After Putin’s warning, Russian TV lists nuclear targets in U.S.

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 20, 2019. (Yuri Kadobnov/Pool via REUTERS)

 

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.

The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

Trump vows to outspend Russia without new missile pact

 

President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday that the United States would outspend Russia on missiles without a fresh international accord after he ditched a landmark Cold War treaty.

Trump’s warning during his annual State of the Union address cemented fears of an emerging arms race, with Russia hours earlier pledging to design new missiles over the next two years.

The United States last week started the process of exiting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, saying that Russia has been violating the pact through a new missile system and ignored repeated complaints.

Putin issues ominous warning on rising nuclear war threat

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

 

MOSCOW (AP) — The world is facing a rising threat of a nuclear war because of the U.S. pullout from arms control treaties and its destabilizing military plans, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday

Speaking at his annual news conference, Putin warned that “it could lead to the destruction. of civilization as a whole and maybe even our planet.”

U.S. gives Russia 60 days to comply with nuclear treaty

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attends a news conference during the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States delivered Russia a 60-day ultimatum on Tuesday to come clean about what Washington says is a violation of a arms control treaty that keeps missiles out of Europe, saying only Moscow could save the pact.

NATO allies led by Germany pressed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a meeting in Brussels to give diplomacy a final push before Washington pulls out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, fearing a new arms race in Europe.

“Russia has a last chance to show in a verifiable way that they comply with the treaty … but we also have to start to prepare for the fact that this treaty may break down,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.

U.S. to Address Impending INF Withdrawal at NATO Summit

Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats / Getty Images

 

DNI Coats: Slim chance U.S. will remain in INF treaty

Senior U.S. officials will soon brief allies on plans to withdraw from a bilateral nuclear arms control treaty with Russia in the wake of repeated violations by Moscow, the nation’s top intelligence officer said Tuesday.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told reporters he will speak with European partners during this week’s NATO summit in Brussels to address the threat posed by Russian violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF.

Russian Official: Cold War Arms Race Back On

(Photo Credit: Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

 

The deputy foreign minister says he sees no desire on the U.S. side to engage in discussions to renew or extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Financial Times the “complete malfunction” of the U.S. system of government has meant that key treaties are likely to lapse and leave the world’s nuclear powers “without constraint in the event of a conflict.”

Russian general reveals INF violation

Russia’s Kalibr cruise missile, used recently in Syria, appears to violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty prohibiting ground-based nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges from 310 miles to 3,420 miles. (Associated Press/File)

 

Any doubts about Russia’s militarily significant violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty were largely dispelled by Moscow’s military chief this month.

Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, told Russian state media that units with precision-guided missiles with ranges of up to 2,485 miles are in place.

“We have formed command bodies and special units to plan the use of long-range precision-guided munitions and prepare flight assignments for all types of cruise missiles,” Gen. Gerasimov said during a meeting of Defense Ministry officials on Nov. 6.

Nuclear Defense Experts Urge Revitalization of U.S. Ballistic Missile Programs

In this handout from the U.S. Navy, Standard Missile-3 is launched in Kauai, Hawaii / Getty Images

 

Former senator Jon Kyl: Current non-proliferation treaties between Russia, U.S. ineffective for threat reduction

…

The report, “A New Nuclear Review for a New Age,” reassessed the United States’s relation with its primary nuclear adversaries—China, North Korea, and Russia—and urged lawmakers to increase defense spending on ballistic missile development and testing.

U.S. Military has ‘No Defense’ against Russian Nuclear Missiles, Top General Says

Air Force Gen. John Hyten, who was the chief commander of the U.S. missile and nuclear warhead arsenal, told members of Congress Tuesday that Moscow’s deployment last month of at least two battalions of the SSC-8 cruise missile, also called the RK-55 Relief, violated a 1987 arms treaty and put most of Europe at risk. Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Moscow’s latest move left the U.S. and its NATO allies off guard.

“We have no defense for it, especially in defense of our European allies,” Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to the Agence France-Presse. “That system can range and threaten most of the continent of Europe depending on where it is deployed. … It is a concern and we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with it as a nation.”

