Thread: Obama in Moscow

Barack Obama will travel to Moscow on Monday for two days of meetings, and the White House has announced the negotiations could lead to a new nuclear arms control treaty by the end of the year: http://patterico.com/2009/07/05/obam...ar-free-world/

“Obama is scheduled to arrive Monday in Moscow for two days of meetings. Negotiations on arms control are expected to dominate, with the current START I accord set to expire Dec. 5.

Both sides agree in principle to cut warheads from more than 2,000 each to as low as 1,500 apiece.

It’s important that any agreement “be free of the cold war burden of intrusive inspections,” [Gary Samore, the president's coordinator for weapons of mass destruction] told reporters ahead of Obama’s arrival.”

Even though the START I deadline is 5 months away, the Administration is concerned it won’t have time to get Senate ratification of a new treaty, and it is looking at other “ways to enforce some aspects on an executive level while waiting for ratification.” It’s difficult to imagine ratification can’t be accomplished by December given the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Maybe the problem is not with the Senate but with Obama.

Yesterday’s New York Times published an article about a paper Obama wrote 20 years ago as an undergraduate student at Columbia University. The topic was how to negotiate with the Soviets to cut nuclear arsenals and create a nuclear-free world, and it’s clear Obama still embraces his college dream of a nuclear-free world. However, I wonder if Obama fears he will not be able to get Senate ratification if he is willing to go to any length (including eliminating inspections) in search of that dream.

Obama’s current nuclear-free goal focuses on convincing all nations to voluntarily disarm existing stockpiles and agreeing to international control of fissile materials. In other words, he believes he can put the nuclear genie back in the bottle: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/wo...er=rss&emc=rss

“Each of those steps would require building a global consensus. It would also mean persuading countries to give up the coveted freedom to make fuel for reactors — and instead, probably, buy it from an international fuel bank.

Most of all, Mr. Obama and like-minded leaders will have to establish a new global order that will truly restrain rogue states and terrorist groups from moving ahead with nuclear projects.

“I don’t think I was that unique at that time,” the president said of his Columbia days, “and I don’t think I’m that unique today in thinking that if we could put the genie back in the bottle, in some sense, that there would be less danger — not just to the United States but to people around the world.”

This is the height of naivete’.

Pundit sent the Obama-snubs-the-Russians link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/wo...html?ref=world

After passing on dinner with the French president to go on a date in the City of Light with his wife last month, President Obama took leave of his Russian hosts on Tuesday night to seclude himself in his Moscow hotel with his wife, Michelle, and their daughters.

The first family planned to enjoy a relaxed evening at the O2 Lounge, the super-chic, super-pricey rooftop club at the new Ritz-Carlton, although no doubt the Secret Service first cleared the place of most if not all of the swaggering tycoons and leggy models who flock to such Moscow venues.

Aides would not confirm whether they followed through, but if they did they could not ask for a more scenic vista. The glass-enclosed O2 offers a panoramic view of Moscow, including Red Square and the Kremlin, all the more striking as the lingering summer sun sets after 10 p.m. The club is “a place to see and be seen,” as its Web site says — that is, unless you are a visiting president who after a day and a half of blinis, beluga and bilats (the diplo term for “bilateral meetings”) just wants to hang out with the clan.

The decision to brush off the Russians on one of his two nights here miffed some in the Moscow government who did not understand why he would not devote the scarce time to his hosts. Mr. Obama had dinner with President Dmitri A. Medvedev on Monday and lunch with him on Tuesday. But with the second dinner slot unavailable, he ended up having breakfast Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, a known night owl not given to American-style early morning business meals. [emphasis added]

Getting snubbed by Obama is just part of getting to know him. Ask the French. He doesn't honor just anyone with his presence.

Obama also made a joke about his daughter being a cold-war era spy, a la Get Smart! :

[Obama] laughed at the sight of his younger daughter walking through the halls of the Kremlin with a trench coat on and her hands in the pockets. Mr. Obama jokingly called her “Agent 99,” after the “Get Smart” character. “She just looked like she knew where she was going,” he said. “I thought she was going to pull out her shoe phone.”

