Collusion? Trump Calls Putin’s Bluff On INF Treaty

Flopping Aces ^ | 12-06-18 | Daniel John Sobieski

[Starman417]

Well, here we go again with President Trump giving more evidence of collusion with the Russians by announcing withdrawal from the INF Treaty that I noted in August 2015 President Obama’s “flexibility” was allowing Vladimir Putin to violate with impunity:

Russian officials on Wednesday warned of "retaliation" to the U.S. decision to walk out of a key arms treaty U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced at a NATO meeting Tuesday that Washington will suspend its obligations under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 60 days, citing Russian "cheating."…

The U.S. has shared intelligence evidence with its NATO allies that it says shows that Russia's new SSC-8 ground-fired cruise missile (also known as the Novator 9M729) could give Moscow the ability to launch a nuclear strike in Europe with little or no notice. The bilateral INF treaty between Washington and Moscow banned all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 310 and 3,410 miles. Russia says the range of the new system does not exceed 310 miles.

Early in 2017 U.S. officials told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that they had monitored Russian flight tests in which the SSC-8 flew in excess of 300 miles. Those tests were conducted secretly near the end of the Obama administration, but it was left up to the Trump White House to decide how to respond. U.S. officials told Martin the deployment of the SSC-8 units was such a blatant violation of the INF treaty that it called into question the value of any future arms control treaties with Russia.

The INF Treaty violations by Moscow show the ultimate folly of arms control agreements. Peace and deterrence are best provided by American technology, not pieces of parchment. Reagan said trust, but verify. JFK said that only when our arms were sufficient beyond doubt could we be certain beyond doubt they would never be employed.

A covertly developed intermediate-range missile force would give Moscow the nuclear cover for a quick-strike with conventional forces against NATO. Another major flaw with the INF Treaty between Russia and the United States is that it hampered our ability to deal with other threats like China. As Heritage Foundation Vice President James Jay Carafano writes in The National Interest:

…there is more at stake than the balance of power between Washington and Moscow. America also has to keep an eye on China.

The INF Treaty covers more than nuclear forces. It also prohibits conventional missiles with INF Treaty ranges too. And in the world of today, as China charges hard to expand its military power and reach, the United States is increasingly at a disadvantage. It is constrained by the INF Treaty; China is not. If Russia is not going to adhere to the treaty, then the risk of the United States being the only country in the world self-constraining itself is too significant. Many Chinese ground-based missiles, such as the CJ-10 Chinese land-attack missile, have ranges which are prohibited to the United States due to the treaty.

Because of the imbalance imposed on the United States by the treaty, Washington is hamstrung in expanding deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, while China has no arms-control restrictions in building out its missile force.

President Obama willfully let Russia blatantly violate the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the former Soviet Union.

The Obama White House deliberately blocked a Pentagon risk assessment report that states “that the breach involved a new missile that violates the limits set by the treaty. The treaty bans holding, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 miles and 3,418 miles.” As Bill Gertz reported in the Washington Examiner

[spetznaz]

Russia is not weak, but it is also not strong. In fact, it is MUCH weaker than what Putin/Russians would want the world to think. It’s more like a pretty aggressive bee with a big stinger. Sure, it can cause pain and discomfort. Like a bee, it can scare off someone by buzzing about. But the day it uses its sting is the day it dies.

[InsidiousMongo]

Great! So when can we start building modern day Pershings and SRAMs again???

[WashingtonFire]

Putin is a patriot who puts the interests of Russia first.

When his interests align with ourselves, then of course we should work together. When they conflict, then Trump correctly will oppose.

This is a healthy way for nation states to,operate. A true Westphalian system of state sovereignty would mean there would be no more wars. It’s the Liberal Marxists who are responsible for every conflict the last two centuries

[nikos1121]

I say this with pure honesty, and in fact I said this back in 2009.

I would venture to say, that you could pick any person on Free Republic’s 300 Club, and that person would be a better president than Obama.

Obama was a joke. A lazy, cowardly, incompetent, joke of a president who was not remotely qualified. Which goes to show that you can have anyone in the WH for 4 years, and not suffer too much, 8 years borders on range range problems. Beyond 8 years and you can have the demise of our civilization.

I can say now that Bush and Clinton were also jokes as president, but at least they were governors of a state, and had some knowledge about how things go, even though they too were cowards.

We haven’t even scratched surface of Obama’s incompetence.

[G Larry]

Time to dust off the design for NEUTORN weapons and really PO the libs.

[DesertRhino]

They are very weak conventionally speaking. In a conventional fight, we could annihilate them. That really is beyond question. But there’s one big problem with that. The Russians have a very justified fear of invasions that put them into existential threat. Europe has invaded Russia four times since 1812. The last one at the hands of the Nazis was nothing short of catastrophic. We hold the belief that we may be able to have a short and sharp conventional fight with Russia and it will remain there. All of the New York icons, a few politicians, and frightening number of our generals actually secretly seem to want this. In their fantasy after a serious bloody nose, Russia backs down, apologizes, removes Putin, and accepts the New World Order.

But everyone involved gets a vote. Their post World War II doctrine is that anybody who visits an attack on them should expect complete destruction of their homeland.

It is an article of faith there that they will never again have their Homeland destroyed in an invasion. Today, an operation Barbarossa would have resulted in the complete flattening of Germany within about a half hour. That gives them a significant feeling of comfort in Russia.

So as we conduct our grand game, this parlor game for politicians, relentlessly moving NATO eastward, our leaders should stop and realize the consequences convincing them that we intend to invade them. And I would include our modern version of “invasion” in this, launching color revolutions and Civil Wars, such as in Libya, Ukraine, and Syria.

It’s very dangerous to convince someone they have nothing to lose.

I have a box of iodine pills. So if we get nuked someday I’ll just pop my atomic bomb pills and I’ll be fine, but I really do worry about the rest of you

[DesertRhino]

These treaties are retarded anyway. They always come with unpredictable outcomes. The naval limitations treaties of the 1920s gave us German pocket battleships, and aircraft carriers.
A far more sane way would be to not have arms control at all. Build what you need, and don’t go out of your way to provoke other nations.

[trebb]

Good analogy - the bees are in the hive and we have the poison smoke nozzle waiting to see if the hive will be allowed to live or be too much of a nuisance.