Gates: Russia Sought to Abandon Nuclear Missile Treaty in 2007

Moscow opposition to INF Treaty kept secret during 2010 New START ratification debate

The Russian government told the United States more than eight years ago that it wanted to abandon the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Senate hearing last week.

“The Russian defense minister as early as 2007 approached me about doing away with the INF Treaty,” Gates said in Senate Armed Services Committee testimony Wednesday.

Gates said he was told by the Russian defense minister that the irony of the INF Treaty is that “the United States and Russia are the only countries that cannot have intermediate range missiles.”

Russia Again Flight Tests Illegal INF Cruise Missile

Russia has and always will cheat on weapons treaties. It’s to the Soviet’s strategic advantage to continue to make deals with America.

Russia knows that America will always take the “moral high road” and abide by the treaty, whereas Russia uses the treaty as a strategic step to make advances and get the upper hand. Throughout the last few decades, America has become completely disillusioned into believing that total disarmament is a demonstration of moral strength. In contrast, a nation can actually remain on the moral high road and simultaneously serve as the world’s hammer with a vast nuclear arsenal, without firing off one nuke. That is how America once was, today it is different and bent on its own demise. Today, and likewise because of this, Russia smells blood and is heading towards nuclear first-strike capability, full-steam ahead.

The Pentagon sees the threat and the White House continues to whitewash it, make concessions and put out happy news in the media. It makes you wonder what side the current administration is working for as suicidally disarming an entire nation is not a mistake. There are checks and balances in America for preventing such mistakes, that is, if you obey the rule of law.

At this pace, if strategic thinking does not change within the American political leadership, it’s only a matter of time before Vladimir Putin (or the next President) can claim checkmate and force America into either capitulation or, or worse, decimation.

“Treaties are like pie crusts, they are made to be broken.”

– Vladimir Lenin

 

A test of Russia’s SSN-30A Kalibr missile, of which the SS-X-8 might be a variant (screenshot)

 

Obama administration still weighing response—years after violation detected

Russia flight-tested a new ground-launched cruise missile this month that U.S. intelligence agencies say further violates the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, according to Obama administration defense and security officials.

The missile launch Sept. 2 was the latest flight test for what the Pentagon is calling the SSC-X-8 cruise missile. The cruise missile did not fly beyond the 300-mile range limit for an INF-banned missile, said officials familiar with reports of the test.

However, intelligence analysts reported that the missile’s assessed range is between 300 miles and 3,400 miles—the distance covered under the landmark INF treaty that banned an entire class of intermediate-range missiles.

The SSC-X-8 test also involved what officials called a “nuclear profile,” meaning that the weapon is part of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

Gertz Addresses Story on Russia Building Nuclear-Armed Drone Submarine: ‘It’s Certainly an Alarming Development’

 

Washington Free Beacon senior editor Bill Gertz was interviewed by radio host Sam Sorbo Tuesday on his story about Russia building a drone submarine to deliver large-scale nuclear weapons against U.S. harbors and coastal cities.

White House Blocks Pentagon Report on Russian Treaty Breach

House chairman urges fast U.S. response to Moscow’s INF missile breach

The White House is blocking the release of a Pentagon risk assessment of Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, according to a senior House leader.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation.

“As we look to the near-term future, we need to consider how we’re going to respond to Russia’s INF violations,” Rogers said in an Air Force Association breakfast July 8. “Congress will not continue to tolerate the administration dithering on this issue.”

U.S. Military Unprepared for Multiplying Threats Abroad

In the foreword to the 2015 National Military Strategy (NMS), Gen. Martin Dempsey, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, writes that the “global security environment is the most unpredictable I have seen in 40 years of service.”“Since the last National Military Strategy was published in 2011, global disorder has significantly increased while some of our comparative military advantage has begun to erode,” he adds.

…

“When read alongside its predecessor, the 2011 NMS, the new version testifies to the array of strategic surprises that have confronted the Obama administration in recent years,” wrote David Adesnik, policy director at the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

Russia Again Flight Tests New ICBM to Treaty-Violating Range

Russia conducted a flight test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month that some U.S. officials and security analysts say is a new violation of Moscow’s arms control treaty commitments.

The March 18 flight test of a new RS-26 missile is part of a large-scale nuclear arms buildup by Russia and is raising concerns about treaty compliance, said U.S. officials familiar with details of the missile test.