Nuclear fears haunt world leaders with demise of Us-russia arms pact
MUNICH: US 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 US 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, the baroque German metropolis that’s one of Europe’s richest cities.
“These missiles are mobile, easy to hide and nuclear-capable,” Stoltenberg said.
“They can reach European cities, like Munich, with little warning.”
As US 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. At the same time, “blind rearmament can’t be the answer”.
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 in the wake of 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?” asked Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
“Are we heading to a situation where we must see that it’s the end of diplomacy?”
Poland, which already hosts US missile-defence systems that have angered Russia, is seen as a potential site to host the American weapons, along with the ex-soviet Baltic countries and other neighbors. Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz said any missile deployment in his country would be decided “collectively by allies”.