"The Associated Press ran a brief article asserting that:
“The U.S. military has conducted a flight test of a type of missile banned for more than 30 years by a treaty that both the United States and Russia abandoned this month, the Pentagon said.
The Trump administration has said it remains interested in useful arms control but questions Moscow’s willingness to adhere to its treaty commitments.”
This was stated within the first paragraph. The author failed to mention that it was the United States that unilaterally abandoned the treaty. Russia only abandoned the treaty after the U.S. did, despite numerous Russian efforts to keep the treaty alive. Russia only abandoned the INF treaty when it became the only party to it, and treaties are quite pointless when they do not actually have more than one party as a signatory. Russia had in fact adhered to the restrictions imposed by the treaty, vague and unproven Pentagon leveled accusations aside.
Let’s be honest, both Russia and the United States have had the technology and the guided missile systems in service to field the intermediate range land-based missiles prohibited by the INF treaty. Both field such systems on their naval warships. The only thing that kept them from fielding such weapons was the INF treaty itself. Now that formal framework of prohibition is gone.
Now that we can acknowledge the fact that the INF Treaty no longer exists because the United States unilaterally abandoned it, let’s take a look at the missile that the U.S. military tested." SF
—————
OK, pilgrims, first we bailed out of the JCPOA, an agreement that was accomplishing what it was intended to do in impeding Iranian progress toward their supposed goal of a deliverable nuclear weapon. Our claim, resoundingly approved by Israel, is that the JCPOA nuclear deal did not restrict Iran to a role as a "hermit kingdom" producer of pistachio nuts and carpets. This policy of the US is ridiculously servile to the Zionist interest.
Now, WE (the US) have walked away from the INF Treaty, an agreement that had been in place since the dark days of the Cold War. Its purpose was to prevent the deployment of land based intermediate range nuclear tipped missiles and it served that purpose well.
But, pilgrims, in the era of the triumph of the Trumpian neocon view of the world, we must prepare for war. WAR! Any advantage that can be pursued against possible enemies must be pursued. Pompeo, Bolton and the other hyper-aggressive nuts want total world dominance. Sooo, we canceled the INF and now have tested a land based version of the navy's Tomahawk which has a range of over 300 miles.
For shame! Shame! We are unmasked as liars. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty
sir, i respectfully disagree with your conclusions. imo we walked away from the inf treaty because china is not a part of it and china is developing all manner of missiles into the hypersonic category and will in the not to distant future push the usa navy to the north american side of the phillipines effectively rendering the south china sea and ALL nation nearby as chinese littoral waters.
imo the INF does not in any way make the world more dangerous as the media like to opine. what makes the world reasonably safe is the concept of MAD which has never gone away and which the usa is NOW far behind and which the pentagon seeks to catch up to russia. this arms race will be one sided with our side spending billions to TRY and catch up to where russia missile technology is RIGHT NOW. it is our side which may well spend itself into implosion.
bolton and pompeo are B level entertainers at this point in time and little else. true they make our government look silly and incompetent but then so does half of congress and has for some time.
as long as we have a submarine fleet capable of destroying anyone who tries to sneak one in i doubt there will be a war between A level peers like russia or china and us.
Timely Post Colonel,,In The Moment..Now..We We will see how all this Transistions Out at The G..7 Meeting this weekend…President Trump has His New Advisor.Kelly Ann Shaw..at The Table..She replaced Advisor.. Clete Willems..Several Items on the Table..G..7 antsy. .Will affect Internation Relations…and NATO Profile..Attitudes..Reactions should be Swift..
All we need now for nuclear war is another world leader with an ego as big as Trumps. As far as I can tell, China and Russia are in full “appeasement mode” with regard to the USA, with Trumpian tantrums echoing that man, right down to territorial demands (Greenland!) and nighttime jeremiads about China via Twitter.
At some point the Russians and Chinese are going to draw a line in the sand and Trump, like that man, won’t believe them because they had given in, like Chamberlain and Daladier, so many times before.
Mr. Lang,
as for “a land based version of the navy’s Tomahawk” …
The ‘hyper-aggressive nuts’ don’t even have new or original ideas. Even the hyper-aggressiveness isn’t exactly new but simply an expression of megalomania.
That aisde, that land based Tomahawks are an idea from the height of the cold war, iirc in response to the russian SS-20 (which, thanks to the INF, is gone now).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109G_Ground_Launched_Cruise_Missile
To re-vive that dead old program can use developed technology and is thus rather cheap, as far as the volume of US military budget goes.
In light of that, and the recent US tests, Russian concerns that US land based missile defence in Romania and Poland with Mk.41 & Mk.57 type vertical launchers (or the old trucks) could use to fire US GLCM is exactly rather rational.
