SecDef: Moscow’s Nuclear ‘Sabre Rattling’ Raises Questions about Russian Commitment to Strategic Stability

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter yesterday said Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 and recent nuclear sabre rattling raises serious questions about Moscow’s commitment to global strategic stability. “Moscow’s nuclear sabre rattling raises questions about Russia’s commitment to strategic stability and causes us…to wonder about their respect…and whether they continue to respect the profound caution…that world leaders in the nuclear age have shown over decades to the brandishing of nuclear weapons,” Carter said during a speech at Berlin-based think tank Atlantik Brücke. The words come three months after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on a TV documentary that he was thinking about putting Russian nuclear forces on alert during the crisis in Crimea, which aired days before the Russian ambassador in Copenhagen threatened to target nuclear missiles at the Danish navy. Russian separatists continue to fight in Eastern Ukraine. Carter will attend the NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels tomorrow and Thursday.