Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
4/24/2015
President Barack Obama would be required to begin research and development of counter-force and countervailing U.S. responses to Russia’s reported violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, if Moscow does not become treaty-compliant before the enactment of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. That’s according to the House Armed Services Strategic Force’s Subcommittee’s markup of the FY 2016 NDAA, which prioritizes defensive capabilities that could be deployed in two years. “We are done waiting for the White House to make decisions it should have made years ago,” HASC Strategic Forces Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a statement. “The Congress will not allow the United States to be effectively unilaterally restrained while Russia flagrantly violates this and other treaties.”
The mark also requires the President to submit monthly notifications to appropriate Congressional committees about whether Russia has flight-tested, deployed or possesses a military system that has achieved an initial operating capability of a missile covered by the INF Treaty, and about whether Moscow has taken steps to return to full compliance, “including by agreeing to inspections and verification measures necessary to achieve high confidence that any covered missile system will be eliminated, as required by the INF Treaty upon its entry into force,” the mark states. The act states the notification should not be submitted later than 30 days after Russia takes definitive steps toward compliance or continued violation. Released in July, the State Department’s 2014 “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments” report stated Russia violated the INF Treaty by developing a ground-launched cruise missile in the Treaty’s prohibited range. The Treaty bans development and deployment of GLCMs capable of hitting ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Russian officials have denied the claim.
Russian Embassy Responds to Former DoD Officials
The Russian Embassy this week fired back at public claims by two former Defense Department officials last week that the country has violated and dissolved the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and taken provocative nuclear mobilization actions. “As to claims that Russia violated INF, until now nobody [in the U.S. government] could tell us what these violations are,” an embassy secretary wrote to NS&D Monitor in an April 17 email. “Many times we asked for specifics, but claims continue to be groundless.” The embassy official said the U.S. has given no official word about Russia’s alleged violation.
Speaking at ExchangeMonitor’s annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit in February, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller said the U.S. has clearly laid out its accusation against Russia. “It is quite specific. It is a ground-launched cruise missile that has been tested to intermediate ranges in contravention of the treaty,” she said. “We have been very clear about this and we have been very clear in providing additional information about it.”
RS-26 an INF Violation?
On April 14 at a Peter Huessy Breakfast, Dr. Mark Schneider, Senior Analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), reiterated a sentiment expressed in a July National Review article he co-authored with NIPP President and co-founder Keith Payne, stating that the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic could be a circumvention of the INF Treaty. The missile was successfully tested at the range of 5,600 kilometers, according to the article. “In 1988, Senator Sam Nunn (D., Ga.) stated that ‘during the hearings [on the treaty], concern was expressed that the Soviets could develop and deploy a new type of ground-launched ballistic missile to replace the SS-20 if the missile were tested the first time at a range in excess of 5,500 kilometers, even if every other test was at INF ranges,’ ” the July article states. “The single RV reportedly tested to 5,600 kilometers was clearly not of the same configuration as the multiple warheads the Russians openly say the Rubezh carried in its second and third tests.”
But the Russian Embassy underscored recent U.S. official statements that appear to run counter to any interpretation of an INF breach of RS-26. “On RS-26, American officials explicitly said that they do not see its development and deployment as a violation of the INF,” the Russian official wrote. Last month, media reports cited unnamed an unnamed State Department official stating that the RS-26 was not covered under INF. Also, the 2014 State Department Arms Control Compliance Report did not cite the RS-26 as an INF violation. Per the accord, ICBMs are characterized based on the length of their first flight test, and the first RS-26 test exceeded the maximum INF limit. Schneider, who has held a variety of senior positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense added the Iskander-M missile is another possible circumvention of the treaty. “We have a wide range of actions that would constitute either violations or circumventions of the INF Treaty,” Schneider said. “Put them all together, the INF is essentially a dead letter.”
On Possible Responses to Violation…
Kingston Reif, Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control association, in a phone interview with NS&D Monitor last week said the U.S. shouldn’t build policy on a “dead letter” viewpoint, saying it could have extremely negative impacts on U.S. national security. Reif said right now, the U.S. should continue calling Russia out for its violation, press its allies to raise the issue with Russia and consider convening a meeting of the Special Verification Commission outlined in the Treaty. “If Russia deploys noncompliant missiles, I think what will be most important for the United States will be to take steps to demonstrate our commitment to the defense of those allies that would be threatened by these new missiles, but I don’t think that we should be taking hasty actions that would threaten the treaty and lead to a counterproductive escalatory cycle, such as developing new U.S. ground-launched cruise missiles for deployment in Europe. I don’t that would be cost-effective or productive.”
Russians Pursuing Aggressive Nuclear Weapons Mobilization?
The Russian Federation also pushed back against remarks made about the aggressiveness of its nuclear weapons mobilization by Schneider and Steve Blank, senior fellow for Russia at the American Foreign Policy Council. Joining Schneider at the Huessy Breakfast, Blank said Russian military operations in the Donbas region of Ukraine signaled an aggressive nuclear posture. “They deployed nuclear-capable bombers on the border of Ukraine in an unmistakable signal that NATO picked up, indicating, ‘Don’t intervene. We’re ready to go nuclear,’” said Blank, who served 24 years as a National Security professor at the U.S. Army War College. The embassy official downplayed the allegations, writing that the Russian Ministry of Defense hasn’t developed any such plans, which are legal options. “As for placement of Russian nuclear weapons on the border of the Donbas region of Ukraine we do not understand what that means,” the embassy official wrote. “Generally speaking, Russia has the sovereign right to place nuclear weapons in any place of its national territory. But we haven’t heard of any plans by the Russian Ministry of Defense to actually follow this path.” The official added that Russia remains concerned about presence of U.S. nukes in Europe and “NATO nuclear sharing exercises” involving non-nuclear countries.