US Still Has Not Offered Serious Proposals For Nuclear Arms Talks To Replace INF Treaty

(@FahadShabbir)

 US Still Has Not Offered Serious Proposals for Nuclear Arms Talks to Replace INF Treaty

The US government has still not given any sign of preparing serious arms control proposals to replace the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, despite National Security Adviser John Bolton's vague comments on possible future talks, analysts told Sputnik

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2019) The US government has still not given any sign of preparing serious arms control proposals to replace the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, despite National Security Adviser John Bolton's vague comments on possible future talks, analysts told Sputnik.

On Sunday, Bolton said that he was not ruling out new arms control talks between the United States and Russia, but suggested that China should also be included in them.

However, later in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik that Russia had not received any clear proposals from the United States in regard to disarmament negotiations, commenting on Bolton's statement.

US HAS NO SERIOUS ARMS CONTROL PROPOSALS

Political commentator and author Dan Lazare observed that the United States' failure to offer any detailed and serious new arms control proposals to replace and extend the old INF Treaty reflected their cavalier refusal to approach the subject seriously.

"Instead of sallying forth to meet new challenges, [President Donald] Trump and his neocon advisers are tearing up from old agreements without a moment's thought as to how to meet the new challenges," Lazare said.

The development of new missile technologies and the proliferation of intermediate range systems in other countries such as China over the past 30 years meant new more comprehensive agreements needed to be negotiated, but there was no indication US leaders planned to do so, Lazare explained.

"To quote Einstein, political intelligence is once again lagging behind technological developments," Lazare said.

The INF Treaty played an important role in terminating a tactical nuclear arms race in Europe that was heating up dangerously by the 1980s, Lazare acknowledged.

However, "Now its demise is an example of how Cold War II is destroying pragmatic restraints that kept the peace for decades," Lazare said.

RUSSIA COMMENDED FOR ABIDING NY INF TERMS

Russia was to be commended for continuing to abide by the agreement's terms even though the US government had walked away from it, Lazare pointed out.

However, "It is hard to imagine how a 'de-facto' INF [without any formal, binding mutually agreed treaty] will prove very durable," Lazare cautioned.

Lazare predicted that Trump would fold to domestic political pressures and once again fail to attempt any serious, lasting agreement with Russia to reduce tensions and deployed weapons systems.

"Trump is under intense pressure from Democrats, neocons, the intelligence agencies, and the arms manufacturers to get tough with Russia, so presumably he'll give in at some point just as he has on issue involving Russia. Conceivably, that could mean a reactivation of the old arms race," he said.

Such a renewed arms race could result in a technological shift to other delivery systems that would be even more destabilizing, Lazare warned.

"Even if conventionally armed, a new generation of hypersonic missiles could revolutionize warfare by rendering today's aircraft carriers as obsolete as the old dreadnoughts. If nuclear-armed, they could upset old assumptions by virtue of being hard to detect and all but impossible to stop," he said.

ZERO PROSPECTS TO REVIVE ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS

University of Pittsburgh Professor International Relations Michael Brenner agreed that there appeared zero prospects for vague statements coming out of Washington to lead to any serious negotiations to revive and update arms control agreements.

"None of these moves, counter moves, and visualized initiatives will change anything - objectively," he said.

Instead, the continuing deadlock over any efforts to save or replace the INF Treaty represented a two-fold risk, Brenner warned.

"They will confirm anxieties about American bellicosity generally and they encourage would-be nuclear states to think that possession of nuclear weapons actually provides some benefit," he said.

Any use of nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia would lead to Armageddon. Therefore no leader ever seriously considered adopting a first-use strategy and they all observed extreme caution, Brenner added.