Putin spoke about the objectives of nuclear weapons and the “first strike”

Today, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, has made a number of key statements that concern both the security of Russia and the global security system as a whole.

By

 VT Senior Editors

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December 18, 2018

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In particular, the head of state once again reminded that the United States’s withdrawal from the treaty on short and medium-range missiles, which implies a ban on the production and use of such types of weapons, destroys the entire architecture of world security.

INF Meltdown, America’s Doomsday Drone Force Revealed

25.10.2018 Author: Gordon Duff

INF Meltdown, America’s Doomsday Drone Force Revealed

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

America has developed a secret military capability using both existing drones such as the Global Hawk and Raptor and a newer class of stealth drones based on the RQ180 first seen when captured by Iran some years ago.

This is important now with America announcing its withdrawal from the INF treaty. Signed in 1987, the INF or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, covered weapons, at the time guided missiles only, with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

It is important to note that, at the time the US and Soviet Union signed, no other nation had this type of capability or even a perceived need. There were no real US tensions with China and, as things are today as well, the intermediate range nuclear missiles of both India and Pakistan are, it is assumed, aimed at each other only.

Today, things are different, or as Washington sees it, according to John Bolton, chief security advisor to President Trump. From Foreign Policy:

Mikhail Gorbachev slams Donald Trump for threatening peace

Mikhail Gorbachev slams Trump in op-ed:

US now intent on destroying post-WWII ‘foundation for peace and security’

NOOR AL-SIBAI

25 OCT 2018 AT 21:25 ET

In a New York Times op-ed, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev warned that Donald Trump has started a nuclear arms race — and that he wants to be released from all geopolitical constraints.

Gorbachev wrote that although “there are still too many nuclear weapons in the world,” disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation agreements between the US and Russia have greatly benefited the world.

 “Today, this tremendous accomplishment, of which our two nations can be rightfully proud, is in jeopardy,” the former USSR president wrote. “President Trump announced last week the United States’ plan to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and his country’s intention to build up nuclear arms.”

The United States’ pullout from the INFT, Gorbachev wrote, is unsurprising given Trump’s behavior.

“As we have seen during the past two years, the president of the United States has a very different purpose in mind,” he wrote. “It is to release the United States from any obligations, any constraints, and not just regarding nuclear missiles.”

“The United States has in effect taken the initiative in destroying the entire system of international treaties and accords that served as the underlying foundation for peace and security following World War II,” the Soviet leader added.

The president who worked along with Ronald Reagan to bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War noted that “those who hope to benefit from a global free-for-all are deeply mistaken.”

“There will be no winner in a ‘war of all against all’ — particularly if it ends in a nuclear war,” Gorbachev concluded. “And that is a possibility that cannot be ruled out. An unrelenting arms race, international tensions, hostility and universal mistrust will only increase the risk.”

A Serial Killing Spree That Threatens Us All

A Serial Killing Spree That Threatens Us All

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  BY JOE CIRINCIONE
• READ BIO

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Can John Bolton be stopped before he further undermines U.S. national security?

Just in time for Halloween, John Bolton emerges from the basement of the White House to continue his serial killing spree of arms control agreements.

In his first move, he engineered the horrifying U.S. withdrawal from the Iran anti-nuclear deal, over the screams of America’s national security leaders and our European allies. Now he is pushing President Donald Trump down the stairs, urging him to pull out of Ronald Reagan’s landmark INF Treaty. Trump announced his decision to do so after a political rally October 20. Bolton’s next victim will be Reagan’s entire START nuclear reduction process. Can he be stopped before he kills again?

The obscurely named Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 was a historic breakthrough. Negotiated by Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, it was the first arms control agreement to reduce, rather than limit, nuclear weapons. The two leaders physically destroyed a total of 2,692 missiles after the treaty entered into force.

The agreement banned an entire class of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles held by the two nations, not only in Europe where the majority of them were deployed, but anywhere in the world. Because of Reagan’s diplomacy, neither nation is allowed to field ground-based weapons whose reach falls between short-range and the ocean-spanning ranges of strategic weapons.

It was a remarkable achievement. “For the first time in history, the language of ‘arms control’ was replaced by ‘arms reduction’,” Reagan said at the signing of the INF accord, “We can only hope that this history-making agreement will not be an end in itself but the beginning” of this relationship.”

What’s INF & why does it matter? Trump wants to kill pivotal nuclear treaty that calmed the Cold War

What’s INF & why does it matter?Trump wants to kill pivotal nuclear treaty that calmed the Cold War

 21 Oct, 2018 09:11

US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sign the INF treaty, December 8, 1987 © Reuters

Boldly accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, Donald Trump has vowed to pull out of the “unacceptable” deal. Moscow however has its own view on who is in violation of the key Cold War era pact.

What is INF & why it matters?

The INF treaty signed in 1987 between the USSR and the United States eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The historic accord marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to eliminate an entire category of nuclear arms and introduce on-site inspections for verification. The deal brought much-needed detente to an atmosphere of tense Cold War stand-off, and allowed Europe, which housed much of the American arsenal, to breathe a sigh of relief.

INF shortcomings

The deal didn’t affect aircraft- and sea-based missiles, an area where the US had a clear strategic advantage at the time, so it was widely seen as a gesture of good will by the USSR at a cost to its own national security. Another significant problem with the INF treaty was that other nuclear-armed nations were never party to it – including US allies France and the UK, as well as China.

US claims & accusations

Despite Moscow’s compliance with the deal, Washington – citing its classified intelligence – keeps claiming that Russia has been secretly developing intermediate-range missiles, in particular those that can allegedly be fired from the tactical missile system Iskander-M, deployed along the country’s western borders.

Moscow’s concerns with Washington’s ‘interpretation’ of INF

Russia has its own, rather clearly-defined issues with how the US interprets the treaty:

• Moscow is accusing the US of violating the treaty by placing standardized ground-based Aegis Ashore anti-missile launchers in Europe that can be used to fire cruise missiles.

• It has also pointed to a series of so-called ballistic target-missiles, such as Hera, that are used in the US in anti-missile system tests, as being in violation.

• Russia is also concerned at heavy combat drones, a staple of American air power that can perform tasks of ground-launched cruise missiles, in violation of the INF treaty. US plans & excuses

“Putin’s Puppet” Advances Nuclear Missile Escalations Against Putin

“Putin’s Puppet” Advances NuclearMissile Escalations Against Putin

Yesterday the news broke that Swamp Monster-In-Chief John Bolton has been pushing President Trump to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the 1988 arms control agreement between the US and the Soviet Union eliminating all missiles of a specified range from the arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers. Today, Trump has announced that he will be doing exactly as Bolton instructed.

This would be the second missile treaty between the US and Russia that America has withdrawn from since it abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. John Bolton, an actual psychopath who Trump hired as his National Security Advisor in April, ran point on that move as well back when he was part of the increasingly indistinguishable Bush administration.