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Russia Violates Arms Treaty, Obama Refuses to Act

The time has come for the White House and the American left to cease ignoring the overwhelming evidence of the hostile intent clearly illustrated by Russia’s massive arms buildup, its aggressive invasions and deployments, and the prewar training exercises it has engaged in.

In addition to a massive increase in spending on arms, its invasions of Ukraine and Georgia, and its massive military exercises, Moscow has abrogated the terms of a key arms control treaty that was a vital centerpiece of détente during the first Cold War: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Despite the Kremlins’ clear violation, there has no response from the White House. In frustration, Rep. William “Mac” Thornberry (R-Texas), chair of the House Armed Service Committee, and David Nunes, (R-California) Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a letter to President which reads in part:

 “Dear Mr. President:

“We write to you again because of our urgent concern about the failure of your Administration to confront Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.  The United States must finally impose penalties for Russia’s near-decade long pattern of violations that undermine this seminal arms control treaty and place it on the verge of collapse.

     “The INF Treaty is the only arms control treaty that succeeded in eliminating a class of nuclear arms.  Its provisions are simple: a flight test or production or possession of a ground-based ballistic or cruise missile of the defined-ranges is illegal ad defeats the Treaty’s object and purpose.
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     “While your Administration finally stated in 2015 (as a result of pressure from our committees) what had been well-understood before then—that Russia was illegally flight-testing intermediate- range ground-launched cruise missiles(GLCMs)—neither the State Department nor Defense Department imposed consequences on Russia.  Despite testimony on at least trwo occasions by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller that Russia would face economic sanctions for its illegal behavior, no such sanctions have been imposed.  And, despite the testimony of senior Department of Defense leaders that the Pentagon would develop a series of military responses to ensure Russia understood the cost of its illegal activity, and Congress passed and you signed a law to require that such responses be implemented, we understand that your Administration is not permitting the military to pursue the options recommended to you by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey.

     “It has become apparent to us that the situation regarding Russia’s violation has worsened and Russia is now in material breach of the Treaty…”

The Putin government has clearly and blatantly turned back the clock to the worst era and practices of the first Cold War.  In addition to violating the INF Treaty, it has resurrected Moscow’s prior practice of developing massive nuclear warheads, which could only be used not to deter or fight wars but to wholly eliminate other nations from the face of the earth.

Recently, Moscow revealed its new RS-28 Sarmat missile, appropriately dubbed Satan-2 by NATO. It is capable of delivering a 40 megaton warhead, 2,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. According to an analysis by the Daily Mail  a single missile could deliver a payload that could wipe out an area the size of France or Texas.

It is most notable that these developments of treaty-busting intermediate range missiles and the Satan-2 occurred at a time when the United States was slashing its defense budget, and at a time when Washington had not modernized its nuclear deterrent for many years, and NATO nations continued to under-invest in their defense. Russia was faced with no threat or need for enhancing its nuclear weaponry.  However, notes a NATO report   “Russia is roughly half-way through a major ten-year State Armaments Programme, which foresees the procurement of large amounts of new or upgraded weapons systems and other military hardware, across all services of its armed forces, over the period 2011-2020. The programme initially foresaw a total expenditure, for the armed forces, of 19 trillion roubles, or 647 billion US dollars at the average nominal exchange rate of 2011. This comes in addition to expenditures on personnel, exercises and operations.”

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Russian Nuclear Weapons Modernize while U.S. Arsenal Diminishes

The NATO summit just concluded has sounded the alarm about Russia’s dangerous actions in Europe. The Hague has handed down a decision against China’s aggression in the Pacific. Iran continues to seek nuclear weapons, and North Korea moves quickly ahead in expanding its nuclear arsenal.  Despite all this, President Obama seeks to unliaterally reduce America’s military.

Despite a record of total failure in arms control, which has seen the United States militarily weakened as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have dramatically increased their armed forces, President Obama, the Washington Post reports,  is preparing to push even further his unilateral cuts to American strength. He is doing so in the face of clear, overwhelming evidence that his policies have been disatrous for American national security and world peace.

