https://southfront.org/inf-is-dead-nuclear-war-in-europe-is-one-step-closer/
For more than 30 years, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has been one of the cornerstones of the international security system. This ended on February 2, 2019 when the US officially suspended its participation in the Treaty. Washington said that it will fully terminate the treaty in 6 months if Russia does not comply with its ultimatum – the “verifiable” destruction of what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “INF-violating missiles, their launchers and associated equipment”. US President Donald Trump said in an official statement that the US “will move forward with developing” its “own military response options” and will work with NATO members and other allies “to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.” By this statement, Trump in fact announced that the US is restoring production and deployment of INF-banned weapons.
On the same day, Russia also halted participation in the Treaty. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will no more initiate talks to try and save the deal and publicly gave a green light to development of a mid-range hypersonic missile and a ground-based model of the sea-launched cruise missile Kalibr.
The US withdrawal from the Treaty can be traced back to 2013-2014, when Washington, during the administration of President Obama, started to accuse Russia of violating the INF. The US claimed that between 2008 and 2011, a ground-based cruise missile was tested at the Kapustin Yar test site (Russia’s Astrakhan region) that achieved a range greater than 500 km which is prohibited under the Treaty. Under the Trump administration, Washington and the NATO leadership continued to accuse Russia of violating the INF. US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the Permanent US Representative to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison have stated that Moscow has a new 9M729 missile, describing it as a land-based version of the Kalibr submarine launched, medium-range missile. This attitude is based on the assertion that Russia understates the officially disclosed characteristics of the missiles under development and currently equips the OTMS Iskander (operational tactical missile system) with missiles violating the Treaty.
The White House National Security Adviser John Bolton is also a longtime supporter as well as initiator of the idea of withdrawal from the agreement. He has repeatedly said that the bilateral nature of the treaty is its disadvantage. He claimed that the INF Treaty is limiting the ability of Moscow and Washington to strengthen their potential, while the threat of building up weapons of this type is increasing from third parties – in particular from China and Iran. According this point of view, the main reason of the US withdrawal from the INF is the strengthening of the Chinese nuclear potential, as well as the emergence of new types of intermediate and shorter range missiles in its arsenal. Therefore, the United States’ decision to withdraw from the treaty is not so much due to the fact that there is any evidence of Russia having prohibited missiles, but rather because China is increasing its capabilities in intermediate and shorter-range missiles. As a result of this reality, the United States feels limited in its ability to counter such a military threat.
However, the aforementioned reasons are largely just a formal pretext. The underlying reasons to withdraw from the contract are different.
The U.S. Armed Forces have held the dominant position on the planet for the past 25 years. The absence of an equal opponent has led to the U.S. Army and Navy’s complacency and relaxation, and if these negative tendencies are not stopped, they will also lead to a degrading of readiness and capability. The U.S. military-industrial complex produced its last nuclear warhead in 1991. The last U.S. ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile was commissioned in 1986, and then their production was discontinued. The production of the Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missile was discontinued in 2010. In order to eliminate the scientific and technical gap in the field of nuclear missile weapons, the US Department of Defense adopted the Nuclear Posture Review program in 2018, the implementation of which requires 400 billion dollars. In this regard, the main reason for the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty can be considered President Trump’s attempt to saturate the domestic military-industrial complex with money, launch new weapons designs and then, of course, sell these weapons. Thus, the question arises, other than the U.S. military, who will buy such weapons? Only those nations who have small militaries, or weapons systems that are too old and under threat of actual physical destruction. Trump has repeatedly stated that NATO countries spend too little on their defense contributions to the organization. But in order to force European countries to buy US weapons, the usual anti-Russia and Iran rhetoric is not enough. More radical means are needed to this end, such as coercion, manipulation and threats. The most sophisticated of these methods is the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Now, European countries will likely be forced to buy US air defense/missile defense systems and spend astounding amounts of money that will finance the US military-industrial complex. The accusations against Russia are used as a pretext for the United States to save face on the international stage.
