(TRUNEWS) According to a recent Pentagon intelligence assessment, Russia is doubling the number of its strategic nuclear warheads while the United States reduces its arsenal.
“The Russians are doubling their warhead output,” said one Pentagon official. “They will be exceeding the New START [arms treaty] levels because of MIRVing these new systems.”
The assessment found that the Russian deployment of multiple reentry vehicle (MIRV) systems greatly increased their nuclear armament count over the past 5 years, and also pushed Russia well over the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) parameters negotiated with the US in 2010 as part of a joint nuclear drawdown.
Each ballistic missile upgraded or replaced with the MIRV system has the potential to carry 8-12 independent nuclear-armed warheads, varying by model. The cluster based system is built to overwhelm missile defense systems, which would theoretically be unable to both determine and eliminate all nuclear warheads before reaching their target.
NEW START PROVISIONS
New START was signed in Prague on April 8, 2010 by US President Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and in Article 2, subparagraph 1 the following armament limit provisions were included:
(a) 700, for deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers;
(b) 1550, for warheads on deployed ICBMs, warheads on deployed SLBMs, and nuclear warheads counted for deployed heavy bombers;
(c) 800, for deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, deployed and non-deployed SLBM launchers, and deployed and non-deployed heavy bombers.*ICBMs stands for intercontinental ballistic missiles generally with a minimum strike range of 3,400 miles
*SLBMs stands for submarine-launched ballistic missiles
In addition to the base limits the treaty stipulated in Article 3, subparagraph 2, that in regard to MIRV systems each individual warhead enclosed in overarching ICBMs and SLBMs would be counted:
“For the purposes of counting toward the aggregate limit provided for in subparagraph l(b) of Article I1 of this Treaty:
(a) For ICBMs and SLBMs, the number of warheads shall be the number of reentry vehicles emplaced on deployed ICBMs and on deployed SLBMs.
Based on the numbers revealed in January by the State Department, Russia has already exceeded the New START warhead limit by 98, deploying a total number of 1,648 warheads across their various platforms. In contrast, the US currently has 1,538 warheads deployed, 12 below the treaty limitations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches the launch of a missile during naval exercises in Russia’s Arctic North on board the nuclear missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) in this August 17, 2005, file photo. Putin will mark his 60th birthday on October 7, 2012. REUTERS/ITAR-TASS/Presidential Press Service/Files
NUCLEAR BLUFF
By shifting to MIRV systems on their SS-27, SS-N-32, SS-X-30 and SS-X-31 ICBM and SLBM stockpiles the Russians are not in violation of New START, which stipulates in Article 2, subparagraph 2 that both the US and Russia retain the right to determine how their strategic offensive arms are comprised and deployed.
But what has worried experts like former Pentagon strategic nuclear forces official Mark Schneider, is that based on current production estimates Russia will not meet the February 2018 deadline for reductions and could even pull out of New START early, leaving the US at a strategic disadvantage.
“The Russians have not claimed to have made any reductions for five years,” Schneider told the Washington Free Beacon.
Schneider added that senior Russian arms officials have been quoted in press reports discussing Moscow’s withdrawal from the New START arms accord. If that takes place, Russia will have had six and a half years to prepare to violate the treaty limits, at the same time the United States will have reduced its forces to treaty limits.
“Can they comply with New START? Yes. They can download their missile warheads and do a small number to delivery systems reductions,” Schneider said. “Will they? I doubt it. If they don’t start to do something very soon they are likely to pull the plug on the treaty. I don’t see them uploading the way they have, only to download in the next two years.”
In Article 14, subparagraph 2 of New START, both Russia, and the US agreed the treaty would remain in force for 10 years, taking the arrangement to 2020. However in subparagraph 3 of the same Article, a clause was inserted allowing either Russia or the US to withdraw from the treaty if “extraordinary events” jeopardize the nation’s supreme interests.
President Obama and first lady Michelle perform a reading of the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” for children gathered for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, March 28, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE
Blake Narendra, the spokesman for the State Department’s arms control, verification, and compliance bureau, told the Free Beacon that the Russian warhead build-up is the result of normal fluctuations due to modernization prior to the compliance deadline.
