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Title: INF off: US officially withdraws from nuclear-arms treaty
Source:
HotAir
URL Source: https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morr ... withdraws-nuclear-arms-treaty/
Published: Aug 2, 2019
Author: Ed Morissey
Post Date: 2019-08-02 11:41:39 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 1714
Comments: 7
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 2, 2019 “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday announcing the US’ formal withdrawal from the Cold-War era nuclear treaty. Pompeo said “Russia failed to return to full and verified compliance through the destruction of its noncompliant missile system.” While the initial announcement late last year surprised US allies, they quickly rallied behind the decision. The Trump administration had worked with its allies in Europe to build consensus on the withdrawal, most of whom have the same concerns over Russian mid-range missile systems. NATO had sharp words for Russia after Pompeo made it official: 9M729 is an alternative name for the SSC-8. NATO said in June that Russia must dismantle the short-range system, or the military alliance will be forced to respond, adding that NATO-member defense ministers would now look at next steps “in the event that Russia does not comply.” What next steps would that be? The US already has one answer and plans to test a new missile system to match the SSC-8, eventually. The US has other concerns than just Russia now, and the new system is also being designed to match another superpower who hadn’t been part of the INF: But the U.S. also sees an upside to exiting the treaty. Washington has complained for years that the arms control playing field was unfair. U.S. officials argued that not only was Russia violating the treaty and developing prohibited weapons, but that China also was making similar non-compliant weapons, leaving the U.S. alone in complying with the aging arms control pact. Now, the U.S. is free to develop weapons systems that were previously banned. The U.S. is planning a test flight of such a weapon in coming weeks, according to a senior administration official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the weapons development and spoke only on condition of anonymity. If the only other country in a bilateral treaty is cheating on the core issue of the pact, a formal withdrawal changes nothing except to remove unilateral handcuffs. While an arms race is hardly good for anyone’s security or economy, adhering to a sham treaty is worse for both. If Russia and China want to compete economically and militarily with the US, we should at least have a level playing field. What’s next? Most likely a few years of military spending on intermediate-range missile systems and missile-defense systems by all three nations, followed by the realization from Russia that it can’t afford an arms race on any scale while oil prices remain low. Vladimir Putin is already facing unrest at home, and further pressure on the economy will make that worse. China has its own economic woes at the moment, although this may not be as serious an issue for them. Eventually, talks will begin on a trilateral INF replacement, likely led by the EU, and the US will get a chance to force both Russia and China into compliance. At least, that’s what the West hopes will happen. Unfortunately, the only two choices Russia left for the West was hope or capitulation. Will the last one out of the INF room please turn off the glowing lights? The US has formally withdrawn from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces pact signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the death of the Cold War pact this morning, but in truth it had been in the go-through-its-pockets-and-look-for-loose-change state for the past several years: On Feb 2nd, 2019 the U.S. gave Russia six months to return to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Russia refused, so the treaty ends today. The U.S. will not remain party to a treaty when others violate it. Russia bears sole responsibility. The United States announced Friday it has formally withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Moscow, putting an end to a landmark arms control pact that has limited the development of ground-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. NATO added its weight to the U.S. position Friday, stating that Russia “bears sole responsibility” for the treaty collapse and that the military alliance would now respond in a “measured and responsible way” to “risks posed by the Russian 9M729.” The United States plans to test a new missile in coming weeks that would have been prohibited under a landmark, 32-year-old arms control treaty that the U.S. and Russia ripped up on Friday. …
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#1. To: Tooconservative (#0)
Leaving INF and building some new missiles is about the only way to force Russia and China back into compliance. To be fair to the Russkies, they were facing a lot of Chinese missiles within range of their cities. Perfect example of why these intermediate ballistic missiles are so destabilizing and why we banned them back in the Cold War.
How do you imagine that? That some medium range missiles are placed ten minutes from Moscow and Russians capitulate? Or do you propose to use them before Russians respond with long range missiles or do pre-emptive attack? I am trying to understand your proposal.