From its turn, Russia is concerned by the deployment of weapons in Europe, which are in one way or another a likely violation of the INF. These include unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which, due to a combination of characteristics, can carry or are themselves intermediate-range missiles. Of similar concern is the transfer of the Mk-41 launchers of the ship-based combat information and control system Aegis from ships to land-based facilities (the Aegis Ashore program). In Romania, the Aegis Ashore facility is based at the Debeselu air base (3 batteries with 8 SM-3 Block IB missiles) and in Poland a second installation is currently under construction at the village of Redzikovo. These launchers are not only platforms for SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles, but also potentially for Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. The positioning of these intermediate range missiles on land is forbidden under the INF Treaty. In addition, a number of Russian military experts have expressed concern over the development of the United States X-51A Waverider Hypersonic Cruise Missile. This hypersonic missile is not subject to the INF Treaty, but it has the characteristics of a shorter-range cruise missile. Furthermore, the United States is actually violating the INF when it tests its anti-ballistic missile systems. In order to test missile defense systems, intermediate- and shorter-range mock missiles are used for the Hera, MRT, Aries, LV-2, Storm, Storm-2, and MRBM complexes. The Russian Defense Ministry also said on February 2 that the US had been preparing production facilities for INF-banned missiles since at least June 2017.
Either way, both the US and Russia have developed and are developing intermediate and short range missiles in one way or another. Both nations are able to fully continue developing missiles as mentioned above, and commission them into active use. Therefore, the irrevocable withdrawal from the treaty could unleash a new arms race similar to that experienced in the 1980s.
Furthermore, with the release of Russia and the United States from the INF Treaty, the START-3 (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) loses its meaning, and as a result, the entire non-proliferation system starts to collapse. Europe and especially its eastern countries become hostage to the created situation. This fact will greatly complicate the already quite complex US relations with its European allies. As for the US, the consequences of the exit for them will not be as dire as they would be for Russia. In the event of a conflict, only the bases and locations of the US Armed Forces in Europe would be in range of intermediate and shorter range missiles. Russia on the other hand, cannot provide a reciprocal answer to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Russia does not have military bases near US territory, where a large number of intermediate and shorter range missiles could be deployed. However, this does not mean that Moscow does not have weapons in its arsenal other than intercontinental ballistic missiles, to counterbalance the threat from the United States. In addition to the traditional US deterrence factor; the threat of guaranteed nuclear annihilation, recently a new generation of cruise missiles began being delivered to the Russian Navy and strategic aviation. It is obvious that these missile programs will be revised to reflect the new strategic realities post-INF, and will be accelerated accordingly. It is worth noting that, due to the small size of the Russian military relative to that of the Soviet Union, it is not realistic to expect military actions in the European theater with the use of combined armed forces. In the event of a conflict, the Russian military leadership may have to create a zone of continuous destruction of the infrastructure, or even a zone of radioactive contamination with tactical conventional and nuclear weapons, which will be delivered via intermediate and short range ballistic missiles. This zone of destruction would most likely be created along its borders from where the enemy predominantly attacked Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries – Eastern Europe.
Consistently nulling the system of strategic missile restrictions with Russia, the United States does not want and does not intend to abide by the previous agreement or, alternatively, build a multilateral system of agreements in which China, Pakistan and India could participate. Consequently, the United States intends to continue to dictate its conditions to the entire world. Supremacy in the field of strategic offensive weapons, an effective missile defense system, and the deployment of intermediate and shorter range ballistic missiles in Europe or the Pacific is nothing more than a dangerous utopia that does not add security to the United States or its allies.
More than thirty years after the signing of one of the fundamental agreements in the field of global security on both sides of the ocean, possible nuclear annihilation once again became one of the key factors threatening European security.
The safeguard of INF has been gone since missiles went into Romania three years ago.
In the Pacific region, China (not a signatory to INF) has had the missiles to destroy US ships and bases since 2006.
The loss of INF is not an increase in threat of nuclear war.
With the US falling behind in missile technology and without a reliable missile defense, breaking out of the INF legal restraints actually opens pressure for the US to begin to seek a wider Treaty that includes all nuclear powers while it spends hundreds of billions to produce weapons and defenses against Russian and Chinese weapons.
What is really dangerous is the short flight time from forward positioning in NATO vassals. This leaves Russia with seconds to launch their weapons in response. And though Ukraine is prohibited from having its own nukes, it can host American/NATO weapons.
