Putin freezes Russia's arms treaty commitment

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was suspending Russia's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, a move he linked to U.S. plans for a missile defence shield in Europe.

Putin, in a hawkish annual speech to both houses of parliament, said the NATO signatories to the 1990 treaty were not respecting it, and the U.S. plan to put missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic made matters worse.

He said Russia would look at withdrawing from the treaty altogether if negotiations he proposed with NATO countries failed to resolve Russia's grievances.


Russia says the missile shield plan -- which Washington says is intended to protect from attacks by so-called "rogue states" -- is a threat to its national security.



"(NATO countries) are ... building up military bases on our borders and, more than that, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," Putin said.



Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26134981.htm

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NATO seeks explanation on Putin arms control freeze
OSLO, April 26 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Thursday the alliance sought explanation of Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to suspend Russia's obligations under a key European arms control treaty.

"I expect Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov to explain the words of his President," de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference ahead of a scheduled meeting between NATO foreign ministers and their Russian counterpart in Oslo on Thursday.

Countering Putin's arguments in a speech in Moscow that NATO states were ignoring the so-called Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), de Hoop Scheffer said NATO members wanted to ratify an adapted version of it when Russia had fulfilled its commitments. NATO has in the past called on Russia to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia and Moldova.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26134981.htm

[flobee1]

1. put that together with the Rice quote

"The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it," she told reporters ahead of a NATO-Russia meeting in Oslo.

Why in the hell do these people feel the need to threaten and provoke everybody???

[salin]

2. Meanwhile Bushco stymied the efforts of Sen. Lugar to try to

account for and destroy - working with Russia to do so - old Soviet nukes to try to make sure said weapons don't fall into rogue hands. Point being - there are still a lot of seriously dangerous weapons floating around in Putin's neck of the woods. And bushco is once again arrogantly making the world and the country less safe.

[madrchsod]

3. add to that the bio weapons that are uncounted for

along with the guys who cooked the stuff...

[salin]

4. yet the GOP still tries to say that it is the party of National Security?

ala Guiliani already trying that line on (since it worked for bush/cheney in 04).

[flobee1]

5. getting more pissed off by the minute!

"The Russians have thousands of warheads. The idea that you can somehow stop the Russian strategic nuclear deterrent with a few interceptors just doesn't make sense."

For chrissakes it shouldn't be about "stopping the russians"! Its about the US provoking a country that doesn't have to be! If Rice wants to fight so bad, she should grab a rifle and head to Iraq! We have enough wars already underway, we dont need another!

[salin]

6. definitely DOES seem to be a provocative move.

But I have to agree with "doesn't make sense" per being nervous - but not for her reasons - simply for the reason that the system has never worked. It is a provocation and pouring more money into the Military Industrial Complex for huge expensive weapons that don't work. Guess she longs for the good old days of the arms race with Russia.

[juno jones]

8. Mebbe she figures

that if we had the cold war back her degree in soviet 5-year planning will somehow be relavant again. Face it, in the real world she's an overeducated unemployable loser with an addiction to shoe shopping.

[westerebus]

7. What your missing.

The US army is can not meet the commitments of the NATO agreements and/or the conventional forces deployment schedules our military requires for a forward defense in europe. In other words we don't have the boots on the ground right now to deploy enough of them to protect the anti missile system we intend to deploy. So that leaves NATO forces to hold down the fort so to speak.
The US and NATO are arming the former soviet states to the tune of billions of euros all facing russia. The russians are thinking where have we seen this before? A counter to this is for the russians' to deploy forces toward europe and continue to upgrade conventional forces in advance of this. Something they had agreed not to do under the CFE in the form of modernized forces.
The resource wars have just started. If the russians don't want to "cooperate" with big oil, we move missile defenses on to their border with sufficient forces to make the point. This isn't about nukes. We know they have them. It's old fashion Regan ism dusted off to to press the russians. That's my take. Thanks for your time.

[maddezmom]

9. Here are some key facts about the treaty from Reuters

Here are some key facts about the treaty.

* The CFE pact limits the number of battle tanks, heavy artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains.

* The original CFE Treaty was negotiated among the then-22 member states of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. At the time the Treaty was signed in November 1990, a key goal of the agreement was to replace military confrontation with a new pattern of security relations among all States Parties. It also was to establish a secure and stable balance of conventional armed forces in Europe at lower levels than before.

-- The treaty came into force in 1992 and it has secured the reduction or destruction of about 60,000 pieces of equipment of types limited by the Treaty since then.

-- It was complemented by "The Concluding Act of the Negotiation on Personnel Strength of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe" (CFE 1a) in July 1992. This agreement resulted in the substantial reduction of armed forces and since 2001, over 700,000 troops have been withdrawn. There are now less than three million troops in the area of application with an authorised ceiling of over 5.7 million.

-- It became and remains the cornerstone of security and stability in Europe, both in terms of the reduction of tensions relating to accumulated weapons through arms control at the regional level, and of greater stability through confidence building, transparency and information exchange.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2686614.htm

[westerebus]

10. The old school communists are saying: told ya so.

After all the years of the cold war and all the preparation, we russians were respected and feared, now look at us. NATO thinks they can push up to the front door with the americans providing a missile defense and we're going to allow this? I can just hear the russian general staff telling Putin in no uncertain terms where they stand. So much for looking into Putin's soul.

[martymar64]

11. NATO needs to consider Russia's weapon

They have and control the natural gas supply to Europe.
If' pressed, they could simply turn off the spigot and let Europe freeze this winter.
As far as our military prescence in Europe goes, we need to bring our troops home. Hitler and Stalin are both long gone. Let Germany defend itself. Same goes for Japan, we have no real reason to have troops there anymore either, Tojo's dead.