Russia has a long track record of importuning the United States and its allies regarding arms control treaties and negotiations. But the sentiment Moscow presents to the West is far from altruistic. Indeed, having largely completed its nuclear modernization and reached the limit of what it can spend on defense, Russia wants to lock in its gains before the US can begin the “aggressive modernization” of its nuclear weapons and before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) can react with deployments to counter Russian violations of the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Those violations apparently go beyond the Novator (9M729, a.k.a. SSC-8) missile to include other land-based cruise missiles. This Russian offensive travels on two tracks. As regards the INF Treaty, Russia is pursuing negotiations with European states and making public proclamations in favor of a moratorium on short- and intermediate-range missiles in Europe (TASS, Feb. 18). Moscow does so knowing that nobody has retaliated to date even though it built and deployed numerous INF-noncompliant systems that can be easily hidden and then strike European cities and targets (UAWire, Feb. 22). As for the second track, Russia continues to threaten the US and Europe with retaliatory measures should they choose to react to its violations of the INF Treaty (Kremlin.ru, Feb. 20, 2019).
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Russian S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile launchers roll down the Red Square during a night rehearsal for the WWII Victory Parade in Moscow on May 4, 2019.