It is clear that Putin gave the MOD the ‘go’ signal long ago to develop whatever missile or torpedo they can dream up and perfect. Converting the Kalibr to land-based is probably already done. This cruise missile alone will force the US to begin serious talks for arms limitations. Otherwise, nothing the US can create will matter. Combined with the other hypersonic and SARMAT nuclear weapons, the Kalibr means no enemy of Russia will survive if Russia is attacked.
The US and its vassalage, NATO, are faced, not with tests of their strength (air power, naval dominance) but with Russian dominance in EW, missiles, hypersonic strike vehicles and mobility. The Hegemon built for the wrong adversary and wrong theatre of war.
Game Over.
The sensible thing to do would have been to invite the Chinese to join and to update the treaty. This is how we know that the US really don’t care about the INF at all, they want/need to catch up and go beyond the Russians and Chinese to re-establish the uneven playing field they love so much. Truth is they can’t afford it and they lack the ability technically to get where they want to be, it’ll take decades and events around the western economy and climate change will prevent them from reaching their targets. I look forward to the irony of the US economy collapsing under the weight of the MIC and having to withdraw their empire to home shores in order to quell civil unrest and help repair the catastrophic damage caused by increasingly frequent severe weather events. The real concern for me revolves around the increasing potential for ‘accidents’ and rogue launches. I still think there is room for a new treaty and that any sane Whitehouse would wish to negotiate one without all this neocon sabre rattling and drama school stuff.
The potential of ‘rogue’ actors launching an apocalyptic aggression is very real. The Thanatopolis DC nut-house is stuffed full of ‘religious’ freaks like Pentecostal crazies Pence and Pompeo and Zionazi madmen like Schumer, Cardin, Schiff etc, plus the usual detritus of the ‘Exceptionalist’ cult.The Pentecostals are slavering for the End Times so that they can be ‘Raptured’ while we mere mortals burn, the Zionazis have long promised to ‘take the world down with us’, in their Samson Doctrine, if they feel that their fascistic, racist, apartheid terror state is threatened and the Exceptionals are by far the most brutally aggressive genocidists in history.
The most dangerous aspects of this new situation are not missiles as such, but psychology and geography. The US is obviously hoping to use Europe as a missile base for a potential attack against Russia, hoping it will give it an offensive advantage in a sneak attack. Worse, the US is hoping that Europe will ago along, ie. acquiese to becoming Americas sacrificial lamb for a potential victory against Russia. I am afraid this type of thinking will create a chain reaction of dissatisfaction, as nobody in Europe will want to die for Wall Street’s interests. However, do Wall Street and Washington understand this ?
Here is a more detailed look at the American weapon that concerns Russia:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-russian-response-to-washingtons.html
Unfortunately, the Western mainstream media rarely covers what Russia says and thinks about the current global moves toward a new Cold War.
What the crazies in Looneylandia are doing to Venezuela, is what they were hoping would happen to Russia somehow by hook or by crook even though it failed once in the 1990’s. Magical thinking abounds in the theater of the absurd. Maduro mentioned briefly with an expression of incredulity that Trump was forcing him to fight a people’s war? Are they really? Sadly, yes….and so it has not been mentioned as such publicly since or not that I have noted.
Trump and the 3 Stooges are cliffhangers in the extreme sport of baiting the bear. They are entering the zone of
No Return. and the territory of No Country For Old Solutions.
Modern planes with good auto-pilots and cruise missiles that can be ground launched both shattered the INF treaty over a decade ago. Plus theoretically banned weapons could be given to a non-treaty proxy.
This change has no substantive impact on any side.
Technically, the ground launch cruise missiles appear to be covered in the treaty. Thus the discussion about the difference between a Naval version of the Kalibre being legal and a ground version being illegal.
But, it does seem to be a rather silly treaty. The ‘ground based’ bit seems a rather large loophole. So, someone puts long range missiles on a barge? Or on a ‘aircraft’ that flies a total of 1 meter into the air and then launches missiles?
Anyone who’s been to a modern “Riverboat Casino” in America knows that you can put a lot of stuff and weight on a barge.
Precisely.
The INF treaty made sense when written. Intermediate range meant “ballistic” missiles or something huge that had to be lugged up to flight/launch altitude by nothing smaller than a full strategic bomber.
Compact, high range “cruise” technology killed the INF when it wiped out the “ballistic” treaty assumption.
Formally ending the INF merely recognizes this fact.
