European leaders fear Russia-U.S. missile race
BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a landmark arms control treaty with Russia is turning the worst fears of a dangerous weapons race into reality.
The U.S. and its allies are laying the groundwork to deploy new intermediate-range missiles in Europe for the first time since they were banned in a 1987 treaty, a move that would prompt a tit-for-tat Russian response. With a second nuclear pact likely to expire in two years, the risks of confrontation are growing.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s top civilian, cited recent Russian deployments and evoked a Cold War-style threat of nuclear destruction at a global conference of security and defence officials this weekend in Munich.
“These missiles are mobile, easy to hide and nuclear-capable,” Stoltenberg said. “They can reach European cities, like Munich, with little warning.”
As U.S. officials accused Russia of provoking the crisis by violating the accord, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced a sense of alarm that’s spreading in Europe as the two big powers trade blame.
“We’re stuck with the consequences,” she said Saturday
The looming standoff puts Washington and Moscow on a path back to the era of the 1950s and 1960s when the two superpowers were rapidly building up their strategic forces. It risks destroying decades of arms control efforts under which the rivals accepted limits on their arsenals after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which took them to the brink of a nuclear clash.
“Are we getting closer to the 60s when we had an uncontrolled Cold War?” said Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
Poland, which already hosts U.S. missile-defence systems that have angered Russia, is seen as a potential site to host American weapons, along with the ex-Soviet Baltic countries. Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said any missile deployment in his country would be decided “collectively by allies.”
If U.S. missiles were stationed right on Russia’s borders, that would be “provocative” and increase the risk of pre-emptive Russian action, warned Steven Pifer, a former State Department official who’s a fellow at Stanford University.
The U.S. has defended its move to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, accusing Russia of breaking the pact by deploying several battalions of SSC-8 intermediate-range missiles. The weapon is believed by Western military experts to have a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), which Russia denies.
INF banned any land-based missiles from Europe with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometres, whether nuclear or conventional. While the U.S. says it won’t deploy new land-based nuclear weapons in Europe, it’s developing intermediate-range conventional missiles for ground deployment.
“We are now talking next steps,” U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson said. “We’re talking about conventional systems.”