Tag: INF treaty violation

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.”

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