Tag: INF Treaty

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NATO, U.S. Agree on Russian Violation

NATO’s members and President Trump are in solid agreement that Russia has substantially violated the long-standing Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

While President Trump’s push to get NATO members to contribute a fair share of the defense organization’s budget has raised some tension, the inherent danger posed by Putin’s latest aggressive act has produced unity within the alliance. According to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, “All allies have concluded that Russia has developed and fielded a new ground-launched cruise missile system – the SSC-8, also known as the 9M729…Allies agree that this missile system violates the INF Treaty and poses significant risks to Euro-Atlantic security. And they agree that Russia is therefore in material breach of its obligations under the INF Treaty.”

NATO describes the treaty violated by Moscow as “…a pillar of European security. The treaty eliminated an entire category of destabilizing weapons…” Stoltenberg noted that “Russia’s deployment ratchets up tension on the continent. This is really serious, …these missiles are in particular dangerous because they are hard to detect, they are mobile [and] they are nuclear-capable,” the secretary general said at a news conference…The new Russian missiles can reach European cities, thus reducing warning time… they also reduce the threshold for nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict. That’s the reason why the INF Treaty has been so important, and that is why it is so serious that this treaty risks breaking down because of the Russian violations.”

Stoltenberg, referring to Washington’s efforts to get Putin to comply with the treaty, emphasized that “the United States has made every effort to engage with Russia, and to seek answers about the new missile. The U.S. has raised the matter formally with Russia at senior levels more than 30 times…Other allies have raised it with Russia, too. We did so, a few weeks ago, in the NATO-Russia Council here in Brussels… This violation “erodes the foundations of effective arms control and undermines allied security. This is part of Russia’s broader pattern of behavior, intended to weaken the overall Euro-Atlantic security architecture.”

The Secretary-General reported that The United States continues to fully comply with the INF Treaty. “There are no new U.S. missiles in Europe, but there are new Russian missiles in Europe…Arms control agreements are only effective if they are respected by all sides. A situation where the U.S. abides by the treaty and Russia does not is simply not sustainable.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at the Brussels meeting, explained that “…whatever successes this treaty helped produce, today we must confront Russian cheating on its arms control obligations…our nations have a choice. We either bury our head in the sand or we take common-sense action in response to Russia’s flagrant disregard for the express terms of the INF Treaty. It’s worth noting that Russia’s violations didn’t happen overnight. Russia’s been flight-testing the SSC-8 cruise missile since the mid-2000s. They’ve been testing it in excess of ranges that the treaty permits. All the tests of the SSC-8 have originated from a Kapustin Yar site from both a fixed and mobile launcher. Its range makes it a direct menace to Europe… Throughout all of this, the United States has remained in scrupulous compliance with the treaty. In spite of Russia’s violations, we have exercised the utmost patience and effort in working to convince Russia to adhere to its terms. On at least 30 occasions since 2013, extending to the highest levels of leadership, we have raised Russia’s noncompliance and stressed that a failure to return to compliance would have consequences.

“Russia’s reply has been consistent: deny any wrongdoing, demand more information, and issue baseless counter-accusations. For more than four years, Moscow has pretended that it didn’t know what missile or test the United States was even talking about, even when we provided extensive information about the missile’s characteristics and testing history. It was not until we chose to publicize the Russian name of the missile in November of 2017 that Russia finally acknowledged its existence. Then Russia changed its cover story from the missile that does not exist to the missile that exists but is treaty-compliant.

“These violations of the INF Treaty cannot be viewed in isolation from the larger pattern of Russian lawlessness on the world stage. The list of Russia’s infamous acts is long: Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, election meddling, Skripal, and now the Kerch Strait, to name just a few.”

Photo: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks with reporters during a foreign ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Dec. 4, 2018. (NATO)

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Deeper Danger Behind Russia’s INF Violation, Part 2

Russia has persistently violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, (INF) and China, never a signatory to the pact, is free to develop any such weapons it chooses.

