Russia accuses US of nurturing aggressive nuclear strategy

[webfact]

Russia accuses US of nurturing aggressive nuclear strategy

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

 

MOSCOW (AP) — Amid the widening U.S.-Russian spat over Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a strongly-worded statement accusing the Pentagon of nurturing an aggressive nuclear strategy threatening Russia.

 

The ministry cast a recent speech by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter as a veiled threat to back a hypothetical attack on Russia by its allies in Europe with U.S. nuclear weapons. The angry statement reflects a growing degree of mistrust and tensions between Moscow and Washington after the collapse of a U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal in Syria.

 

On Monday, Carter accused Russia of "nuclear saber-rattling" and argued that even though the Cold War is long over, nuclear weapons are still needed to deter Russia and other potential aggressors from thinking they could get away with a nuclear attack.

 

"Across the Atlantic, we're refreshing NATO's nuclear playbook — to better integrate conventional and nuclear deterrence, to ensure we plan and train like we'd fight, and to deter Russia from thinking it can benefit from nuclear use in a conflict with NATO," Carter said. He emphasized that "obviously, we do not seek such a conflict to begin with, rather, we seek to prevent one."

 

The Russian Foreign Ministry, however, interpreted Carter's statement as a declared intention to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

 

"Carter's statement means that if Russia comes under attack from U.S. allies, the Americans will be ready to back it and threaten to use their nuclear weapons against us," it said in a statement. "We would like to think that Washington understands the meaning of such statements and their possible consequences for international security and stability."

 

The ministry noted that the current Russian military doctrine envisages the use of nuclear weapons to fend off an attack with conventional forces that threaten Russia's very existence as a state. It accused Carter of trying to distort the document's meaning in order to cast Moscow as a potential aggressor.

 

"Such flagrant misinterpretation of the official Russian document means that the secretary either has used a bad translation or is plotting a dangerous game," it said.

 

As Russia-U.S. relations have sunk to the lowest levels since the Cold War times over the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow has angrily protested the deployment of NATO forces to the alliance's members that border Russia and the development of NATO's U.S.-led missile defense in Europe. Sharp differences over Syria have added to the bad blood.

 

"We note that the Pentagon chief's belligerent rhetoric helps to a large extent clarify the real goals behind the ongoing modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The strategy of pressuring Russia by force, which in the logic of its Pentagon 'planners' apparently means nuclear brinkmanship, will receive a more sophisticated and dangerous military-technical foundation."

 

The ministry added that "it looks particularly cynical as all of it is being done by the administration of Barack Obama, the president who has declared the U.S. striving for nuclear disarmament and won the Nobel Peace Prize for that in advance."

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-09-30

[performance]

Russia who ?

[CaptHaddock]

Historically, all of the nuclear weapons proliferation has come from the USA.  The Soviets never gave the bomb to anyone.  The US and the UK worked together from the Manhattan Project onward.  The US secretly funded French nuke development in the 1950's while both the French and American governments claimed that they had no cooperation.  They secretly aided Israel, probably Pakistan, and maybe South Africa and India to develop nukes.

 

This history means the current Russian allegations can hardly be dismissed out of hand.

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Gawd blimey,this could be the start of another cold war.I thought we were above all that now.Russia accusing the states,the states accusing Russia.Isnt this how it all kicked off before.I would have thought that the little fat bastard in North Korea was more important than this.

Calm down boys.

You Know what,your having a good day,and then some bastard comes along and spoils it.

[Grubster]

The Russians, Chinese, or any other country has no clue what the US has in arms, nor do the people in the US. I would bet its some bad ass stuff though.

[Morch]

1 hour ago, Grubster said:

The Russians, Chinese, or any other country has no clue what the US has in arms, nor do the people in the US. I would bet its some bad ass stuff though.