Just days after US Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison threatened to start a war against Russia by preemptively destroying a certain type of Russian missiles over a perceived violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, Defense Secretary James Mattis is continuing the saber-rattling.
Mattis claimed Russia is “in blatant violation” of INF, and that the US will not allow the “cavalier disregard” to continue. He says the US is reviewing a series of potential diplomatic and military options to be taken about it, and that not taking action is “untenable.”
Unlike Hutchison, whose comments gave the impression that a major war was imminent, Mattis was very cautious about not providing any specifics, saying he would not get into details about what sort of response the US would be likely to take.
The INF treaty issue has been ongoing for years, with the US objecting to a certain Russian test. Russia insists the missiles in no way violate INF, and there appears to have been little attempt to discuss the matter at all between the two countries, with the US just claiming violations in increasingly desperate terms, and threatening to take what would seem to be very reckless actions in response.
A simple consequence of the break down of diplomacy. It’s quite possible that Russia knows the problems their test is causing. And I bet they are perfectly willing to start a dialogue, comprehensive treaties and so on. Of course only if their “partner” first stops all the agitation and persecution in other areas.
It seems like a high risk game but then again, how else to proceed with a US foreign policy that runs amok? If not clear boundaries and consequences are demonstrated, there will be no end to it and more wide scale suffering and death because all the instability in Ukraine, Middle East and Far East only will grow further. Only stabilizing, multi-polar ordering is seen by Russia as a viable path, they have said so many times and it seems quite reasonable.
Meanwhile the USA installs vertical launch systems on ships and the SM3 system in Poland all capable of intermediate cruise missile launches.
DC psychopaths trying to out crazy each other.
Exactly so. And they found idiotic men and women to be their mouthpieces. But these people are so high and mighty in our own dumbed down environment, forgetting other people around the world are not amused, but rather getting ready for every eventuality.
Cold War 2.0 is upon us.It seems no one is blinking and everyone is trying to counter each others moves. This won’t end well for anybody.
Mr.Knapp is there some type of enhanced security measures on this commenting system that’s new? When I go to post my comment ,I get a box that asks me to prove I’m not a robot and ,it gives me a series of puzzles to solve. I never had to do this before to comment, this started yesterday.
Maybe you should ask “The Real Mr Knapp” ?
There haven’t been any changes made by Antiwar.com that I know of, but Disqus is always tinkering with its “stop spammers, etc.” measures. I haven’t noticed any such measures, indicating that it might be something applicable only to people who comment as guests instead of creating/using Disqus accounts.
Memo to Mattis:
General, if the alleged Russian violation is “blatant” (flagrant, glaring, obvious, undisguised, unconcealed, open) then how about revealing the details of the alleged “blatant” violation to us common folk? Where’s the unconcealed evidence?
These people clearly think population is so dumbed down that they can invent any story without the danger of being ridiculed. So, Russia is supposed to adhere to treaty US decided to cancel and get out of unilaterally.
And they are probibably right. I spent last two weeks in a company of highly educated, sucessfull people. When it comes to information about the world we live in — it does not go beyond Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. Dumb as post. Self satisfied.
Does “highly educated” mean, smoked pot thru college ?
The missile system the US is complaining about is the 9M729 which is a ground-launched variant of the Khaliber sea- and air-launched missiles. Ground launched versions are allegedly prohibited by the INF Treaty if they exceed a certain range. Here is a discussion of the issue:
9M729 – SSC-8
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/ssc-8.htm
It is likely that Russia does want to pull out of the INF Treaty for two reasons:
1) The US is already in violation by posting ABM systems in Poland which can launch nuclear cruise missiles with range to hit Russia; and
2) The US doesn’t need the INF Treaty because no such missiles can hit the US from Russia territory, whereas NATO missiles can hit Russia from Europe. So the Treaty protects Europe but does nothing to protect Russia from NATO.
At the time the INF was negotiated, the Soviet Union possessed overwhelming conventional military superiority against NATO. Short-range nuclear weapons were considered the only option to defend Europe against a Soviet Union attack. But the problem was that Russia also had these weapons. So the INF Treaty was made to reduce the threat on both sides.
Now the situation has changed. While Russia has great military power, it has less conventional capability than it did then – and no interest in invading Europe. So the INF Treaty has less significance than it did then.
NATO has less capability to attack Russia than it did then, as well. But NATO is still a direct threat to Russia since encroaching on Russia’s borders over the last twenty years. So Russia likely wants these missiles to counter that, while the US presumably wants to get Russia to not have them so the US can deploy its own versions under the guise of “anti-missile defense.”
This is as usual an intractable problem given the basic dishonesty of the US and NATO. My guess is that Russia will pull out of the INF Treaty if Putin can’t get the US to come back to talks about it, as he has been requesting for years. And that is likely to be the case as the US is more interested in using complaints about Russia’s “violations” to authorize the development of its own missile systems which it will then deploy in large numbers in Europe (if Europe will accept them, which is questionable as it was back in the 1980’s.) Congressional bills have already been submitted to authorize the development of these systems.
A Congressional Research Service study published this year discusses the background of all this in some detail (mostly from the US side, but also mentioning Russian concerns):
Russian Compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43832.pdf
This treaty isn’t worth much to Russia anyways, in a military sense. Since it doesn’t apply to ships, the US can just launch mid-ranged cruise missiles from sea, likewise Russia. Russia has a whole class of corvettes that cruise up and down the Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea with nuclear cruise missiles for exactly this purpose.
It’s more of a bridge building feel good measure. If it helps anyone it’s the Europeans who no longer have to host ground missile sites that would immediately become high priority targets.
America will start the war that kills a billion.