International news sources are filled with clear indications of massive arms increases on the part of aggressive nations.  RT, the Russian news source, reports massive drills for nuclear and conventional war being carried out.

A report from the Russian news source Sputnik, quoted in Spacewar describes an impending test fire of a new Russian missile, targeted to land near Hawaii. The new weapon, named Sarmat, is a heavy intercontinental ballistic missile which will replace the current SS-18 ICBM, providing increased range.

The move comes in stark contrast to the increasingly obsolescent U.S. nuclear deterrent, and to President Obama’s preferences for unilateral American reductions in nuclear weapons. Under the current White House, Moscow, for the first time, has a lead in strategic nuclear weaponry.  Russia also maintains a ten to one advantage in tactical atomic weapons.

Russia skipped a nuclear summit meeting earlier this year, as Putin appears determined to move ahead with increasing the size and capability of his nuclear weapons, even as the U.S. arsenal shrinks and remains mired in old technology. A Time Magazine study  noted:

“Over the course of Obama’s presidency, Russia has managed to negotiate deep cuts to the U.S. arsenal while substantially strengthening of its own. It has allegedly violated the treaty that limits the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe and, in the last few years, it has brought disarmament talks with the U.S. to a complete standstill for the first time since the 1960s. In its rhetoric, Moscow has also returned to a habit of nuclear threats, while in its military exercises, it has begun to practice for a nuclear strike, according to the NATO military alliance…Moscow is building a new generation of long-range nuclear bombers, truck-mounted ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed submarines. In the past two years, Russian officials and state-run media have routinely boasted about the fruits these efforts, often under giddy headlines like this gem from the Sputnik news agency: “Rail Phantom: Russia developing invisible death trains with nukes.”

Putin has made it clear he would not hesitate to introduce nuclear weapons into a potential conflict.

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“the U.S. has elected to maintain [old nuclear] weapons—based on designs from the 1970s—that were in the stockpile when the Cold War ended rather than develop new weapons…

“The National Nuclear Laboratories are beset by talent and recruitment challenges of their own. Thomas D’Agostino, former Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), stated that in about five years, the United States will not have a single active engineer who had “a key hand in the design of a warhead that’s in the existing stockpile and who was responsible for that particular design when it was tested back in the early 1990s.” This is a significant problem because for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, the U.S. will have to rely on the scientific judgment of people who were not directly involved in nuclear tests of weapons that they had designed and developed and were certifying. It is unclear how much of the existing inactive stockpile will go through the life extension program. Hence, our ability to reconstitute nuclear forces will probably decline with the passage of time.

“The uncertainty regarding the funding and direction of the nuclear weapons complex is one of the factors that complicate the National Laboratories’ efforts to attract and maintain young talent. The shift of focus away from the nuclear mission after the end of the Cold War caused the National Laboratories to lose their sense of purpose and to feel compelled to reorient their mission focus and change their relationship with the government. The NNSA was supposed to address these problems, but it has largely failed in this task, partly because “the relationship with the NNSA and the National security labs appears to be broken.”

“In 1999, the Commission on Maintaining U.S. Nuclear Weapons Expertise concluded that 34 percent of the employees supplying critical skills to the weapons program were more than 50 years old. The number increased to 40 percent in 2009. This is more than the average in the U.S. high-technology industry. In 2012, a number of employees of the Los Alamos National Laboratory were laid off in anticipation of a $300 million shortfall. The lack of resources is undermining the morale of the workforce.”

President Obama appears to under the mistaken impression that his unilateral nuclear de-emphasis is sending a message of peace. Thomas Karako, a senior fellow on the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quoted in Ibtimes.com, disagrees.

“Unilateral nuclear reductions would absolutely send the wrong message to Russia, China and other adversaries, by allowing them to think they could use and brandish nuclear weapons, It would also send the wrong message to our allies, Japan, South Korea, Poland, NATO, who all rely on the ultimate backstop of the United States as a support to their own defenses…”

Despite the utter failure of the Obama/Clinton unilateral cuts to U.S. nuclear weapons, Mr. Obama seems determine to continue his further unilateral reductions.