House Armed Forces Committee Chair Mac Thornberry noted earlier this year, “It is foolish to try and pick and choose what aggression we will stand against and which we will let go unanswered. It is not enough to advocate for a more robust cyber response to Russia’s attempts to meddle in our elections but waiver on our response to their renewed nuclear or territorial ambitions. Likewise, we can’t simply build up our missile defenses and nuclear deterrent but leave significant cyber intrusions unanswered. We have to be willing to do it all.”

In response to partisan criticism of the White House decision to leave the INF treaty, the House Armed Service Committee issued the following response:

National Security leaders from both parties have been concerned about Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty for some time. After repeated calls from Congressional leaders, repeated votes to hold Russia accountable, at least four hearings on Treaty violations over four years, and warning from senior military commanders and national security experts, Russia refused to return to compliance with the treaty. As threats from Russia and China mount, President Trump has little choice but to withdraw from a treaty only the United States is adhering to.

Russian Cheating Is Nothing New: Obama administration officials were concerned about Russian INF cheating as far back as 2008, and concerns have only been growing:

·  In 2008, according to a later interview, then-Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Rose Gottemoeller, Russia started testing “a ground-launched cruise missile that flies to ranges banned by the treaty. The banned ranges are between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. We are quite sure they have tested a capable missile that flies to those ranges, and they tried to get away with it.”

·  In 2013, HASC Chairman McKeon wrote twice to President Obama to express the Committee’s concerns about Russian violations of arms control agreements. Then-Senator John Kerry expressed concerns about Russian cheating, according to the Daily Beast. While the Obama Administration claims to have raised the issue with Russia, President Obama threatened to veto the FY13 NDAA because it would have forced his administration to make a determination on Russian cheating.

·  In 2014, the then-Chairmen of the House Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Intelligence Committees wrote to President Obama reinforcing their concerns about Russian violations. That same year the Obama administration concluded that Russia had violated the INF Treaty. According to the New York Times, this was “the most serious allegation of an arms control treaty violation that the Obama administration has leveled against Russia.”

·  In 2016, Chairmen Thornberry and Nunes again wrote to President Obama, urging his administration to take Russian violations seriously.

·  In 2017, Air Force General Paul Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmedthat Russia has deployed a new type of cruise missile that violates the INF Treaty. The Trump Administration imposed sanctions on Russia for violating the treaty in December 2017.

·  In the spring of 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly announced new classes of nuclear weapons that would violate the INF Treaty.


The Threat From China Is Growing: Over the past two decades, China has developed numerous missile systems that far outrange U.S. systems. United States’ compliance to INF, coupled with unconstrained Chinese missile development, has contributed to a significant disparity in ballistic missile force structure which may have strategic and operational impacts in the Indo-Pacific region.

·  “Largest and most diverse missile force in the world”: According to Admiral Harris, formerly the Commander for U.S. Pacific Command, the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) controls the largest and most diverse missile force in the world, with an inventory of more than 2,000 ballistic and cruise missiles. This fact is significant because the U.S. has no comparable capability against 95% of the PLARF’s missiles due to our adherence to the INF Treaty with Russia.

·  The United States has no comparable capability due to INF restrictions: The INF Treaty prevents the United States from developing comparable capabilities against the following operational Chinese missiles: DF-11 SRBM, DF-26 IRBM, DF-16 SRBM, DF-4 IRBM, DF-15 SRBM, HN-3 Cruise Missile, HN-2 Cruise Missile, DF-21 MRBM, among several others.


Congress Has Acted Repeatedly: Members from both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers, have voted repeatedly to hold Russia accountable:

·  Since 2014, the House Armed Services Committee has held four hearings into Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty.

·  In March of 2014, a bipartisan group in the House and Senate introduced a resolution to hold Russia accountable for its violations of the INF Treaty, a version of which was included in the FY15 NDAA.

·  The FY15 NDAA included additional measures aimed at Russia’s treaty violations.

·  The FY17 NDAA banned companies who contributed to Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty from doing business with the U.S. government.

·  The FY18 NDAA authorized funding to counter INF violations, including research on the potential development of U.S. missiles that would travel between 500 and 5,500km. It also required the executive branch to develop a plan to sanction Russia and key persons for non-compliance with the INF Treaty.

