... Stabilizing “Basic Principles”: Moscow Reduces Options for Pre-Nuclear Escalation. Russia’s leading experts on the new Russia’s nuclear doctrine
When the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in 2019, Moscow’s response was quite restrained. President Vladimir Putin pledged that Russia would not place such systems in Europe or anywhere else unless U.S.-made weapons of this kind appeared there. Russia was essentially imposing voluntary restrictions on itself, but only regarding operational measures, while the development, testing ...
... so happened: Russia was walking (and even pushed) to the Oreshnik launch for quite a long time. Without going too deep into history, there are two main factors worth focusing on.
In 2019, the Treaty on Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty) met its demise. After that, Russia unilaterally imposed a moratorium on the deployment of such systems. However, all this time, the United States has been actively developing, testing and even temporarily deploying missiles of this class, deliberately ignoring the Russian moratorium....
... arms control the transparency and predictability of strategic balance is undermined.
Incidentally, the situation would have been far more dangerous today if it were not for the achievements of arms control. It should be remembered that pursuant to the INF Treaty (1987), START I (1991), and parallel unilateral initiatives of the USSR/Russia and the U.S. (1991–1992) thousands of strategic nuclear warheads, intermediate-range missiles and tactical nuclear arms were removed from Ukraine [
55
] [Arkin, Fieldhouse 1985: 252–263]. Otherwise, the current crisis would have been developing ...
With the INF Treaty collapsed and Russian proposals to prevent another missile confrontation in Europe possibly rejected, the logical thing to do would be to deploy the revised “Pioneer” missile in response to the new “Pershings” and “Gryphons”
Who is to blame? A seemingly ...
... should such systems be deployed in the proximity of Russia. The same relates to the new INF systems, which are being quickly developed by the U.S. In Germany there is already a revived NATO military infrastructure, closed in the aftermath of the 1987 INF treaty, and designed for operating INF systems. In the eyes of Moscow there is a high probability of a new Euromissile crisis exploding in two to three years if Russia’s proposals for a moratorium are not responded to in a rational way. Nuclear posturing on all sides, including NATO nuclear sharing, may change for worse more quickly than that if recent Russia’s proposals on security guarantees, handed over ...
... confine themselves to the question of medium-range missiles, then it is their business with the Chinese. What we need to do regarding such missiles is promote the moratorium that Putin recently proposed: missiles that were banned under the denounced 1987 INF Treaty should not be deployed in the European part of Russia and in the rest of Europe. For verification Putin suggested introducing on-site inspections. This, of course, is very different from the INF Treaty. Nonetheless, it is a basis for an agreement. As for the Asian dimension, the Americans are free ...
... opposed viewpoints. Of course, there is no reason to put all our faith in the memoirs authored by former US national security adviser John Bolton who claims that, in a conversation with him, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu allegedly admitted that the INF Treaty had “lost its practicality.” Russia’s position on the treaty is well known and is devoid of ambiguity. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that Moscow was not fighting to preserve the INF Treaty as consistently, resourcefully or energetically as it fought to preserve the ABM ...
This article is part of the Russia-EU: Promoting Informed Dialogue project supported by the European Union in Russia.
The 50-year-old arms control regime that helped keep the Cold War cold is beyond repair. It's time to begin discussing ways of moving toward a new global strategic ...
... Under the agreement, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles deployed during the Cold War. However, Donald Trump called New START a “
bad deal
” following the United States’ exit from the INF Treaty. If Russia and the United States fail to come to an agreement on the extension of New START or cannot hammer out a new one, then, given the collapse of both the INF and ABM treaties, the arms control system developed by the sides over the course of decades ...
The current trends in Russia–EU relations carry a number of risks that should be mentioned when predicting possible scenarios for the further deterioration of these relations.
The current trends in Russia–EU relations carry a number of risks that should be mentioned when predicting possible scenarios for the further deterioration of these relations. The general deterioration of European security due to the expiration of the INF Treaty, the degradation of confidence-building measures, and the start of an arms race, including hi-tech weapons (understanding that the military-political situation in Europe cannot change drastically in 2020, and military spending in European countries ...
