Russia accused of violating treaty
Deploying new cruise missile a challenge for Trump in bid for better ties with Soviets
WASHINGTON— Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile despite complaints from U.S. officials that it violates an arms control treaty that helped seal the end of the Cold War, administration officials say.
The move presents a major challenge for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and to pursue arms accords.
The missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration struggles to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon — and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned Monday. Flynn stepped down after it was revealed he had misled the U.S. vice-president and other U.S. officials over conversations with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington.
The ground-launched cruise missile at the centre of U.S. concerns is one the Obama administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans U.S. and Russian intermediate-range missiles based on land.
The Obama administration had tried to get the Russians to correct the violation while the missile was still in the test phase. Instead, the Russians have deployed a fully operational unit.
Administration officials said the Russians now have two battalions of the prohibited cruise missile. One is still at Russia’s missile test site at Kapustin Yar in southern Russia near Volgograd.
The other was shifted in December from that test site to an operational base in the country, according to a senior official who did not provide further details.
U.S. officials had called the cruise missile the SSC-X-8. But the “X” has been removed from intelligence reports, indicating that U.S. intelligence officials consider the missile to be operational and no longer a system in development.
The missile program has been a major concern for the Pentagon, which has developed options for how to respond, including deploying additional missile defences in Europe or developing air-based or sea-based cruise missiles.
Russia’s actions are politically significant It is unlikely the Senate, which is skeptical of Putin’s intentions, would agree to ratify a new strategic arms-control accord unless the alleged violation of the intermediate-range treaty is corrected.
Trump has said the U.S. should “strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” But at the same time, he has talked of reaching a new arms agreement with Moscow that would reduce arms “very substantially.”
Deployment of the system could also substantially increase the military threat to NATO nations, depending on where it is based and how many more batteries are deployed. Jim Mattis, U.S. defence secretary, is to meet with allied defence ministers Wednesday in Brussels.
Before he left his post last year as the NATO commander and retired from the military, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove warned that deployment of the cruise missile would be a militarily significant development that “can’t go unanswered.”
Coming up with an arms-control solution would not be easy. Each missile battalion is believed to have four mobile launchers with about half a dozen nuclear-tipped missiles allocated to each of the launchers.
The Trump administration is in the beginning stages of reviewing nuclear policy and has not said how it plans to respond.
“We do not comment on intelligence matters,” Mark Toner, the acting State Department spokesperson, said.