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Photo: Iskander Missile (Russian Ministry of Defense)

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Deeper Danger Behind Russia’s INF violation

The once-successful Intermediate nuclear Forces Treaty, (INF) is now obsolete, a clear result of Russia’s extensive violation of its provisions.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed that they would ban all land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The ban applied to missiles with nuclear or conventional warheads.

However, in 2013, the United States noted concern about Russia’s deployment of Iskander intermediate range nuclear missiles, which violate the INF.

The United States officially charged Russia with violating the INF Treaty in late July 2014, when the State Department released the 2014 edition of its report “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments” (the Compliance Report). President Obama sent a letter to President Putin notifying him of the finding in the Compliance Report and suggesting that the two countries meet to discuss steps that Russia could take to come back into compliance with the Treaty

The Trump Administration conducted an extensive review of the INF Treaty during 2017 to examine the potential danger from Moscow’s violation. The result was that on December 8, 2017, the 30th anniversary of the treaty being signed, the White House announced that the United States would commence an integrated response that included diplomatic, military, and economic measures.

It’s not just that the weapons Russia has deployed violate the treaty.  It’s also where they have been deployed, the Kaliningrad region its exclave on the Baltic Sea. The White House describes the deployment as destabilizing, both in its violation of the INF and in the imminent danger Moscow’s buildup of forces in that region represents.
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CNN reports that “New satellite imagery shared exclusively with CNN shows Russia appearing to upgrade four of its military installations in Kaliningrad, Russia’s strategic outpost on NATO’s doorstep. Earlier this year, aerial images came to light that suggested the Russians had significantly modernized a nuclear weapons storage bunker in Kaliningrad. Now, satellite imagery and analysis from ImageSat International, a commercial satellite firm, appear to confirm that a major modernization is underway in at least four locations throughout the region. Those upgrades include fresh work at what analysts have identified as the Kaliningrad nuclear weapons storage site. Images captured between July 19 and October 1 indicate work on an exposed bunker under renovation that appears to conceal activity underneath.”

Russia is not the only cause for the White House’s concern.  The arms pact never included China, now a military superpower. A Spacewar report quoted Senator Lindsey Graham’ expressing the concern that “’The Russians have been cheating; the Chinese are building up their missiles… and we need to counter it.’ Another senior Republican, Senator Bob Corker, agreed that ‘there’s no question that for years Russia has been violating” the accord. He noted on CNN that some defense specialists say that ‘because China is not part of this (the INF) they’re developing systems that will move beyond where we are.’”

But there’s more to it than even an extremely serious and obvious violation of a nuclear arms pact.  Moscow deployed these missiles when there was absolutely no defensive reason to do so.  European nations had slashed their military forces to the bone, and the United States, during the Obama Administration, had also severely cut defense spending.  The obvious analysis is, since there were no defensive reasons to deploy the missiles, and Russia’s economy can’t afford to waste funds on simply symbolic gestures, Putin’s motives can only be seen as offensive.

As Putin continues his extraordinary arms buildup, including the violation of long-standing nuclear accords, despite his nation’s weak economy, the realization that he intends to use his forces to intimidate or even attack European nations becomes more evident.  Absent an appropriately strong response from the U.S. and NATO, he will continue on this highly dangerous path.

Photo: Iskander missile  (Missile Defense Advocacy Organization) 

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Russia’s Heightened Military Threat, Part 2

Russia has been violating the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty for a decade. The Obama Administration was deeply reluctant to respond to Moscow’s misdeeds. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee reported in February: “Congress repeatedly urged, and even required in law, the Obama Administration to confront Russia on violations of the INF Treaty.  The Obama Administration did very little.  As a consequence, the only arms control treaty to ever successfully eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons lies in tatters.  Our military has warned publicly that such a violation poses a military risk to the United States, our allies, and our deployed forces.

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Timeline of Russian Violation of the INF Treaty

2012: HASC Chairman and HPSCI Chairman write to President Obama warning him of a violation of a major arms control treaty by Russia.

2013: Chairmen write again, twice, warning him action must be taken.  No action is taken.

2014: Obama Administration finally declares that Russia has violated the INF treaty by illegally flight-testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile.

2015: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY16 required President Obama to report to Congress and our Allies on violations of the INF Treaty and develop military options to counter Russia’s new capability.  Administration did not comply.
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2016: Chairman Thornberry and Chairman Nunes wrote to President Obama again urging him to confront Russia over INF violations based on new information about Russian activities.


2016: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY17 withheld funds for the Executive Office of the President until the Department of Defense develops military options to confront the new Russian capability.

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The Defense Intelligence Agency’s latest analysis of Russian military power notes that: “The resurgence of Russia on the world stage—seizing the Crimean Peninsula, destabilizing eastern Ukraine, intervening on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and shaping the information environment to suit its interests—poses a major challenge to the United States. Moscow will continue to aggressively pursue its foreign policy and security objectives by employing the full spectrum of the state’s capabilities. Its powerful military, coupled with the actual or perceived threat of intervention, allows its whole-of-government efforts to resonate widely. Russia continues to modernize its extensive nuclear forces and is developing long range precision-guided conventional weapons systems. It is manipulating the global information environment, employing tools of indirect action against countries on its periphery and using its military for power projection and expeditionary force deployments far outside its borders. Its ultimate deterrent is a robust nuclear force capable of conducting a massed nuclear strike on targets in the United States within minutes. Within the next decade, an even more confident and capable Russia could emerge. The United States needs to anticipate, rather than react, to Russian actions and pursue a greater awareness of Russian goals and capabilities to prevent potential conflicts. “Moscow’s ambitious rearmament program has driven the increase in defense spending. The Strategic Armament Program (SAP) called for spending 19.4 trillion rubles (equivalent to $285 billion) to rearm Ministry of Defense forces from 2011 through 2020.

Moscow’s long-term goal is building a military prepared to conduct the range of conflicts from local war through regional conflict to a strategic conflict that could result in massive nuclear exchange. … Russia is rapidly fielding a modern force that can challenge adversaries and support its “great power” aspirations. Russia’s commitment to building its military is demonstrated by its retention of the draft. All Russian males are required to register for the draft at 17 years of age and all men between the ages of 18 and 27 are obligated by law to perform one year of military service.”

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Russia’s Heightened Military Threat

The Trump Administration is levying sanctions on Russia for violating a nuclear arms pact. It’s a response the Obama Administration failed to make.

The White House move is part of its attitude of realism in dealing with international threats.

Leftist legislators and think tanks, as well as their allies in numerous media outlets have objected to efforts by foreign policy realists to raise defense spending to levels capable of meeting the growing threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and terrorists. Their argument generally centers round complaints that dollars spent on military needs should have been spent on programs such as education, entitlements, and the like.

Many of those efforts are actually the responsibility of the states (social security and Medicare are not entitlements, they have been paid for by their recipients through payroll deductions.) The severity and immediacy of the massive arms buildups by America’s opponents and the aggressive nature of their actions are being ignored by those critics.

The willingness to ignore the rapidly gathering storm clouds flies in the face of very overt evidence. Todd South, writing in Military Times, notes that “Between 2007 and 2016, Russia increased military spending by 87 percent, according to a June policy brief by the European Leadership Network…”
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Moscow’s dramatic escalation comes at a time when the U.S. had reduced its military spending and its presence in Europe.  South notes: “There are fewer than 65,000 soldiers stationed or forward-deployed in Europe, as compared to more than 270,000 at the height of the Cold War…. In 1987, the Army had 17 brigades and 666 combat aircraft in Europe. That fell to two brigades and 121 combat aircraft earlier this year, according to the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace….’I wish to be as clear and direct as our findings allow me to be: NATO is not postured or prepared to defend its most exposed and vulnerable member states … against a Russian attack,’said David Shlapak, co-author of a 2016 RAND study on deterring Russia in eastern Europe, in a recent Army Times article.”

Russian media has not been shy about its advancing military presence. Moscow’s RT news has proudly noted that “Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted to the lower house of Russia’s parliament an agreement to transform the Tartus navy refueling facility in Syria into a fully-fledged navy base, capable of harboring nuclear-powered ships…Former chief of staff of the Russian Navy, Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, told Interfax that the expanded base would contribute to the navy’s “operative capabilities” in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East as a whole. He also said that the developed navy base would be much larger than the current facility, which is used for refueling and technical support of ships.”