US cruisers and destroyers with VLS can use the same launcher systems to launch an ESSM, SM-2/3, VL ASROCK or a Tomahawk. Why just from there?
It’s GLCM again, just vertically launched this time, and with by now more accurate GPS.
IMO the only reason why the ‘hyper-aggressive nuts’ killed the INF was not that Russia had good missiles (which they had also before INF) or missiles violating the INF.
The problem for the anti-china and neocon nuts IMO is hat China legally allowed has plenty medium range missiles and was not in the INF treaty. Thus the INF treaty was an obstacle for ‘hyper-aggressive nuts’ when going after China with medium range missiles of which China has plenty.
Now, thanks to not being in INF the US can have their own.
That the US could perhaps lie here to get that is sadly rather plausible, considering the BS story about Iraqi WMD used as an excuse to attack the country.
As the by now severly demented Rudy Giuliani put is so clearly (if there is a political interest) the ‘reality is now not truth‘.
Indeed! And Trump is a ‘stable genius’ (and not the opposite) and earned the millions he had at 8 years by extremely successfully distributing newspapers.
The US, being in the INF, were not allowed to have the desired medium range missiles, thus … they perhaps arbitrily accused Russia of violating the INF to have an excuse to kill the treaty and, now legally, get for themselves the medium range missiles they wanted.
Absurdly they did about exactly what they accused Russia of – violate the INF practically (and not just in spirit). Alas …
Likely Boltonists see any treaty as an unacceptable limitation of the freedom to handle at whits, as an ‘indispensable nation‘, or to rule by arbitrary tweets or other solo acts like presidential decrees as far as Trump is concerned.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/23/trump-hereby-order-response-president-mocked-decree
The ‘hyper-aggressive nuts’ are focused but are geographically disoriented. To hit China they kicked Russia.
Who knows, maybe in a year the US will have an orange Whitehouse and a president for life with a crown – or – from folks still living in the cold war – a revived Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a US Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) and perhaps Pershing III?
Re: “. . . effectively rendering the south china sea and ALL nation nearby as chinese littoral waters.”
The Geopolitics of 2017 in 4 Maps
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN AND JACOB L. SHAPIRO JANUARY 16, 2017
1-16-17
https://www.mauldineconomics.com/this-week-in-geopolitics/the-geopolitics-of-2017-in-4-maps
Map 2: China’s Cage
https://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletters/images/Map_2_Enlarge_20170116_TWIG.jpg?v=1484598012436
This map, though, does not reveal a critical third piece of this puzzle—the US Navy outclasses the Chinese navy in almost every regard, despite impressive and continuing Chinese efforts to increase capabilities. But looking at this map, you can see why China wants to make noise in its coastal waters and how China is limited by an arc of American allies. You can also see why one of China’s major goals will be to attempt to entice any American allies to switch sides. Consequently, China’s moves regarding the Philippines require close observation in 2017.
Colonel “Pilgrim:”
Russia has been violating the INF treaty since Obama.
No point in keeping it on the books.
As for the JCPOA, Obama and Kerry gave away the store to “get a deal” including $400 million in cash delivered to Iran in the dark of night.
Trump is merely trying to clean up the gross incompetence and corruption of the swamp.
The $400 million was Iranian money anyway stolen by Washington. And the violation of the INF was a Washington fabrication. The DoD removed an X (indicating experimental) from the name the DoD had given to a Russian missile that the DoD couldn’t prove had been deployed. When the Russians put the missile on display nobody turned up. If the DoD was really so concerned about the missiles they would have sent some “journalists” along to take a look at it.
You can work out what Washington knows by what they don’t do. For instance, the location of the Syrian “reactor” bombed by the Israelis has been controlled by the SDF for the last couple of years and we’ve heard nothing about the CIA or any other intelligence agency visiting it. The obvious conclusion is that the CIA, etc. know that the Israeli claims are complete bullshit.
The same will happen with Khan Sheikhun now that it has been liberated from the headchoppers backed by the CIA. The OPCW won’t be allowed to visit for fear that the reasons for a cruise missile attack on Syria will prove to be pure BS and then the partial BS about the White Helmets will start to fall apart as well.
As a matter of fact, the USA was certainly violated the INF treaty with its Aegis ashore, Russia was perhaps violating it (the US claims a Russian violation, but has not presented publically accessible proof. The Russian refutation could be true or false, but is reasonable. The US does not even truely bother to refute its obvious violation.
You see, Novator never bragged that their new missle has characteristics that violate the INF treaty, while the US manufactor of the Aegis ashore essentially states the violation on its website.
The $400 million Iranian money?
Who pays for the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Iran?
Who pays for the deaths of countless Americans at the hands of Iran?
The money was given to Iran to sew up the Obama/Kerry sellout.