and on and on, and arguably has destabilised the entire region beyond repair, with the US ending up creating a shitload of problems for herself where there was much less beforehand.

The second one on the other hand was naïve, but I would argue that it was necessary: despite the US making a fool out of itself for trying hard and appease Putin and treat him like a human being, Russian propaganda still justifies all its aggressive actions as countering US aggression. Imagine if the reset button didn't happen.

[frunk]

True. One could argue that the first was, in substance, pretty much harmless though.

The second, in hindsight (and actually even at the time for many of us) was clearly just showing Russia how amateur the Obama Administration was...

The first one wasn't harmless at all.  It showed how unprepared the administration was for even thinking about post invasion Iraq, which they bungled quite badly.

[Berkut]

The first one was "hells yeah, we kicked their ass and won the war" and then said war/conflict dragged on and on and on and on, and arguably has destabilised the entire region beyond repair, with the US ending up creating a shitload of problems for herself where there was much less beforehand.

The picture didn't create any of that though - it is just symbolic of the short sighted view of the conflict. The audience was the US, it's not like the people who went on to create more strife in Iraq were encouraged by it.

The second one on the other hand was naïve, but I would argue that it was necessary: despite the US making a fool out of itself for trying hard and appease Putin and treat him like a human being, Russian propaganda still justifies all its aggressive actions as countering US aggression. Imagine if the reset button didn't happen.

I am imagining, and I can't see any possible negative to US interests by not sucking up to Putin at that time. It was, IMO, perfectly clear then that Putin was not someone who you could flatter or diplomacize into playing nice, and rather any attempt to do so would just encourage him.

You could argue that the audience for the move was not Putin, but rather the rest of the world - an attempt to show everyone else how impossible Russia is to work with (See how nice we were? And they were still assholes!) but it wasn't positioned that way at all at the time. Rather this was an honest and sincere attempt to actually get Russia to play nice, as if all that was needed to accomplish that was the sincere belief that the primary problem to relations prior to the "reset" was the previous administration.

It was, at that time, seen as grossly naive and playing into Putin's strength. Hindsight has shown that that was very much the case.

The least damaging argument you can make to defend the move is to note that it probably didn't matter all that much - Putin doesn't give a shit what the West or anyone else things about what he does anyway, *his* audience seems to be entirely internal.

[Berkut]

True. One could argue that the first was, in substance, pretty much harmless though.

The second, in hindsight (and actually even at the time for many of us) was clearly just showing Russia how amateur the Obama Administration was...

The first one wasn't harmless at all.  It showed how unprepared the administration was for even thinking about post invasion Iraq, which they bungled quite badly.

No doubt, but in that case it was just the symptom of the problem, the action itself was immaterial.

The "reset" fiasco was directed at the actual players involved, and pretty much told Putin that we were ready and positioned to be abused.

I don't think any insurgents in Iraq were all "Oh man, I was going to go ahead and cooperate, but after that picture I am totally going to blow some people up!"

[frunk]

If we are just comparing pictures then the second is more damaging then the first.  If we are comparing the mindsets that led to the pictures being taken then the first is still much more damaging.  Not only did it show how unready we were for dealing with things post-invasion but that this wasn't even much of a priority when the invasion was being planned/considered.

[Berkut]

If we are just comparing pictures then the second is more damaging then the first.  If we are comparing the mindsets that led to the pictures being taken then the first is still much more damaging.  Not only did it show how unready we were for dealing with things post-invasion but that this wasn't even much of a priority when the invasion was being planned/considered.

Oh yeah, no question there.