JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s nuclear saber rattling: A threat or wake-up call for the West?” – Christian Science Monitor/ Fred Weir
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“… [F]ew have paid attention in recent years as the entire framework of strategic arms control, assembled over decades by Moscow and Washington, has been dismantled piece by piece by American and Russian politicians, leaving a dangerous vacuum where mutual responsibility, verification, and dialogue used to be. The last important agreement, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, effectively lapsed when … Putin signed off Thursday on legislation to cancel Russia’s ratification …. To leave no doubt that the Kremlin was sending a nuclear war-themed message to the West, late last month Russia’s strategic forces staged a major exercise … featuring a barrage of missile launches designed to simulate a ‘massive retaliatory strike’ to counter a hypothetical attack on Russia from the United States. Tensions have been rising … for several years, even as the diplomatic guardrails have fallen away. … [E]xperts say Russia’s increasingly intense nuclear saber rattling … is less a call to confrontation than a wake-up call about the need to restore deterrence. ….”