Like how we pulled our IRBMs out of Turkey after the Cuban missile crisis so the Soviets wouldn't put their IRBMs in Cuba? Or our cancellation of Reagan's plans to put IRBMs in Europe to counter the ones that the Soviets were menacing western Europe with from the Baltic states and other locations, all of which went away when America and the Soviets entered this treaty on IRBMs in the late Eighties? Surely you can't be unaware of how this works. Russia is arming up to counter the unregulated IRBMs pointed at them from China, something they're more worried about than NATO. So we pull out due to the Russky violations and build our own. Once everyone realizes it just makes the world more dangerous and requires a constant significant defense expense that gives them no real advantage, then everyone sees they should join a new IRBM treaty which will save them money. In truth, we should have forced China to sign on to the old treaty with the verification provisions before they were ever granted Most Favored Nation status in trade with America. Of course, we can always change our policy on that as well. Russia isn't going to return to the treaty unless China is forced into it. Perhaps others as well but there isn't as much danger to the three Great Powers from India or Pakistan or France or Britain, for instance. North Korea and Iran should be forced into it as well since we already know their ambitions.
I think it is you who is unaware, probably because you did not look at the map. Chinese medium range missile are too far to reach Moscow (or USA for that matter). Even if the Chinese put them in the isolated corner north-west from Himalayas, it would become a target for an easy preemptive strike. What Russians are afraid is the such missile will be placed in NATO bases in Romania, Poland, Baltics and perhaps even in the Ukraine. On the other hand Russian IRBMs cannot be a threat to America for obvious distance reasons. But they could target Europe, and for the effective deterrence, reactivate mobile launchers (disguised trains, tracks and submarines) for the intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since the warning time will be too short (the initial attack on Russia would come from central and eastern Europe), the alert triggered system will be turned on. At the present, the only imbalance I see, is that Chinese can hit the forward US positions near Chinese Sea, Korea, Japan etc ..., while the States cannot respond (with IRBMs). Longest range Chinese ICBMs are being moved north near Mongolia and Russian East, clearly to protect them by distancing from the coast.
Russians and Chinese have a fair amount of mobile missile platforms as well. NATO is essentially America in terms of conventional forces and the leading role in the defense of Europe. It is very unlikely we will place IRBMs there unilaterally. Unless Russia starts building up capability to launch IRBMs at western Europe. This is how the old Cold War rivalry built up. At some point, all parties will have incentive to lower the size of the arsenals under international inspections. We've reduced nukes in other treaties. America, China and Russia are all repositioning their nuke assets toward each other. Each is a rival of the other two. Each has growing sub forces, surface ships, advanced missiles. Some analysts think Russia's economy is again overstretched by sustained military spending and a weak domestic economy outside of their gas and oil sales to the EU. Even that is weaker as a result of U.S. oil exports. So some argue that Russia will collapse economically if they continue on. If America arms up, Russia may collapse, just as the USSR did during the Reagan era.
For the last couple years Russia military budget was frozen at the level 12 times smaller than USA, while the physical size of GDP (purchasing power parity) is 5 times smaller. Russians are focusing on asymmetric technologies like hyper-sonic missiles (too fast to intercept plus AI maneuvering) where they are ahead of everyone else. America is increasing its debt fast, while Russian reserves are growing. There was a temporary recession, the economy stabilized and shows slow growth. Important factor is the economic pivot to Asia, primarily to China (it reached 100 billion dollars, 20% plus growth a year), then India and increasingly to Iran and Turkey.
#2. To: Willie Green (#1)
#3. To: Tooconservative (#2)
Leaving INF and building some new missiles is about the only way to force Russia and China back into compliance.
#4. To: A Pole (#3)
How do you imagine that? That some medium range missiles are placed ten minutes from Moscow and Russians capitulate?
#5. To: Tooconservative (#4)
(Edited)
Surely you can't be unaware of how this works. Russia is arming up to counter the unregulated IRBMs pointed at them from China, something they're more worried about than NATO.
#6. To: A Pole (#5)
What Russians are afraid is the such missile will be placed in NATO bases in Romania, Poland, Baltics and perhaps even in the Ukraine. On the other hand Russian IRBMs cannot be a threat to America for obvious distance reasons. But they could target Europe, and for the effective deterrence, reactivate mobile launchers (disguised trains, tracks and submarines) for the intercontinental ballistic missiles.
#7. To: Tooconservative (#6)
(Edited)
Some analysts think Russia's economy is again overstretched by sustained military spending and a weak domestic economy outside of their gas and oil sales to the EU. Even that is weaker as a result of U.S. oil exports. So some argue that Russia will collapse economically if they continue on.
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