Donald Trump Withdraws From Cold War Nuclear Treaty
Donald Trump withdraws from Cold War nuclear treaty
By gowidenews Oct 22, 2018
Report reaching out to us sayS that
UK backs US president, saying Russia has made a ‘mockery’ of the weapons agreement
Soviet Union general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan in 1987
Donald Trump has announced the US will pull out of a nuclear weapons treaty with Russia which has maintained the balance of power between the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals for more than 30 years.
China is ‘training nuclear bombers’, US claims
What should Britons do in the event of a nuclear attack?
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, was a “watershed agreement”, says CNN, as the first and only nuclear arms control agreement ever to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
It outlawed more than 2,600 missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,420 miles, “weapons considered destabilising to the European continent because of their capability to launch a nuclear strike from anywhere without early warning” writes W.J. Hennigan in Time magazine.
The decision to withdraw delivers “a severe blow to the arms control regime that helped preserve peace since the Cold War”, he writes.
In 2014, then-US president Barack Obama accused Russia of breaching the INF after it allegedly tested a ground-launched cruise missile, but “reportedly chose not to withdraw from the treaty under pressure from European leaders, who said such a move could restart an arms race” reports the BBC.
According to the report which says that,
The Trump administration has adopted a more confrontational approach.
The current incumbent of the White House has repeatedly accused Moscow of “violating” the agreement and warned that unless Russia and China, which is not a signatory to the INF, cease developing or possessing the weapons then the US will restart its own programme.
Former State Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby, a CNN military and diplomatic analyst, says that while the treaty was not perfect, it was “designed to provide a measure of some strategic stability on the continent of Europe.”
“I suspect our European allies right now are none too happy about hearing that President Trump intends to pull out of it,” he said.
The UK, however, has backed Trump’s decision, with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson saying Russia had made a “mockery” of the INF.
By contrast, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called the move a “very dangerous step”, while Franz Klintsevich, a member of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, claimed it as part of a wider US plot to undermine President Putin’s rule by forcing the Kremlin to increase arms spending.
The move has also drawn criticism from one of the architects of the original agreement. Interfax news agency quotes Mikhail Gorbachev as saying: “Under no circumstances should we tear up old disarmament agreements... Do they really not understand in Washington what this could lead to?”
BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus agrees that the president's decision to walk away from the agreement “marks a significant setback for arms control”.
“Many experts believe that negotiations should have continued to try to bring the Russians back into compliance,” he says, adding: “It is, they fear, part of the wider unravelling of the whole system of arms control treaties that helped to curb strategic competition during the Cold War”.
By gowidenews Oct 22, 2018
Report reaching out to us sayS that
UK backs US president, saying Russia has made a ‘mockery’ of the weapons agreement
Soviet Union general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan in 1987
Donald Trump has announced the US will pull out of a nuclear weapons treaty with Russia which has maintained the balance of power between the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals for more than 30 years.
China is ‘training nuclear bombers’, US claims
What should Britons do in the event of a nuclear attack?
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, was a “watershed agreement”, says CNN, as the first and only nuclear arms control agreement ever to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
It outlawed more than 2,600 missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,420 miles, “weapons considered destabilising to the European continent because of their capability to launch a nuclear strike from anywhere without early warning” writes W.J. Hennigan in Time magazine.
The decision to withdraw delivers “a severe blow to the arms control regime that helped preserve peace since the Cold War”, he writes.
In 2014, then-US president Barack Obama accused Russia of breaching the INF after it allegedly tested a ground-launched cruise missile, but “reportedly chose not to withdraw from the treaty under pressure from European leaders, who said such a move could restart an arms race” reports the BBC.
According to the report which says that,
The Trump administration has adopted a more confrontational approach.
The current incumbent of the White House has repeatedly accused Moscow of “violating” the agreement and warned that unless Russia and China, which is not a signatory to the INF, cease developing or possessing the weapons then the US will restart its own programme.
Former State Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby, a CNN military and diplomatic analyst, says that while the treaty was not perfect, it was “designed to provide a measure of some strategic stability on the continent of Europe.”
“I suspect our European allies right now are none too happy about hearing that President Trump intends to pull out of it,” he said.
The UK, however, has backed Trump’s decision, with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson saying Russia had made a “mockery” of the INF.
By contrast, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov called the move a “very dangerous step”, while Franz Klintsevich, a member of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, claimed it as part of a wider US plot to undermine President Putin’s rule by forcing the Kremlin to increase arms spending.
The move has also drawn criticism from one of the architects of the original agreement. Interfax news agency quotes Mikhail Gorbachev as saying: “Under no circumstances should we tear up old disarmament agreements... Do they really not understand in Washington what this could lead to?”
BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus agrees that the president's decision to walk away from the agreement “marks a significant setback for arms control”.
“Many experts believe that negotiations should have continued to try to bring the Russians back into compliance,” he says, adding: “It is, they fear, part of the wider unravelling of the whole system of arms control treaties that helped to curb strategic competition during the Cold War”.
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