Tensions over nuclear armaments between Russia and the United States have escalated in recent years over disagreements on bilateral deals as well as Moscow's concerns over the deployment of US nuclear weapons to Europe
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st May, 2019) Tensions over nuclear armaments between Russia and the United States have escalated in recent years over disagreements on bilateral deals as well as Moscow's concerns over the deployment of US nuclear weapons to Europe.Director of Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control (DNAC) Vladimir Ermakov warned in his comments to Sputnik last week that the United States was putting nuclear weapons in Europe to eventually use them with the involvement of non-nuclear European states themselves.
According to the diplomat, it is impossible to seriously talk about strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime when "civilized" European states "continue to mindlessly put themselves on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe and total self-destruction."
The Foreign Ministry's remarks follow a long history of back-and-forth accusations of non-compliance with bilateral nuclear agreements, most prominently the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the future of which has lately been in doubt.
The INF Treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987 and banned all ground-launched missiles, conventional or nuclear, with ranges of 310 to 3,400 miles. It played an important role in terminating a tactical nuclear arms race in Europe that had heated up to a dangerous level by the 1980s. The INF has also been a key component of European security, according to Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov.
Since the mid-2000s, Russia and the United States have repeatedly accusing each other of violating this crucial treaty. Specifically, the United States has been claiming that the range of Russia's 9M729 missile violates the treaty's limits, while Russia has denied the allegations, stressing that they were unsubstantiated. Moscow, in turn, has complained that US defense systems in Europe were equipped with launchers capable of firing cruise missiles at ranges prohibited under the INF.
On February 2, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo announced that the United States had suspended its obligations under the INF Treaty and triggered the six-month withdrawal process, making its reversal conditional on Russia's return to full compliance with the pact. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the same day that Moscow had suspended its participation in the treaty in response to the US actions. However, Putin stressed that all of Russia's proposals remained on the table.
Pompeo's announcement was followed by fears that the US decision might spark the development and deployment of intermediate-range missiles. In March, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza told Sputnik that the United States was preparing to test a conventional ground-launched missile. The research and development for the missile tests, according to the Pentagon, is designed to be reversible in the case Russia decides to return to full and verifiable compliance with the INF within six months.
That same month, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said that Moscow was ready to take the necessary reciprocal measures to ensure balance around the INF issue and gave assurances that it would not deploy missiles to the European part of Russia so as long as the United States did not do the same in Europe.
Dr. M. V. Ramana, the Simons chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, told Sputnik that the United States' actions may result in grave consequences for the both sides.
"There are indications that the United States is starting the development of such missiles. Unlike the gravity bombs, these missiles and their nuclear warheads could be delivered very quickly, in a matter of minutes, on targets deep into Russia. That could prompt Russian leaders to increase the alert status on their nuclear missiles, leading to higher chances of inadvertent or accidental nuclear war," Ramana said.
As for the possibility whether such weapons could, in fact, be used at some point, the expert replied that "all countries develop nuclear weapons only for use, albeit under unlikely and special circumstances. Thus, all nuclear weapons are potentially usable."
EXTENSION OF NEW START TREATY IN DOUBT
The other nuclear agreement between the United States and Russia is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which came into force in 2011. It covers a 10-year period with the possibility of a five-year extension. The agreement limits the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, nuclear armed bombers and nuclear warheads that either country can deploy.
Although the agreement is still in force, the United States has not decided on whether to extend it, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Andrea Thompson said on May 15.
The United States is concerned about whether the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and other new Russian conventional weapons, specifically the X-101 air-launched strategic cruise missile and Avangard long-distance guided flight hypersonic glide vehicle, fall under the New START.
In response to these concerns, Viktor Bondarev, the chairman of the Russian parliament's upper house Defense and Security Committee, has said that Moscow respects the treaty and that all of its weapons conform with the agreement's provisions
Moreover, US President Donald Trump has called for including China in the negotiations for a new nuclear arms control deal. However, Beijing has said that it has no intention to join any talks over the matter. Despite this, work on making the new treaty continues.
After a meeting with his Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on May 14, Pompeo said that their two countries would gather teams dedicated to working out a potential extension to the New START as well as other arms control matters.
At the same time, the United States is believed to be the only country that has nuclear weapons deployed in other states as of today, according to a report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which has said that "Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey continue to host US B-61 gravity nuclear bombs on their territories."
"The existing nuclear weapons in the five countries is already a way by which countries that are nominally non-nuclear weapon states under the NPT are implicated in nuclear weapons' possession. The arguments given for such deployment go against one of the resolutions of the 2010 NPT review conference: 'To further diminish the role and significance of nuclear weapons in all military and security concepts, doctrines and policies,'" Ramana said.
However, the US bombs are merely symbolic in nature and are unlikely to be used in real attacks on other countries, Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and an expert on nuclear and missile proliferation, told Sputnik.
"The US has kept nuclear weapons in Europe since the Cold War. The stockpile in Europe today is a small remnant of what was once a sprawling enterprise. Today, it amounts to about 200 gravity bombs, some of them apparently kept at one or more bases without planes that can deliver them. These bombs are symbolic of a political commitment and no longer have any military value ... In short, the presence of US nuclear bombs in Europe is a vestige of the Cold War," Pollack said.
NATO member states prefer to maintain a policy of silence regarding the deployment of US nuclear weapons to Europe, according to the researcher.
"Even their political role is doubtful. Nuclear weapons in Europe have always been a contentious matter, and it has been NATO's policy for at least two decades to say as little as possible about the continued presence of these weapons. That silence helps to keep the remaining bombs in place, but at the cost of their relevance," Pollack said.
US MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM IN POLAND ALSO SPARKS CONCERNS
Aside from the nuclear issue, the deployment of US missile defense systems to Poland, in particular, has also triggered tensions between Moscow and Washington. The Polish leadership has said that new air defense systems would be deployed close to the border with Russia.
In March 2018, Warsaw signed an over $4.5 billion deal to acquire a Patriot missile defense system from Washington. The first shipments are expected in 2022. The Russian Foreign Ministry promptly responded to the US-Polish deal by expressing concern over the ongoing militarization of Poland.
The deployment of a US missile defense system to Poland also appears potentially dangerous to some Russian military leaders, who believe that the weapon is intended for the future installation of nuclear missiles, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US-based think tank.
