StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Just what is happening in Russia these days, and why is it that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, clearly a very intelligent and qualified person, can actually state "I have a difficult time explaining that speech. It doesn’t accord
with either the world as we see it nor with the character of our
interactions with the Russians."  Something just doesn’t make sense, and I believe that it goes beyond the subtlety of Anne Applebaum’s article in the Washington Post, Our Strange Devotion to the Kremlin.

I have a feeling that some people took yesterday’s post and tossed it aside as a simple rambling of a blogger.  But please re-read The Second Coming- Cold War II in the context of the Stratfor article (follow the Google link), The INF Treaty: Implications of a Russian Withdrawal.

Russia is poised to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty (INF) signed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S.
President Ronald Reagan in December 1987. The treaty prohibits
development and deployment of all land-based short-, medium- and
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with ranges of 300 to
3,400 miles, as well as all ground-launched cruise missiles.
Inspections verifying the treaty were completed in 2001, although
elimination was effectively concluded nearly a decade earlier.

Moscow has been dropping hints that it might withdraw from the INF 
since at least late August. However, two looming developments make this
appear to be more of a certainty than rhetoric. First, U.S. basing
agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic for ballistic missile
defense (BMD) installations now look quite likely to be approved.
Second, the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START 1, is set to
expire in 2009, and Washington has failed to respond to Moscow’s
numerous offers to launch negotiations on a replacement treaty . Having benefited from the decay in Russia’s military strength since the
end of the Cold War, the United States clearly has no interest in such
a treaty…[more]

Is all of this simple posturing and saber-rattling?  Or is it something else entirely?

 Russia threatens to quit arms treaty
…Yury Baluyevsky, the Russian army chief of staff, said Moscow might
unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
treaty, which forced the US and the Soviet Union to ban nuclear and
conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges
of 500 to 5,500km…

…Gen Baluyevsky’s comments came days after
Vladimir Putin, Russian president, warned that US attempts to deploy
part of its missile shield in Poland could spark a new arms race.
         

Mr
Putin said the INF treaty was no longer in its interests because of
proliferation of short and medium-range missiles. He rejected US
assertions that the system was aimed at countries such as North Korea
and Iran, not at Russia.

The
US official said Russia had privately told the US it wanted
medium-range missiles to counter Iranian threats while arguing publicly
that the lack of Iranian missiles meant the US did not need a defence
system…

OK, back to the Stratfor article (use the Google link to get there).

• …speaking before the Duma on Feb. 8, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei
  Ivanov (who at the time was defense minister) characterized Russian
  signing of the treaty in 1987 as a mistake…

• …On Feb. 19, Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russian Strategic
  Rocket Forces, went even further, threatening that Russian nuclear
  missiles could be targeted any U.S. BMD installation in Europe…

• …If Moscow has a means to legitimately threaten European states –
  likely using intermediate-reach ballistic missiles, as during the Cold
  War — it retains influence within the region and can leverage that
  against the United States, as Russia attempts to reassert itself as a great power…

• …For the Soviets, the INF was not to be viewed as simply a stand-alone
  treaty by either negotiating team. Behind the Iron Curtain, it
  represented a fundamental break with past ideology. Before 1982, the
  leadership had been convinced of the Soviet Union’s permanence. But
  with the rise of Yuri Andropov and, later, Mikhail Gorbachev, the
  Soviet leadership realized it was losing the Cold War…

• …Ultimately, the Russian decision to leave the INF is grounded in these
  last two factors in American thinking (-a- …Removing the intermediate missiles from service left the United States
  fully reliant on its home- and submarine-based ICBMs — weapons over
  which no one but Washington could claim influence… and -b- …ICBMs were expensive…) — as well as the simple fact
  that the rest of the world has pushed past the Cold War mentality…

• …For Washington, the war against jihadists has become an overwhelming
  priority. But even outside of that context, the United States, its NATO
  allies and indeed, the rest of the world, have already plunged into a
  pervasive post-Cold War restructuring that is indicative of a shift in
  defense priorities…

• …Russia is doing the only thing it realistically can: rattling its nuclear saber…

Please read the entire Stratfor article (if you can).  But in a large sense, I believe that what we are seeing is Putin trying to reassert Russia’s influence, especially over the "new" Europe in part made up of former states of the Soviet Union.  I just think that its beyond a lack of understanding of Putin’s posturing…and may well portend more than just saber-rattling.

But hey!, what do I know?  BTW, I am old enough to have lived through the Cold War, including those ridiculous drills where we were instructed to hide under our desks in case of a nuclear explosion.

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