NATO Accuses Russia of Violating INF Treaty
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
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https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...kes-in-europe/
NATO members set to say they won’t deploy land-based nukes in Europe
WASHINGTON ― NATO allies are poised to formally oppose the alliance deploying ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe, following U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with fellow heads of state set for June 14 in Brussels, Defense News has learned.
The position, which echoes past remarks from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is set out in a draft communiqué for release after the NATO summit, according to one U.S. Senate aide and one European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the closely held document.
The move is seen as possible way to ease tensions with Moscow and to tee up an arms control dialogue ahead of the U.S.-Russia summit in Geneva on June 16.
The NATO discussions come amid news Moscow will again propose a moratorium on the deployment of land-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, reported by Russian state media this week. NATO and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The issue has been an open question since Russia deployed land-based SSC-8 missiles, which the U.S. said violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. That in turn prompted then-President Donald Trump’s 2019 withdrawal from the INF Treaty. (Russia has claimed the U.S. violated the treaty, which U.S. officials denied.)
NATO’s deployment of new land-based missiles in Europe is theoretical. Stoltenberg first said last year, after a meeting of the alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group, that there were no plans to do so, though he noted that some allies planned to acquire new air and missile defense systems.
After the Trump administration and NATO dismissed Russia’s proposed moratorium in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron urged reconsideration of the moratorium.
Biden, whose approval is needed for the communiqué, would likely receive praise from arms control advocates but blowback from hawkish nuclear weapons advocates in Congress, should the ban on ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe become official.
Tim Morrison, who oversaw the nuclear portfolio on Trump’s National Security Council and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the last administration rejected Russia’s moratorium offer because it considered the country a dishonest partner on arms control. Morrison believes that sacrificing the option to field the weapons in Europe would deny the U.S. bargaining power at the upcoming Geneva summit.
“If this is a unilateral concession to Russia, that’s a terrible idea; and if it’s a bilateral concession, that’s not much better because you can’t trust Russia,” he said. “Why would we take an option off the table we may need in the future to respond to belligerent actions by Russia?”
NATO members set to say they won’t deploy land-based nukes in Europe
WASHINGTON ― NATO allies are poised to formally oppose the alliance deploying ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe, following U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with fellow heads of state set for June 14 in Brussels, Defense News has learned.
The position, which echoes past remarks from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is set out in a draft communiqué for release after the NATO summit, according to one U.S. Senate aide and one European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the closely held document.
The move is seen as possible way to ease tensions with Moscow and to tee up an arms control dialogue ahead of the U.S.-Russia summit in Geneva on June 16.
The NATO discussions come amid news Moscow will again propose a moratorium on the deployment of land-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, reported by Russian state media this week. NATO and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The issue has been an open question since Russia deployed land-based SSC-8 missiles, which the U.S. said violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. That in turn prompted then-President Donald Trump’s 2019 withdrawal from the INF Treaty. (Russia has claimed the U.S. violated the treaty, which U.S. officials denied.)
NATO’s deployment of new land-based missiles in Europe is theoretical. Stoltenberg first said last year, after a meeting of the alliance’s Nuclear Planning Group, that there were no plans to do so, though he noted that some allies planned to acquire new air and missile defense systems.
After the Trump administration and NATO dismissed Russia’s proposed moratorium in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron urged reconsideration of the moratorium.
Biden, whose approval is needed for the communiqué, would likely receive praise from arms control advocates but blowback from hawkish nuclear weapons advocates in Congress, should the ban on ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe become official.
Tim Morrison, who oversaw the nuclear portfolio on Trump’s National Security Council and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the last administration rejected Russia’s moratorium offer because it considered the country a dishonest partner on arms control. Morrison believes that sacrificing the option to field the weapons in Europe would deny the U.S. bargaining power at the upcoming Geneva summit.
“If this is a unilateral concession to Russia, that’s a terrible idea; and if it’s a bilateral concession, that’s not much better because you can’t trust Russia,” he said. “Why would we take an option off the table we may need in the future to respond to belligerent actions by Russia?”
No need to match Russian missile by type every time. NATO has a load of sea launchable stuff in large numbers
Some of us are old enough to recall the Cuban Missile Crisis....and the resolution that involved Kennedy agreeing to remove Missiles from Turkey as part of the "deal".
The Russians have a struggling economy....and moves by Trump in trying to create a better bargaining position have of course been undone by the current Administration.
The one thing Trump understood was the need to negotiate from a position of strength....something the Russians understand as well.
If the Russians gain control of the Natural Gas supply to Europe Putin gets a Twofer for that....improved economy and an ability to withhold the supply of Natural Gas once the Western European countries become dependent upon that supply.
My question is why this renewed "hostility" between Russia and the West....are the committed Communists there seeking to regain their once powerful status post WWII but was lost with the breakup of the Soviet Union?
If so...to what gain....what is their ultimate goal?
The Russians have a struggling economy....and moves by Trump in trying to create a better bargaining position have of course been undone by the current Administration.
The one thing Trump understood was the need to negotiate from a position of strength....something the Russians understand as well.
If the Russians gain control of the Natural Gas supply to Europe Putin gets a Twofer for that....improved economy and an ability to withhold the supply of Natural Gas once the Western European countries become dependent upon that supply.
My question is why this renewed "hostility" between Russia and the West....are the committed Communists there seeking to regain their once powerful status post WWII but was lost with the breakup of the Soviet Union?
