Communists of Russia oppose the treaty masking American arms race
Statement by the Presidium Member, Secretary of the CPRF Central Committee, First Deputy Chairman of the RF State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Leonid Kalashnikov in connection with the Russian parliament’s ratification of the Treaty between the Russia and the USA on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (hereinafter – New START Treaty).
Communists of Russia reaffirm their commitment to universal disarmament, which is a prerequisite for building a new, more just and humane world. At the same time the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is convinced that disarmament should be the one that none of the existing powers would receive decisive military advantage, since these benefits are fraught with the unleashing of new imperialist wars. Given precisely this belief the CPRF deputies voted in the Russian parliament against the ratification of the New START Treaty.
The hypocrisy of the New START Treaty is in the fact that the agreement allows the parties to have a huge returnable nuclear capability. To fulfill the treaty restrictions it is sufficient to remove part of the warheads from the missiles. Moreover, contrary to common sense, platforms designed for a greater number of warheads one may leave on the missiles, while storing the removed warheads close to the missiles. Given the reason, the number of warheadson the American missiles Minuteman-III and Trident- II might be in a short time brought up to almost 4 thousand, which is 2,5 times above the treaty restrictions. Russia, however, due to its older missiles’ decommissioning, would not be able to use the returnable capability. That is, the trick is also aimed at achieving nuclear superiority of the United States.
Given that the New START Treaty in fact provides almost no reducing in strategic nuclear arms, its main purpose should be looked for elsewhere. We see such hidden meaning in the fact that the New START Treaty for 10 years seals to the world public opinion the issue of nuclear disarmament. This time will be used by the USA and its NATO allies for achieving total military superiority over the rest of humanity. This superiority will be achieved by increasing the number of new strategic offensive arms, development of which is not limited by the New START Treaty. These weapons include:
- Long-range sea-launched cruise missiles. Such missiles were the main strike weapons in aggressive military actions of U.S. imperialism against Iraq, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. These missiles can carry nuclear warheads as well. Today, surface ships and submarines of U.S. Navy can take aboard up to 10 thousand of these missiles, which already greatly exceeds the attack capability of traditional strategic offensive arms limited by theNew START Treaty. The American cruise missiles arsenal continues to grow. Under the U.S. Navy command of the World’s water these missiles in relation to any country in the world are rather strategic weapons than tactical ones.
- Weapons created by the USA under the concept of “Prompt global strike”. These are non-nuclear ballistic missiles, supersonic and hypersonic long-range cruise missiles; strike unmanned aerial vehicles, strike orbital vehicles. All these weapons can be considered as ideal ones for the first preemptive strike.
- Missile defense, which under its massive deployment ceases to be a defensive system, and turns into a shield, behind which the aggressor could hide himself from the retaliation of the victim countries. The US plans to deploy in the coming years hundreds of missile defense interceptors argue that the US missile defense system will be directed not against the so-called “outlaw states”, but above all against Russia and China.
Thus, with the help of the New START Treaty the USA is trying to create for itself the image of peace-loving country. But the same treaty gives “the green light” for the race of extremely dangerous US offensive arms. Russia’s ratification of the treaty proves once again that the today capitalist Russia is in fact a country of limited sovereignty.
The New START Treaty implementation will be one of the factors that create a new global strategic situation, in which U.S. and its allies’ aggression against any country in the world will be possible.
Moreover, we simply can not trust the Americans. They have repeatedly played possum with us.
We were promised not to expand NATO eastward, when Russia was withdrawing troops from East Germany, but we received extra 13-members to the aggressive bloc and new US military bases near our borders.
We failed in getting the promised free transit of Russian citizens to Kaliningrad region.
We insisted on preserving the ABM Treaty of 1972, but the Americans came out of it without paying any attention to us.
We appeal to the Communists and all peace-loving forces to intensify the joint struggle for genuine nuclear disarmament. Our common effort should force the governments of the major world powers to conclude international agreements, which limits the buildup of new types of strategic offensive arms. Creating a system of such agreements is a necessary step in countering the aggressive policy of modern imperialism.