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from the pulling-out-is-the-best-prevention dept.
Trump to Pull US Out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the US is pulling out of the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, a decades-old agreement that has drawn the ire of the President.
[...] The treaty forced both countries to eliminate ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between approximately 300 and 3,400 miles. It offered a blanket of protection to the United States' European allies and marked a watershed agreement between two nations at the center of the arms race during the Cold War.
Former State Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby, a CNN military and diplomatic analyst, explained that the treaty "wasn't designed to solve all of our problems with the Soviet Union," but was "designed to provide a measure of some strategic stability on the continent of Europe."
"It's the dirt that does it."
Donald Trump: US will build up nuclear arsenal
President Donald Trump has warned that the US will bolster its nuclear arsenal to put pressure on Russia and China. Speaking to reporters, he repeated his belief that Russia has violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which he has threatened to leave. Russia denies this.
The Cold War-era treaty banned medium-range missiles, reducing the perceived Soviet threat to European nations.
Russia has warned it will respond in kind if the US develops more weapons. Mr Trump said the US would build up its arsenal "until people come to their senses".
[...] Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser John Bolton has been holding talks in Moscow after Russia condemned the US plan to quit the deal. Mr Bolton was told that the US withdrawal would be a "serious blow" to the non-proliferation regime.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:30AM (23 children)
About damned time we ditched an outdated treaty with an empire that no longer even exists. Hell, Putin is already believed to be violating it anyway, not that it matters since Russia != Soviet Union. Especially since Trump has already said he would prefer to renegotiate it to more modern terms and to include more modern threats like China. It makes zero sense for us to pretend we are still locked in a cold war with the Soviet Union and ignore the rise of Communist China.
So announce the end of the treaty, also announce an upcoming summit with Putin (on 11-11) and get everybody all spun up. Then hammer out a deal, bring China into it, have a big happy signing ceremony sometime in the Spring and score some easy #Winning right on top of the Democrats trying to get an early start on their Primaries. And people still can't understand how Trump keeps on beating the Progs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:07AM (6 children)
Maybe it does need renegotiation.
But the way to do that is to negotiate a replacement treaty first. Not pull out of the existing treaty first.
But the claims that Russia is violating the current treaty? For decades the US government lied about the strength of the USSR's nuclear arsenal, why should the claims be believed now? Remember when the US government lied about Iraq?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:24AM (1 child)
But before the first Gulf War. Recall that the Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor that Iraq claimed was "for the peaceful generation of electricity".
After that first war, international arms inspectors found declassified Manhattan Project patents all over the damn country. That all but one of Manhattan's secrets were declassified in 1965 was no doubt the result of wiser thinking than I personally am capable of.
(The one remaining secret is the Initiator, which emits some neutrons at just the right instant to get the Plutonium Bomb cookin'. When I read about that in 1994, I said to myself "That just has to work a certain way", and have always figured I could design one in just one month with just the UCSC Science Library and the 386 box I owned at the time. Computational Physics was much much slower during WWII, as a "Computer" was some smart kid with a table of logarithms and an adding machine.)
Those inspectors also found Calutrons in underground facilities, powered by cables that ran hundreds of miles underground from the generating plants. A Calutron is an Industrial Size mass spectrometer. They work quite poorly - with some of those declassified patents explaining how to improve them somewhat - but they are easy to build. Uranium Hexafluoride Gas Turbine Cascades work far better but are quite difficult to build.
One such Calutron appeared in a photo about the Iraq nuclear program in that sensationalist propaganda mouthpiece known as Scientific American. Can I turn it up in image search?
Yes. [globalsecurity.org] It's all smashed up because those arms inspectors wanted to ensure that it wouldn't be used again in the future.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday October 29 2018, @03:25AM
I think you are confusing the first and second Gulf wars. There wasn't much need to lie about the justification for the first Gulf war: Iraq had invaded Kuwait.
The Calutrons were discovered by inspectors in 1991 and later (shortly after the first Gulf war). They were destroyed (as evidenced by the picture you linked to).
The lying that I referred to was the justification for the second Gulf war. There is no evidence that the Calutrons were still operational in the time just before the second Gulf war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:33AM (1 child)
Keeping the old deal means China has no interest in joining a new one. Russia doesn't really have a reason to renegotiate either.
I really think this issue is all about the South China Sea, aircraft carriers, and Taiwan. China covers that area with exactly the type of missile described by this treaty.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:21AM
FTFY.
Even if it actually had an interest, there's no warranty it will actually accept a proposed deal.
For longer than I care to remember, North Korea had an actual interest - to get rid of economic sanctions. They chose to sacrifice that one to a competing interest - the one to have their own nukes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:56PM
The latter gives you a lot better bargaining position when the other party desires a treaty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:06PM
"But the way to do that is to negotiate a replacement treaty first. Not pull out of the existing treaty first."
you're talking out of your ass
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:20AM (2 children)
How does the "Donald Trump: US will build up nuclear arsenal" fits into your theory?
Does the new Spring deal include "US builds nukes, but you don't"?
Or is it a "everybody for himself, who build more nukes has better chances" kinda Spring deal?
Or how?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:00AM (1 child)
I like all your options, but most likely this is just Trump applying pressure to get a deal he likes. It's probably the same old deal, but adding China and possibly some sort of verification. If that doesn't work out, oh well!
You aren't likely to get a good deal if you are desperate. Keeping the old deal in place while begging for a new deal is a sign of being desperate. Ditching the deal shows that Trump is not desperate, and might reveal that some other country is desperate.
I really don't think the motivation is anything to do with Russia. This is about China having missiles to hit Taiwan, South Korea, aircraft carriers, Japan, Vietnam, and other stuff near the South China Sea.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:09AM
Make a deal including China? Not gonna happen by Spring, if ever.
Unless "Spring" means "a moment some years, further than any possible Trump tenure as POTUS".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:05AM (9 children)
Or, more likely, we get minor cosmetic changes with Russia, China signs a non-binding letter and Trump thinks it's a treaty and the U.S. ends up looking like the village idiot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kawumpa on Wednesday October 24 2018, @09:10AM (8 children)
It's the new normal we all have to get used to, well, in fact when it comes to international treaties the US currently also starts with looking like the village idiot and it goes downhill from there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:46PM (7 children)
Funny how so many people on SoylentNews acts like a self-declared expert on complex matters like international treaties. You're so s-s-s-s-mart!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:34PM
They studied CS at Berkeley, wrote a rust compiler and were head of the autists' club. They are so smart.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:51PM
Once upon a time the lowest level nerd in the Pentagon was asked to draft a proposal for strategic nukes reduction treaty. His job was to stick little flags into the Soviet Union map - 1 megaton here, 10 over there. He never took it too seriously because sure there are 25 levels of command above him. So he wrote a proposal by removing some %% of his flags.
To his horror that was exactly what was adopted - megaton to megaton. He suddenly realized that it was him who plays God on the civilization level.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:18PM (3 children)
I guess reality is a tough pill to swallow. You don't need to be "s-s-s-s-smart" to see what Trump is doing to the US image. He doesn't care because he and his buddies are getting rich and once this political stint is over he can go back to not giving a fuck about anything.
Funny how so many people on SoylentNews think Trump is some mastermind of everything when all evidence points to the contrary. You're so s-s-s-s-stupid.*
* Possibly you are not a Trumpet and just pointing out the armchair expertise, but even then Trump has gone against all the actual expert advice so many times that he has lost credibility. Safer to assume he's just pushing more corrupt bullshit for money and power, with a very real chance of treason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @12:25AM (1 child)
Riiight... and having a PC image is so important to the extent that behind the PC public, nations states like China is laughing at their exponential rise in economic and military power because of they can exploit that PC image above all else and capitalize on all the insane arbitrage opportunities because they're not taking the high ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @09:25AM
PC has nothing whatsoever to do with this, but you just had to bring it up, right? Oh dear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @05:32AM
They were rich before they entered politics. They are burning money like mad. Trump himself has lost about a $billion due to his presidential adventure.
This is in fact what makes them weird. Money is clearly not the motivating factor. There are interviews going back to the 1980s of Trump wanting a president to put America first. Clearly, he is doing just that.
Normal politicians mysteriously become rich while in office. This includes the Clintons, Obama, Pelosi, Bernie Sanders... all getting rich by some method that is clearly corrupt.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday October 24 2018, @10:48PM
Wait... are you saying that Trump understands these things better than the typical Soylentil?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:14AM (1 child)
The article I read said that he's quite close to violating it, but hasn't actually done so yet.
There's quite a lot of difference between making plans and actually carrying them out.
Despite all the Peace Dividend propaganda, both the US and the Russians have since the fall of Communism I think three thousand Bombs each. While it was widely celebrated that we are no longer targeting each other, what that actually means is that our missiles aren't loaded with the data required to hit a Russian, or for them a US target. Surely you can see that our missiles and theirs can be retargeted in just a few minutes.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:03PM
Nope. We both have over six thousand each that we admit to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:06AM
What makes Russia believe that USA is not violating it also? What makes you think that USA is not violating it also?.