In addition to its enhanced conventional capabilities, Moscow has made major upgrades to its strategic nuclear forces,

Bill Gertz, writing in the Free Beacon reports: “Russia is aggressively building up its nuclear forces and is expected to deploy a total force of 8,000 warheads by 2026 along with modernizing deep underground bunkers, according to Pentagon officials. The 8,000 warheads will include both large strategic warheads and thousands of new low-yield and very low-yield warheads to circumvent arms treaty limits and support Moscow’s new doctrine of using nuclear arms early in any conflict. In addition to expanding its warheads, Russia also is fortifying underground facilities for command and control during a nuclear conflict. One official said the alarming expansion indicates Russia is preparing to break out of current nuclear forces constraints under arms treaties, including the 2010 New START and 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaties. Russia violated the INF accord by testing an illegal ground-launched cruise missile. The new assessment also suggests Russia is planning to blend its conventional forces with nuclear forces in future conflicts.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

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Russia Violates Arms Treaty, Obama Refuses to Act

The time has come for the White House and the American left to cease ignoring the overwhelming evidence of the hostile intent clearly illustrated by Russia’s massive arms buildup, its aggressive invasions and deployments, and the prewar training exercises it has engaged in.

In addition to a massive increase in spending on arms, its invasions of Ukraine and Georgia, and its massive military exercises, Moscow has abrogated the terms of a key arms control treaty that was a vital centerpiece of détente during the first Cold War: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Despite the Kremlins’ clear violation, there has no response from the White House. In frustration, Rep. William “Mac” Thornberry (R-Texas), chair of the House Armed Service Committee, and David Nunes, (R-California) Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a letter to President which reads in part:

 “Dear Mr. President:

“We write to you again because of our urgent concern about the failure of your Administration to confront Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.  The United States must finally impose penalties for Russia’s near-decade long pattern of violations that undermine this seminal arms control treaty and place it on the verge of collapse.

     “The INF Treaty is the only arms control treaty that succeeded in eliminating a class of nuclear arms.  Its provisions are simple: a flight test or production or possession of a ground-based ballistic or cruise missile of the defined-ranges is illegal ad defeats the Treaty’s object and purpose.
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     “While your Administration finally stated in 2015 (as a result of pressure from our committees) what had been well-understood before then—that Russia was illegally flight-testing intermediate- range ground-launched cruise missiles(GLCMs)—neither the State Department nor Defense Department imposed consequences on Russia.  Despite testimony on at least trwo occasions by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller that Russia would face economic sanctions for its illegal behavior, no such sanctions have been imposed.  And, despite the testimony of senior Department of Defense leaders that the Pentagon would develop a series of military responses to ensure Russia understood the cost of its illegal activity, and Congress passed and you signed a law to require that such responses be implemented, we understand that your Administration is not permitting the military to pursue the options recommended to you by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey.

     “It has become apparent to us that the situation regarding Russia’s violation has worsened and Russia is now in material breach of the Treaty…”

The Putin government has clearly and blatantly turned back the clock to the worst era and practices of the first Cold War.  In addition to violating the INF Treaty, it has resurrected Moscow’s prior practice of developing massive nuclear warheads, which could only be used not to deter or fight wars but to wholly eliminate other nations from the face of the earth.

Recently, Moscow revealed its new RS-28 Sarmat missile, appropriately dubbed Satan-2 by NATO. It is capable of delivering a 40 megaton warhead, 2,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. According to an analysis by the Daily Mail  a single missile could deliver a payload that could wipe out an area the size of France or Texas.

It is most notable that these developments of treaty-busting intermediate range missiles and the Satan-2 occurred at a time when the United States was slashing its defense budget, and at a time when Washington had not modernized its nuclear deterrent for many years, and NATO nations continued to under-invest in their defense. Russia was faced with no threat or need for enhancing its nuclear weaponry.  However, notes a NATO report   “Russia is roughly half-way through a major ten-year State Armaments Programme, which foresees the procurement of large amounts of new or upgraded weapons systems and other military hardware, across all services of its armed forces, over the period 2011-2020. The programme initially foresaw a total expenditure, for the armed forces, of 19 trillion roubles, or 647 billion US dollars at the average nominal exchange rate of 2011. This comes in addition to expenditures on personnel, exercises and operations.”