If so...to what gain....what is their ultimate goal?
" they keep moving their borders closer to NATO weapons and equipment every year since 1989 "
and there was me thinking that they used to be just outside Hamburg and Berlin - the borders moved a long way east in a couple of years didn't they?
and there was me thinking that they used to be just outside Hamburg and Berlin - the borders moved a long way east in a couple of years didn't they?
"
The one thing Trump understood was the need to negotiate from a position of strength....something the Russians understand as well."
Ttrump wasn't hard on the Russians - he'd been taking their money for too long.............
The one thing Trump understood was the need to negotiate from a position of strength....something the Russians understand as well."
Ttrump wasn't hard on the Russians - he'd been taking their money for too long.............
"Which nuclear capable sea launchable stuff would that be then?"
All those missiles in RN SSBN's???
All those missiles in RN SSBN's???
Someone has been to the Pub for a long lunch?
There's a reason the INF Treaty covered the weapons that it did. Which strangely enough didn't include SLBM.
"You are aware of the difference between a strategic deterrent and an intermediate nuclear force? And the potential difference in their employment"
I am aware that you can divide forces up like that
I'm also aware that every study, war game and analysis shows that once one side uses nuclear weapons in Europe the balloon goes up and its all over. Doesn't matter if they are IRBM, ICBM's or just N-tipped cruise missiles. The distinction is irrelevant if they are used.
I am aware that you can divide forces up like that
I'm also aware that every study, war game and analysis shows that once one side uses nuclear weapons in Europe the balloon goes up and its all over. Doesn't matter if they are IRBM, ICBM's or just N-tipped cruise missiles. The distinction is irrelevant if they are used.
Not me. The people who plan and negotiate this stuff for real and have been doing so for decades. Irrespective of what people on the internet think.
It won't have been every study, war game or analysis. Otherwise NATO wouldn't still have air-dropped buckets of sunshine available for use by various member states, despite the cost and embu88gerance factor. Nor would NATO have deployed cruise and Pershing in the days of my youth and then negotiated them away as part of the INF.
What is certain, is that the threat of use of non-strategic weapons forces a difficult choice between folding to that threat or risking a strategic exchange. Which is why trite - and I assume throwaway - suggestions that NATO has loads of sea launched nuclear stuff to provide a counter (when you actually mean the strategic nuclear deterrent) tend to to elicit a somewhat derisory response.
I'm also aware that every study, war game and analysis shows that once one side uses nuclear weapons in Europe the balloon goes up and its all over. Doesn't matter if they are IRBM, ICBM's or just N-tipped cruise missiles. The distinction is irrelevant if they are used.
What is certain, is that the threat of use of non-strategic weapons forces a difficult choice between folding to that threat or risking a strategic exchange. Which is why trite - and I assume throwaway - suggestions that NATO has loads of sea launched nuclear stuff to provide a counter (when you actually mean the strategic nuclear deterrent) tend to to elicit a somewhat derisory response.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Thread Starter
analysis shows that once one side uses nuclear weapons in Europe the balloon goes up and its all over.
The idea of tripwire is that any attack by an enemy would invoke a full scale strategic response.
Which raises the question, would the UK, as an example, risk its existence, and it’s deterrent, to save Krakow? If not, when the threshold be reached?
Which raised the probability it never would - which invited the possibility of an attack by an enemy who made their decisions on that basis.
Flexible Response put nukes into the hands of battlefield commanders - if an Honest John was used, would the next step be a Pershing and so on up the ladder - suddenly the risks of escalation and the invocation of the strategic forces becomes a real risk - so no one would risk the first step.
The INF Treaty removed all such weapons meaning any future war would just be conventional and not risk the use of the strategic forces on either side, and each side knew they could defeat a conventional attack.
The reintroduction of sub-strategic nuclear weapons by either side unbalances that calculation - and the fear that the side with the weapons might use them without fear of retribution because of the calculations above.
https://publications.parliament.uk/p...25/225we17.htm
Last edited by ORAC; 14th Jun 2021 at 12:02.
So...if you are confronted with the total destruction of your ability to fight....or such an attack as to end your Nation's survival....does one light off the big candles or merely accept defeat and leave the real toys in their storage containers?
Had the other side had Nukes during the Second World War....do you think they would not have used them against us in order to assure a victory for themselves and cause our defeat.
Truman used the only two in existence and ended the War.
If weapons are available....they will be used by desperate people.
Nothing on a piece of paper shall ever change that.
Had the other side had Nukes during the Second World War....do you think they would not have used them against us in order to assure a victory for themselves and cause our defeat.
Truman used the only two in existence and ended the War.
If weapons are available....they will be used by desperate people.
Nothing on a piece of paper shall ever change that.
Deterrence worked. Mutual assured destruction worked. No reason to warm up the anti nuke hysteria. Keeping the concept credible and working is part of it.
Rogue players are the only nuke problem not developed nations and political systems.
Rogue players are the only nuke problem not developed nations and political systems.
Reading up on Stanislav Petrov, known as "The Man Who Saved The World" makes you understand how close to disaster we are with all of these Nuclear Weapons primed and ready to launch.
Also...going back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and seeking how disaster was avoided during that time period also is instructive of the risks we face.
Also...going back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and seeking how disaster was avoided during that time period also is instructive of the risks we face.
No nukes? This means the bigger conventional player wins whenever he starts a war. Without risk to him.
