The vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed Wednesday that Russia has deployed a land-based cruise missile in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and that the Pentagon’s upcoming Nuclear Posture Review will cover options for a U.S. response.
Air Force Gen. Paul Selva said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that the Russians have violated “the spirit and intent” of the treaty and “do not intend to return to compliance, absent some pressure from the international community and the United States as a co-signer of the same agreement.”
The 1987 U.S.-Soviet treaty prohibits the fielding of ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles with flight ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. U.S. officials reportedly claimed last month that Russia has deployed this type of nuclear-capable cruise missile. Selva’s comments were the first official acknowledgement of this claim, although the details about the type of missile and the circumstances surrounding its deployment have not been made public.
President Donald Trump has ordered the development of a new Nuclear Posture Review to set the nation’s nuclear policy for the next five to 10 years. This review will address the administration’s potential responses to Russia’s INF Treaty violation, according to Selva: “We’ve been asked to incorporate a set of options into the Nuclear Posture Review.”
Highlighting the threat the treaty violation poses to NATO – due to the missile’s ability to reach European cities – Selva added that “our intent is to factor that into the NPR and look for leverage points to attempt to get the Russians to come back into compliance.”
Gen. Robert Kehler, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing later that day that among the options for a U.S. response to Russia, “You can enhance our conventional presence and capabilities in Europe. We can make sure that our nuclear commitment to the [NATO] alliance . . . remain[s] firm.”
The Kremlin on Thursday denied that it has violated the treaty and said it rejects U.S. accusations.
Meanwhile, Pavel Podvig, an independent researcher who heads the Russian Nuclear Forces project, said by email that he believes the violation is “not particularly serious” and “probably not very significant from the military point of view.”
“After all, even if we assume that Russia deployed a GLCM, it would be a small addition to its arsenal of sea-launched cruise missiles, which could do everything GLCM can and can be legally deployed in much larger numbers,” Podvig said.
Selva was one of several witnesses at the House hearing to express support for the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which requires that the U.S. and Russia by next February each cap their deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and long-range delivery systems at 700. “We’re not entering an arms race [with Russia] because we bilaterally have a verifiable inspection regime for the weapons that are deployed, we have capped the number of weapons that are available,” Selva said of New START.
Gen. John Hyten, current head of U.S. Strategic Command, echoed this view. Asked by Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) about the potential impact on strategic stability of U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, Hyten said: “Bilateral, verifiable arms control agreements are essential to our ability to provide an effective deterrent. If you remove that effective deterrent structure, which is the New START treaty, it makes it very difficult for us to know the numbers. The risk would be an arms race.”
Along with the weapons limits, New START imposes transparency measures on both countries including 18 respective on-site inspections each year and regular data exchanges.
In January, Trump reportedly called New START an unfair deal during his first phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which many have suggested indicates an unwillingness by the new administration to negotiate a follow-on treaty.
Gary Samore, executive director for research at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said Wednesday during the Senate hearing that new breakthroughs in bilateral arms control are currently unlikely, particularly because “Russia will not accept additional limits on its offensive forces unless the U.S. accepts quantitative and qualitative limits on missile defense.”
The INF Treaty is “probably unsalvageable,” he said, although Russia is likely to support keeping New START in place “because it provides reliability and transparency.” The treaty expires in 2021, but has a mechanism for a five-year extension.
Samore also suggested that Russia’s INF breach “frees us from any obligation to abide by the treaty. So if we decided for military reasons that we needed to deploy systems that are currently prohibited by the treaty, I think we’re free to do so.” He acknowledged, however, that “there would be some political cost to doing that.”