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Russian nukes in Ukraine signal danger for the West

Why is Russia setting up a nuclear weapons infrastructure in its captured portion of Ukraine, and what does it mean for the West? (The Jamestown Foundation notes that “TU-22M3 long-range bombers, which would be able to carry and deliver [nuclear] weapons, have now been deployed to Crimea.”)

Although it rarely gets mentioned, Ukraine voluntarily surrendered its nuclear arsenal—the third largest in the world– in return for guarantees of its territorial sovereignty.

The US, the UK, and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 supposedly safeguarding Ukraine . Clearly, all three guarantors, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have broken their word.  Moscow invaded and annexed a portion of Ukraine, and neither London nor Washington did anything substantive in response.

That failure sent a reverberating, powerful message to aggressors across the globe. Russia, which is in violation of other treaties, has learned that it can abrogate agreements with impunity.  So can other anti-Western powers.

Moscow currently is also in violation of the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) . The Hudson Institute notes that “The agreement bans the testing or deployment of intermediate range cruise and ballistic missiles, those with a range between 500km and 5500 km. In its annual 2014 arms control Compliance Report, the Department of State noted that Russia had violated the pact when it deployed a ground-launched cruise missile, whose unique Iskandar system can fire both cruise and ballistic missiles and a system Russia plans to deploy to Crimea… Nor is it Russia’s only INF violation. Moscow also has converted a single-warhead ICBM into a three-warhead intermediate-range ballistic missile, a violation missing from the 2014 Compliance Report.”
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Iran and Syria know that America’s threats, and promises of protection to its allies, are not serious. China has harassed and stolen assets from its neighbors.

Apologists for Putin may claim that Russia is only solidifying his grip on a strategic occupied portion of Ukraine.  However, Jamestown reports that “Nor are these Russian military reinforcements seemingly aimed only at the strategic Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. They are also occurring in and around Belarus and sites in western Russia like Belgorod, where massed Russian forces can be turned against the inviting defense-industry target of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 16). These reinforcements also derive from previously announced plans to emphasize Russian military buildups for 2015, in the Baltic, Crimea and the Arctic (RIA Novosti, March 17). Moscow’s boosting of its nuclear and conventional forces suggests a continuing Russian effort not just to deter NATO but also to intimidate European governments.”

The message to the West is clear: Russia is asserting hegemony over the former Soviet republics and the Kremlin’s former captive nations in Eastern Europe. It is also returning to Moscow’s former desire to cow the rest of Europe into relative submission.

There has been an historically rapid turnaround from the late 20th century collapse of the Soviet Empire, and the potential era of peace that could have resulted from it.  The failure of the West, the United States in particular, to maintain an adequate military capability, and the pacifist/isolationist policies of the Obama Administration in particular, have squandered what was a true opportunity for a prolonged period of international peace.

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Russians Practice Nuke Strike vs. US

Russian nuclear-capable bombers engaged in maneuvers practicing the launching of cruise missiles against the United States last week, reports the Washington Free Beacon. The incident, which occurred as NATO leaders met in Wales, can be considered part of a larger nuclear exercise by Moscow.

The Kremlin’s growing enthusiasm for nuclear weapons and the means to launch them has been noted in several different areas.  Russia has moved theater atomic weapons to its European border, (Moscow has a ten to one advantage in tactical nuclear weapons) and modernized its equipment.  It has resumed bomber and submarine patrols off American coastlines.

As the United States and its allies have slashed defense budgets, and as President Obama has called for unilateral cuts in the American nuclear arsenal, the Kremlin has taken precisely the opposite course, providing greater funds for its military and building up its nuclear capabilities.
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Russia has also violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force treaty.  The INF agreement was a landmark diplomatic achievement in 1988, which provided for the complete elimination of an entire class of weapons, including ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.  The possession or production of such weapons was strictly prohibited.

These facts have hardly been reported in the major media and seem to have had little to no influence on the White House’s ongoing bid to reduce American military funding.