Will an Arms Race Follow Trump’s INF Treaty Pullout?
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Trump is a geopolitical know-nothing, a businessman turned politician, America’s first realty TV president.
He’s captive to sinister US dark forces controlling him, capitulating to them virtually straightaway, likely after his electoral triumph – before entering office in January 2017.
He knows nothing besides what’s fed him by manipulative handlers, along with Fox News disinformation rubbish, his favorite TV channel.
A novice on the world stage, he dislikes details he lacks interest in, prefers information fed him in brief form. His obsessive TV watching, phone conversations, and tweeting reflect his dislike for detailed printed material.
He’s likely unaware of the human toll of his disastrous geopolitical agenda. Pulling out of the JCPOA and now the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty risk greater conflicts and chaos than already, a major risk he’s likely mindless about.
The historic, vitally important Reagan/Gorbachev 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty provisions required the elimination of all nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 310 – 620 miles (short-range) and 620 – 3,420 miles (intermediate range), along with their launchers.
Compliance is monitored by technical means, on site inspections and cooperative measures. The agreement was the first bilateral treaty designed to reduce nuclear arms. Previous ones only established ceilings.
Falsely accusing Moscow of breaching the treaty began months after the Obama regime’s coup d’etat in Ukraine, replacing democratic governance with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.
Trump’s pullout further escalates bilateral tensions and hostility, a hugely dangerous arms race likely to follow at a time US imperial madness poses a major threat to world peace.
Moscow categorically rejects false US accusations of alleged INF breaches, including about its newest 9M729 missile. No evidence suggests it exceeds INF limits. Russia considers US claims otherwise baseless.
Russian upper house Federation Council International Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachev said Moscow will “respond not to the very fact of Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty but rather to its practical steps when it is free to do whatever it wants,” adding:
As Vladimir Putin said, “Russia has all the military technical premises for that, its reaction (to) be rapid. I know what I am talking about, but this is classified information so far. I am sure the Americans are fully aware of that as well.”
“We had a special (Federation Council) meeting. The military proved that neither this (9M729) missile modification nor any other modifications have ever violated the treaty. This missile technically cannot violate the treaty as it has different characteristics.”
“The Americans keep on indulging in these games as the actual goal of such games is not to catch Russia in violations and compel it to abide by the treaty but to invent a pretext to ruin that treaty” – part of its belligerent imperial strategy.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov slammed Trump’s announced INF pullout, saying the US “act(s) clumsily and harshly” time and again, adding:
Russia has no choice “but to take retaliatory measures, including ones of military and technological nature.”
“We are treating with concern and condemnation the United States’ new attempts to force Russia to make concessions in the sphere of international security and strategic stability via blackmailing.”
“The Russian side has repeatedly said that the US side has no reasons for accusing Russia of allegedly violating this treaty.”
“After all these years, they have failed to substantiate their fanciful claims by clear explanations why they are doing this.”
Years of negotiation went into achieving the Soviet Russia/US INF Treaty, a landmark/partial nuclear disarmament agreement, defusing Cold War tensions.
At the time, Secretary of State James Baker promised NATO wouldn’t expand “one inch eastward” toward Russia’s borders, a pledge broken by Washington since the late 1990s by inclusion of former Soviet republics and Warsaw republics into US-dominated NATO.
Russia’ Foreign Ministry earlier called Washington’s Eastern European Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe deployment a flagrant INF violation, saying:
Their deployment in Romania with another planned in Poland breaches the letter and spirit of the agreement.
“(They) incorporate vertical launch systems similar to Mk-41 universal systems that are capable of launching intermediate-range (Tomahawk) cruise missiles…”
Since Soviet Russia’s yearend 1991 dissolution, Washington repeatedly breached INF mandates, continuing missile tests prohibited by the treaty.
It’s boosting production and use of unmanned offensive vehicles, falling under the INF’s definition of ground-based cruise missiles.
“Notably, we have been pointing (out US) violations of the INF Treaty for 15 years. But there is no constructive reaction,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry months earlier, adding:
“While implementing its anti-missile plans, the United States must be guided…by the generally recognized principle of inadmissibility of strengthening its own security at the expense of other states.”
“Notably, Washington has repeatedly reiterated this principle in corresponding international formats” – falsely accusing Moscow of INF violations, ignoring its own.
Treaties the US agrees to are for other countries to observe, not itself. Its reckless actions “wrecked the pillars of the global strategic stability, Russia’s Foreign Ministry stressed, adding:
Washington’s deployment of its missile-defense system “adversely impacted the system of international security, dramatically complicated relations not only in the Euro-Atlantic but also in the Asia-Pacific region, and turned into one of the most serious obstacles on the path of further gradual nuclear disarmament as it creates dangerous opportunities for the resumption of the nuclear arms race.”
“(A)n anti-missile umbrella may give rise to a calamitous illusion of invincibility and impunity and hence tempt hotheads in Washington into new dangerous unilateral steps on global and regional problems in bypassing of the United Nations Security Council and contrary to common sense…”
Washington “demonstrates no readiness for cooperation and reckoning with Russia’s concerns.”
(It) refused to even discuss its own guarantees that missile-defense systems that are being deployed in Europe are not aimed against Russia.”
US rage for world dominance risks possible East/West confrontation – potentially with nuclear weapons, a possible doomsday scenario if occurs.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