What interests me is that Europe doesn’t seem to come up in anyone’s conversation on the topic. I was a protester in the American streets as a part of the No-Nukes movement in the 1980’s. We of course thought it was important that Americans march in the streets in large numbers to try to say that we didn’t want to die in a nuclear holocaust. For this we were considered radicals by the Reagan government, and probably by a wet-nosed neocon-in-training John Bolton.
But, we didn’t feel that we had changed the course of history and saved humankind from extinction in a nuclear war. It seemed at the time that the protests and opposition to American nuclear weapons in Europe was much more important. Because if the discussion is over nuclear weapons with “intermediate ranges”, then it was much more about missiles that could fire across Europe but not ones that could reach the USA from the Soviet Union. This was about missiles that could hit Europe and missiles that could fire from Europe and hit Russia.
So, why aren’t the Europeans screaming bloody murder (literally, as in of them) over the US unilaterally scrapping this treaty?
“So, why aren’t the Europeans screaming bloody murder (literally, as in of them) over the US unilaterally scrapping this treaty?”
The USA would love to put short range missiles in Europe but the EU will not allow the USA to do it. There are only a few really stupid countries, ie Poland, that would be delighted to be first receivers in a nuclear exchange but Germany and others will deny them that pleasure.
Washington, DC has placed MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) back on a war footing. As Julius Caesar once said, “ālea iacta est (the die has been cast).”
The North American continent has never suffered massive infrastructure destruction, partly due to the great Pacific and Atlantic oceans that surround it. Those large bodies of water will now become an advantage for the Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China as well.
Russia and China must respond by expanding their nuclear armed submarine fleets to effect ongoing patrols in the western hemisphere. These subs can launch small, undersea expendable drones that carry one low-yield nuclear warhead each and dummy drones too. There would be too many of them for the U.S. defense network to stop. “Time to impact” would be equivalent to what the NATO alliance estimates when their missiles are launched at Russia.
All of this is necessary until space-based weapons platforms in geostationary orbit are in place. That way the globalist warmongers can look out at sea and up into the night sky at the doom that awaits them in the event the U.S. launches a surprise nuclear attack.
Deterrence has to be visible to the American people so they know what to expect if their insane leaders cross the Rubicon.
“Continued trust in the United States is no longer possible by any means is the main message Venezuela and Yemen state.
This is part of the same strange logic that led the Americans to abandon the INF treaty – that somehow this would disadvantage Russia.
Outside of any concern with the Americans, the Russian sphere overlaps with that of Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, not to mention the various European nations. Regardless of their relations right now any and all of these states might be longer term threats, and land based IRBMs or cruise missiles are the perfect counter (expensive and strategically destabilising ICBMs are much less practical).
The Americans were on the other side of the world and they always relied on their air and sea launched missiles anyway.
They must have laughed all the way to the bank when they got the Russians to sign up.
…and then they decided to rip it up.
This is a time when I really wonder if the Russians cunningly goaded their opponents into making this move.
They certainly wasted no time walking away from the treaty as soon as they got the chance, which is not like their usual approach to treaties and agreements.
“Russia on the other hand, cannot provide a reciprocal answer to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Russia does not have military bases near US territory, where a large number of intermediate and shorter range missiles could be deployed.”
Perhaps, it’s long overdue that Russia reestablish military bases in Cuba or other nations around America’s periphery.
No doubt the Americans will throw a massive tantrum if this occurs, as it did turning the original Cuban Missile Crisis.
But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
America will have to learn this lesson the hard way.
‘Supremacy in the field of strategic offensive weapons, an effective missile defense system, and the deployment of intermediate and shorter range ballistic missiles in Europe or the Pacific is nothing more than a dangerous utopia that does not add security to the United States or its allies.’
Supremacy and power are what nations use to dominate others. And power is the underlying motivation for war. But it eventually leads the nation into the very war it is trying to avoid: utter defeat. Its leaders delude themselves that the war of self-destruction can be avoided, limited militarily in scale or even won. They are wrong. Eventually that nation faces it Nemesis. The pattern of history is clear, the signs ominous.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Al-Masdar News
Israel spying on Iranian troops from US base in Afghanistan: Tasnim
2019-02-10
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israel-spying-on-iranian-troops-from-us-base-in-afghanistan-tasnim/?utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=push&utm_campaign=push%20%notificationss&utm_content=varies