If that had been Bush instead of Obama people might have called it a gaffe, insensitive, or at least awkward. But since it was Obama we know that at least one person laughed his fool head off. (Does anyone happen to know if our ultra-sophisticated president made any Hogan's Heroes jokes when he was in Germany?)

Obama to Russia: Stop Iran and we’ll scrap missile defense in Europe
posted at 11:54 am on July 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Many of us worried that Barack Obama would give away missile defense in Eastern Europe for nothing at all, save a photo op with Vladimir Putin and a chance to proclaim peace in our time. After signing a meaningless warhead-reduction treaty with Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, though, Obama remained firm on missile defense. He told a graduating class from Moscow’s New Economic School that if Russia stopped Iran from building nuclear weapons, we’d rethink the need for the missile defense system:

President Obama today offered to scrap plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe if Russia helped to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb. …

Russia strongly opposes US plans to site the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Washington says is necessary to defend against a surprise attack from Iran. Mr Obama made clear that he was willing to strike a deal with the Kremlin.

“I know Russia opposes the planned configuration for missile defence in Europe . . . I have made it clear that this system is directed at preventing a potential attack from Iran and has nothing to do with Russia,” Mr Obama said in a speech to students graduating from Moscow’s New Economic School.
“I want us to work together on a missile defence architecture that makes us all safer. But if the threat from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is eliminated, the driving force for missile defence in Europe will be eliminated. That is in our mutual interest.”

That would not be a bad trade. Russia has paid lip service to non-proliferation in Iran, but has also helped build Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure. Russia has routinely blocked tougher sanctions against the mullahs at the UN Security Council, along with China, and has made it almost impossible for the West to gain enough leverage to stop the Iranian bomb.

Russia has returned to the Great Game in that region, a play for power interrupted only in name by the communist era in Moscow.

Note how Obama put the Russians in a corner, rhetorically speaking, by the way he put this. Obama made the trade contingent on the end of Iranian nukes, not just a switch in the Security Council on Russia’s part alone. To the extent that the UNSC can do anything at all now to stop the mullahs from getting nukes — and that window has almost surely passed — Russia would also have to get China to stop protecting Iran with its veto and show that it succeeded in halting the Iranian nuclear-weapons program. Not just the nuclear program, either, but also the ballistic missiles.

It’s another way of saying that missile defense in eastern Europe won’t be disappearing any time soon. And that’s a surprisingly good show from a President who’s shown more appeasement than spine thus far in his administration.

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http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/0...nse-in-europe/

Vladimir Putin's third term as president: 6 ominous signs
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 6 hrs ago

Putin returns to his old job as protests simmer and critics warn of trouble ahead. Here, a guide to why things don't look good for Russia
Vladimir Putin took the oath of office to begin his third term as Russia's president on Monday, returning to the job after sitting out four years as prime minister. Outside the Kremlin, the streets were empty, as police hauled away opposition activists who were attempting to thwart the president's inauguration. Putin tried to defuse public anger with a series of decrees, vowing to eliminate waiting lists for nursery schools, and promising all Russians access to new housing every 15 years. But many observers warned of trouble ahead. Here, six concerning signs as Putin returns to the presidency:

1. No one showed up to cheer Putin
Putin's inauguration was an "impressive sight, full of tsarist pageantry," says Tom Parfitt at Britain's Telegraph. "But something was missing: The Russian people." The streets Putin's limousine traveled to reach the ceremony were silent, "blocked off by police trucks and devoid of human presence." Security personnel not only kept protesters away from the route, but supporters, too, which made it seem as if no one in Moscow felt there was anything to cheer about.

2. He promised freedom... and arrested the opposition
While Putin was on the dais, promising to uphold the freedom, security, and sovereignty of the Russian people, says Julia Ioffe at The New Yorker, people were being "arrested all over the city." The day before, riot police had stormed a cafe that was "a hub of opposition life," and snatched people off the streets for wearing white ribbons, "the symbol of the winter's peaceful anti-Kremlin protests." Four hundred people were thrown in jail, and scores were injured.

3. Statisticians detected voter fraud in the March election
Putin won "a landslide victory in March," says Brian Jacobsmeyer at Physics Central, but a statistical analysis of the results uncovered "several questionable anomalies in the data that always seemed to support Putin and his party" — including clusters of polling stations where Putin's support was high and turnout exceeded 95 percent. "Putin's opponents have frequently accused him of unfair elections. Now, his opponents have one more piece of ammunition: Statistics."

4. Violent rebels are active... again
Just days before Putin returned to his old job, twin car bombs exploded near a police post in the republic of Dagestan. The explosions, which killed 13 people, served as "grisly reminders" that Putin will have to contend with more violence in his third term, says Jim Heintz of The Associated Press. In his previous terms, Putin largely succeeded in his vow to wipe out the Chechen insurgency, but "pacifying Dagestan is a tougher challenge." Dagestan is three times larger than Chechnya, with plenty of mountains where Islamic insurgents can hide, making it difficult for Russian forces to "unleash their overwhelming firepower."

5. Even China is more open to change than Putin
After 12 years in power, Putin "represents the specter of stagnation that haunts Russia," says Nicu Popescu at EU Observer. And he's hoping this is the beginning of two six-year terms. The contrast with "China's upcoming — and strictly choreographed — power transfer could hardly be starker." In the fall, China will replace the country's president, Hu Jintao, its premier, Wen Jiabao, and the rest of the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee. "Although China has the more authoritarian system, it is moving forward. The same cannot be said for Putin's Russia."

6. The U.S. media continues to demonize Putin
The relentless, and often unfair, demonizing of Putin in the American media "has made Putin's Russia toxic in Washington," says Stephen F. Cohen at Reuters. We hear he's a KGB thug and an autocrat — even though his power is far from absolute, which makes securing Russian cooperation difficult, just when the U.S. need Moscow's help in Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and the entire Middle East.

http://news.yahoo.com/vladimir-putin...091700400.html

Boy on a Bike Becomes Moscow's Tiananmen Image
By Kirit Radia | ABC News – Tue, May 8, 2012

MOSCOW - As a bloody skirmish between police and opposition activists in central Moscow was drawing to a close on Sunday a small boy on a tiny bicycle pedaled through the crowd and approached a line of hulking riot police. He sat there for a moment, balancing on his training wheels, staring at the menacing troops who were decked out in blue camouflage uniforms and full riot gear, nightsticks at the ready.

A group of protesters who had been heckling the cops began jeering, "Here's the guy that will storm the Kremlin. Be ready boys! Here he comes!"

Julia Ioffe, the Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker and Foreign Policy magazine, happened to be standing right behind him. She whipped out her iPhone and snapped a picture which she tweeted out to her over 6,000 followers with the caption "Russia's Tianamen (sic) image."

The photo quickly ricocheted around the internet.

It was a David and Goliath moment, perhaps a metaphor for the unarmed protesters who clashed with police that day and whose movement is taking on President Vladimir Putin's formidable political system. Tens of thousands of protesters had marched against Putin that afternoon, the day before his inauguration. They were met by row after row of police, thousands of them, who were there to make sure they stayed within the bounds of their rally permit.

When a large group tried to cross a police line towards the Kremlin, police pushed them back and tensions flared. Rocks and bottles were thrown and police responded with what many say was disproportionate force, deploying tear gas and striking people with their batons. They surged into the crowd to grab individuals and drag them by their arms, legs, and even their hair back to police vans. Many protesters were bloodied. By the end of the day more than 450 people had been arrested.

Ioffe had been there all day to cover the protest. She was in the thick of the melee and says she was struck in the leg by a rock. When police had finally cleared the square, only a handful of protesters remained behind, including the group heckling the riot police. "Shame on you," they shouted. "What are you going to tell your grandparents who fought against the fascists? Don't you have mothers?"

Ioffe says she was walking with another journalist, Olaf Koens, who works for RTL Television in the Netherlands. They were tired and wanted to go find some dinner when they stopped to watch. Koens spotted the boy first. "Olaf smacked me in the arm and said look at that," she recalled later when ABC News asked about the photo. "Then I see this little bicycle weave through the crowd and stop in front of the troops. He stood there for a few minutes. I'm not sure why."

Koens says he wanted to take the picture himself, but his iPhone battery had run out an hour earlier. "This little boy just showed up. His parents were somewhere in the crowd, there was no immediate danger, and the kid just kind of peddled (sic) up to the police, probably out of curiosity," he wrote in an email to ABC News.

Ioffe laughed at the thought that one of her pictures has gone viral and is being called iconic. "I didn't think it would be any good. I'm a terrible photographer, especially with an iPhone," she said, adding that her family usually won't even let her take pictures on vacation.

Maybe now they will.

http://news.yahoo.com/boy-bike-becom...opstories.html

comments

Makes for an interesting photo, but is nothing like the iconic picture of a young man staring down a moving tank.

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In the US, the parents would be charged with child endangerment and the kid put into a foster home.

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News media exaggeration. This young boy is not in any way similar to the man in Tiananmen who was trying to stop military tanks. This young boy is just curious.

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Nice photo and all, but not nearly as powerful. A child's ignorance should not be mistaken for the original guy's courage.

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please...just report the news instead of creating it

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Its a rather poignant picture. The type of image that makes you stop in your tracks and think. Check out some of the expressions on the soldier's faces. Many of their eyes are focused on him and there are quite a few looks of amusement. Who knows, that child may grow up to be the future leader of Russia.

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Yahoo writers and editors still wears training wheels.

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Who brings there kid to a police action

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This is nothing like Tiananmen...that man wasn't an accidently in a photo. Sure it's cute, but it doesn't mean anything.

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Nice article about a picture ... with no photo or links to the photo

Marking the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre
May 21, 2009
Everybody recognizes the iconic Tank Man photo, but most people would not be able to say much about it or to eloquently explain the significance of the 1989 Chinese protests. As we approach June 4, 2009 which will mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, I thought it would be wise to point to an excellent documentary you can watch online by PBS’ Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...b&continuous=1

Obama to Medvedev: I’ll totally cave on missile defense in my second term if Putin will give me “space”
posted at 8:40 am on March 26, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Ah, open microphones at photo ops. Is there anything they can’t expose? And is there any lesson about them that Barack Obama can learn? Five months after reporters picked up a conversation in which Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy disparaged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu, Obama forgot to check the microphones yet again in a conversation with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. This time, however, the microphones picked up the sound of Obama begging for some political help from Vladimir Putin — in order to gain the “flexibility” to cave on missile defense: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...re-flexibility

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

This, to quote our Vice President, is “a big f*****g deal.” What solution does Obama envision that would pay off for Putin so much that the Russians would agree to the “space” necessary by keeping quiet about US plans for its deployment? The only possible answer would be the dismantling of even the smaller missile-defense system to which Obama committed in 2009. And it looks as though Obama has already tipped his hand to the Russians — against whom this particular defense system would be mainly ineffective anyway — in exchange for political assistance to influence the election.

Scott Johnson says that this is a “space program” he can’t support: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...ce-program.php

The man has big plans for us — the kind of plans he won’t be sharing with the American people. Not yet.

Something tells me this next election is a big one. Let’s kill Obama’s “space” program.

Obama won’t share these plans with the American people. However, he’ll share them with the Russians, and ask for their help in influencing the election. That should tell American voters all they need to know about this President.

Or perhaps not. What other nations has Obama asked for “space” on American foreign and national-security policy so that he can win a second term? And what American interests is Obama willing to trade for that “space”?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/2...give-me-space/


Flexibility achieved: Obama pulls missile defense system from eastern Europe
posted at 10:01 am on March 20, 2013 by Ed Morrissey


On Friday, new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel used the traditionally ignored Friday afternoon time period to announce an expansion of American missile defense on the Pacific coast, as an answer to threats from North Korea. What didn’t get much attention was a subsequent announcement of a missile-defense change on the other side of the world. It seems that Barack Obama has achieved maximum flexibility http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/2...give-me-space/ … and the Washington Post editorial board gently rebukes him for his “impudent” concession: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...239_story.html

The Pentagon is canceling the planned fourth phase of an anti-missile system that had been scheduled for deployment in Poland in 2022. The SM3 IIb missile was significant for two reasons: It was the only interceptor planned for the Europe-based system that could have defended the United States against an attack from Iran; and it was the component of the system most decried by Russia, which claimed that it could be used against its intercontinental missiles.

As it did when it canceled a previous European missile plan in 2009, the administration insisted that its decision had nothing to do with Russia or its objections. The phase-four missile was dropped, officials said, because Congress had cut some of its funding, meaning it could not have been completed in the next decade, even while the timeline of possible ICBM threats is shortening. Officials say the money can be better spent on deploying more interceptors in the United States and improving their components. As proof that Moscow has not been appeased, the White House pointed to statements by Russian officials saying they are still unsatisfied with U.S. missile defense plans and continue to demand binding legal assurances that the system can’t be aimed at Russia.

Still, the fact remains that the United States has removed from its plans the missile that Russian officials previously cited as their foremost concern, just a few months after President Obama promised the Kremlin “greater flexibility” on missile defense after his reelection. In doing so, the administraton has eliminated the possibility of a defensive system that would give the United States two shots at an Iranian ICBM — what in Pentagon jargon is called a shoot-look-shoot capacity. It also has decoupled the European missile system from the defense of the continental United States. These compromises could have made sense as part of a broader agreement with Russia on missile defenses. To undertake them unilaterally, for what are portrayed as purely budgetary reasons, is imprudent.

Ah, “imprudent” — as in inconceivable. If the US was to cough up this critical component of missile defense, why would we not use that decision to gain concessions in the other direction? Obama already retreated on missile defense in his first term, using the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to leave Warsaw twisting in the wind on ground-based interceptors, after having spent considerable political capital in agreeing to their installation in the first place.

This is yet another example of “smart power.” And it’s another example of how this administration has turned the Friday afternoon document dump into an art form.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/2...astern-europe/

Obama to Medvedev: I’ll totally cave on missile defense in my second term if Putin will give me “space”
posted at 8:40 am on March 26, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Ah, open microphones at photo ops. Is there anything they can’t expose? And is there any lesson about them that Barack Obama can learn? Five months after reporters picked up a conversation in which Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy disparaged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu, Obama forgot to check the microphones yet again in a conversation with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. This time, however, the microphones picked up the sound of Obama begging for some political help from Vladimir Putin — in order to gain the “flexibility” to cave on missile defense: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...re-flexibility

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

This, to quote our Vice President, is “a big f*****g deal.” What solution does Obama envision that would pay off for Putin so much that the Russians would agree to the “space” necessary by keeping quiet about US plans for its deployment? The only possible answer would be the dismantling of even the smaller missile-defense system to which Obama committed in 2009. And it looks as though Obama has already tipped his hand to the Russians — against whom this particular defense system would be mainly ineffective anyway — in exchange for political assistance to influence the election.

Scott Johnson says that this is a “space program” he can’t support: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...ce-program.php

The man has big plans for us — the kind of plans he won’t be sharing with the American people. Not yet.

Something tells me this next election is a big one. Let’s kill Obama’s “space” program.

