Why Did Trump Pick a Fight with Putin Over the Nuclear Weapons Treaty
Channel: Trump Breaking News Network
Date: 2017-02-17

Trump Breaking News Network -Why Did Trump Pick a Fight with Putin Over the Nuclear Weapons Treaty

President Trump took a hard line over New START with Russia. It's an odd battle to choose -- and a dangerous one.

President Donald Trump has already picked a fight with Russia’s Vladimir Putin over nuclear weapons and the New START treaty. It is a curious battle to choose. The treaty enjoys the overwhelming backing of America’s top national security leaders and military commanders. Trump reportedly didn’t know what the treaty was but seems to be adopting the rhetoric of the far-right and their losing battle to block it in the Senate since 2010. To back out now would uncap the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world, worsening a burgeoning new arms race. Even more worrying, it could leave Russia’s arsenal dangerously uncounted.

We learned Thursday, in yet another leak to the press from concerned White House staff, that Trump railed at Putin in their recent phone call, denouncing the 2010 New START nuclear arms limitation pact as a “bad deal.” It should have been a routine courtesy call. But according to Reuters, “When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty… Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was.” He then reprised campaign rhetoric about how one-sided the treaty is, claiming that it gave Russia a strategic nuclear advantage.

Approved by a vote of 71-26, New START is a modest arms reduction treaty that trims U.S. and Russian “operationally deployed strategic weapons” to 1,550 on each side and extends crucial inspection and verifications procedures, allowing each side to ensure that the other is complying with the limits. It expires in 2021. Putin’s effort to simply extend the agreement failed to get an answer from the irate Trump.

Here’s the reality: “The New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership — to include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the service chiefs, and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, the organization responsible for our strategic nuclear deterrent,” said then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2010, who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “This treaty deserves [to be ratified by the U.S. Senate] on account of the dangerous weapons it reduces, the critical defense capabilities it preserves, the strategic stability it maintains, and, above all, the security it provides to the American people.”

Source: 
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/why-did-trump-pick-fight-over-nuclear-weapons-treaty/135321/?oref=d-channelriver

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Category
News & Politics
License
Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)