Another day, another run at nuclear war by the Trump administration.
The U.S. ambassador to NATO set off alarm bells Tuesday when she suggested that the United States might “take out” Russian missiles that U.S. officials say violate a landmark arms control treaty. (Washington Post)
Her words were
The question was what would you do if this continues to a point where we know that they are capable of delivering [the banned missiles.] And at that point we would then be looking at a capability to take out a missile that could hit any of our countries in Europe and hit America in Alaska.
This is ambiguous, and Nuclear Twitter lit up. The words are ambiguous, not clearly signaling that the bombers and missiles are flying or might any time soon. But “take out a missile,” particularly since the discussion of North Korea’s nuclear capability has been phrased that way recently, are dangerous words. It could refer to a preventive attack, or it could be a brag about more than our missile defense system is likely to be able to do. Either way, probably not a good idea to threaten our nuclear equals on the other side of the globe.
It turned out that she was talking about a threat that Tom Cotton and a few other warmonger senators have made: If Russia builds a missile that violates that Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and we think they may be doing that, then we will build something equivalent. This is a dumb response to a treaty violation, but that is the timeline we are living in now.
I’ve had some respect for Kay Bailey Hutchison in the past. What bothers me is that the US Ambassador to NATO should understand the current status of missiles relevant to the INF Treaty, Russian sensitivities about the possibility of a first strike, and how to handle the English language. It appears that all three of these were absent from the speech.
The Ambassador To NATO Should Know Better Than ThisPost + Comments (35)