“The Treaty has no interim limits,” Narendra said. “We fully expect Russia to meet the New START treaty central limits in accordance with the stipulated timeline of February 2018. The treaty provides that by that date both sides must have no more than 700 deployed treaty-limited delivery vehicles and 1,550 deployed warheads.”
Both the United States and Russia continue to implement the treaty in “a business-like manner,” he added.
Schneider doesn’t buy Narendra’s propaganda, though, and told the Free Beacon that “the administration public affairs talking points on New START reductions border on outright lies.”
This week the New START accord tensions were escalated by Russian President Vladimir Putin decision to boycott the 50 nation nuclear security summit held in Washington D.C. Since 2010.
Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said Moscow’s failure to take part in the nuclear summit was a sign of “self-isolation” based on the West’s sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for the military takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea.
World leaders gather for the opening plenary session of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
RUSSIAN RESPONSE
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Putin refused to take part in the Washington nuclear security summit because the US was unprepared to ensure equal nuclear security rights for Russia.
“Speaking about the distortion of the substance of our contacts, we now observe the attempts to delude the world public about what is happening around Russia’s non-participation in the nuclear summit in Washington,” Lavrov said in a public statement reported by TASS.
“The measures that are being held in Washington are being staged from the very outset as the events that do not imply equitable participation,” he said.
“I treat with respect the countries, which have decided to participate in the summit. But we have long and substantively explained that the format, in which it was devised, manifests the countries’ inequality in preparing final documents and the attempts to substitute both the UN, Interpol and the IAEA,” Lavrov ended.
Mikhail Ulyanov, a Russian Foreign Ministry official echoed Lavrov’s sentiment in comments to RIA Novosti. “There is no need for it, to be honest,” Ulyanov said, adding that nuclear security talks should be the work of nuclear physicists, intelligence services, and engineers.
“The political agenda of the summits has long been exhausted,” he ended.
Alexei Arbatov, the director of the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vedomosti newspaper that, “this summit is particularly important for the USA and for Obama—this is probably why Moscow has decided to go for this gesture and show its outrage with the West’s policy in this manner.”
Vladimir Kozin, the Chief Adviser at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Professor at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, and Member of the Scientific Board of the National Institute for Global Security Research, told Pravda that Russia’s boycott was motivated by a lack of equal value exchange.
“As official Kremlin claimed, refusal of the Russian President is motivated by a ‘deficit of cooperation’ while considering issues, which are to be raised at this international event. On the whole, such a decision of the Russian government may be substantiated with three global reasons,” Kozin said.
Kozin noted that the 3 reasons were:
- First of all, the agenda itself raises doubts: questions of nuclear security will not be discussed there in full.
- Secondly, Russia was not attached to the preparation of the final documents, which are to be adopted at the meeting.
- Thirdly, the US keeps evading discussion of really urgent issues, which relate to nuclear agenda and nuclear security.
Kozin told Pravda that the US is the only nation in the world that deploys tactical nuclear weapons abroad. He noted that Russia’s concern isn’t simply over these deployments being in the territories of four European countries and the Asian part of Turkey, but that they have been advanced as close as possible to their national borders.
Kozin noted the irony of the US’s nuclear stance, saying that no country in the world acts this way toward America, yet they see no issue in treating Russia as a belligerent state.
He added that the US —and their allies France and Britain — still adhere to the nuclear first strike doctrine, whereas Russia advocates for a concept of “non-use” in regard to their nuclear weapons.
In his point, Kozin referenced US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work who said last week when discussing a new ICBM test that Washington was prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary.
Eugene Rumer, a former US intelligence officer, and the Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Fox News that Russia would only cooperate with the USA on equal terms.
“Russia will deal with the U.S. as equals where it feels it’s useful. But Russia will not come to Washington to kiss the ring of President Obama,” Rumer said.
The post Russian MIRVs double nuclear arsenal amid DC summit boycott appeared first on TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles.
from TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles http://ift.tt/1SsvqHe
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment