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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 legont on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:07PM
It's worse or better than that; depending on your view. The treaty prohibited land based rockets, but left sea and aircraft based untouched. At that time it was a big win for the US and especially Europe as Russia lost the only effective weapon - SS-20 rocket while the US kept 2/3 of similar ones. Note that the treaty prohibited only tests and deployment, not design and development.
Fast forwarding, the US did work on design of new supersonic rockets, but nothing came out of it so far - not at sea no in air even though it was totally permitted - tests and deployment including. Russia on the other hand designed and deployed sea based ones and tested them by firing from Caspian sea into Syria. Yes, the deployment to land would involve just moving the box from a ship to a truck.
In addition, every other major nation on earth is working on such rockets and even some minor ones. The whole Trump decision simply tries to awake the US military to the danger.
On the economy side, once Russia officially targets Europe again, every village would have to buy Patriot missile system and Trump is not paying for it - Europe does. Looks like a win-win from his view.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.