generalspeaking

Thursday, December 06, 2018

Calling Russia to Account : Good Luck

"Russia hasn't embraced Western values of freedom and international co-operation. It has suppressed opposition voices and invaded sovereign nations."
"Moscow deployed a military-grade nerve agent on foreign soil, right here in Europe, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention."
"And Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty for many years."
"International bodies must help facilitate co-operation that bolsters the security and values of the free world, or they must be reformed or eliminated. When treaties are broken, the violators must be confronted, and the treaties must be fixed or discarded."
"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 expressed terms of the INF Treaty [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]."
"[Washington] would welcome a Russian change of heart [but no indication has been seen that Moscow is prepared to comply]."
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, Brussels, conference of the German Marshall Fund of the United States

"It's up to Russia now to preserve the INF Treaty. They have a last chance to show and demonstrate in a verifiable way that they comply with the treaty."
"But we also have to prepare for a world without the treaty. We have to remember that no arms control agreement will work if it is only respected by one party."
"[NATO calls upon Russia] to return urgently to full and verifiable compliance."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

"[Many other countries have developed weapons banned under the INF treaty.] Now it seems our American partners believe that the situation has changed so much that [they] must also have such a weapon."
"What's our response? It's simple - in that case we will also do this."
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

A Russian missile is fired during military exercises

Russia denies building missiles that violate the accord EPA

This is not the first time an American president has accused the Russian Federation of neglecting its arms control obligations; former President Barack Obama did so, choosing not to pull the U.S. out of the treaty at that time. Now the Trump administration has given the Kremlin warning that it has sixty days in which to re-initiate compliance with the nuclear missile treaty. Otherwise, Washington is prepared to leave the pact.

According to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Russia is guilty of "cheating at its arms control obligations" imposed under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and that Washington was prepared to activate a six-month notice period to leave the pact should Russia not bring itself into line of the treaty within sixty days. Intelligence evidence gathered by the U.S. has been shared with its NATO allies.

That intelligence verifies that the new Russian SSC-8 ground-fired cruise missile has the capacity for Moscow to launch a nuclear strike with little or no notice directly into Europe. The bilateral treaty co-signed by Moscow and Washington bans all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles whose range ranks between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Russia, however, spurns the U.S. claim that it has departed from the treaty parameters, insisting that its new system has a range that doesn't exceed 500 kilometres.

If memory serves right, Vladimir V. Putin boasted earlier this year when unveiling Russia's new technologies and weapons systems that it was in possession of a hypersonic air-to-ground missile, a new intercontinental ballistic missile, a nuclear-powered missile with unlimited range, and a hypersonic missile able to carry a nuclear warhead, as well as a few other systems. Mr. Putin sneered at that time at NATO efforts to delay Russian weapons technology, iterating that "You have failed to contain Russia".