Obama won’t share these plans with the American people. However, he’ll share them with the Russians, and ask for their help in influencing the election. That should tell American voters all they need to know about this President.

Or perhaps not. What other nations has Obama asked for “space” on American foreign and national-security policy so that he can win a second term? And what American interests is Obama willing to trade for that “space”?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/2...give-me-space/


Flexibility achieved: Obama pulls missile defense system from eastern Europe
posted at 10:01 am on March 20, 2013 by Ed Morrissey


On Friday, new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel used the traditionally ignored Friday afternoon time period to announce an expansion of American missile defense on the Pacific coast, as an answer to threats from North Korea. What didn’t get much attention was a subsequent announcement of a missile-defense change on the other side of the world. It seems that Barack Obama has achieved maximum flexibility http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/2...give-me-space/ … and the Washington Post editorial board gently rebukes him for his “impudent” concession: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...239_story.html

The Pentagon is canceling the planned fourth phase of an anti-missile system that had been scheduled for deployment in Poland in 2022. The SM3 IIb missile was significant for two reasons: It was the only interceptor planned for the Europe-based system that could have defended the United States against an attack from Iran; and it was the component of the system most decried by Russia, which claimed that it could be used against its intercontinental missiles.

As it did when it canceled a previous European missile plan in 2009, the administration insisted that its decision had nothing to do with Russia or its objections. The phase-four missile was dropped, officials said, because Congress had cut some of its funding, meaning it could not have been completed in the next decade, even while the timeline of possible ICBM threats is shortening. Officials say the money can be better spent on deploying more interceptors in the United States and improving their components. As proof that Moscow has not been appeased, the White House pointed to statements by Russian officials saying they are still unsatisfied with U.S. missile defense plans and continue to demand binding legal assurances that the system can’t be aimed at Russia.

Still, the fact remains that the United States has removed from its plans the missile that Russian officials previously cited as their foremost concern, just a few months after President Obama promised the Kremlin “greater flexibility” on missile defense after his reelection. In doing so, the administraton has eliminated the possibility of a defensive system that would give the United States two shots at an Iranian ICBM — what in Pentagon jargon is called a shoot-look-shoot capacity. It also has decoupled the European missile system from the defense of the continental United States. These compromises could have made sense as part of a broader agreement with Russia on missile defenses. To undertake them unilaterally, for what are portrayed as purely budgetary reasons, is imprudent.

Ah, “imprudent” — as in inconceivable. If the US was to cough up this critical component of missile defense, why would we not use that decision to gain concessions in the other direction? Obama already retreated on missile defense in his first term, using the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland to leave Warsaw twisting in the wind on ground-based interceptors, after having spent considerable political capital in agreeing to their installation in the first place.

This is yet another example of “smart power.” And it’s another example of how this administration has turned the Friday afternoon document dump into an art form.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/2...astern-europe/

Expressions and body language? You can just FEEL the love!
I thought this picture was nothing more than a distinct lesson in body language on a monumental (and diplomatic) scale.

Surprize, Surprize!!! Russia is Cheating on Arms Treaties, Obama Ignores Warnings
Submitted by Trevor on June 25, 2013 – 11:19 pm EST

US President Barack Obama appears to the giving the Russians the “flexibility” he promised them once re-elected.

Enough “flexibility” to destroy his own country even.

BY: Bill Gertz, The Washington Free Beacon http://freebeacon.com/treaty-cheating/

Russia is engaged in a major violation of the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States by building a new medium-range missile banned under the accord, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Disclosure of the treaty violation comes as President Barack Obama last week called for a new round of arms negotiations with Moscow aimed at cutting deployed nuclear warheads by one-third.

Intelligence officials said internal assessments identified Russia’s new Yars M missile that was tested earlier this month as an INF missile with a range of less than 5,500 kilometers.

“The intelligence community believes it’s an intermediate-range missile that [the Russians] have classified as an ICBM because it would violate the INF treaty” if its true characteristics were known, said one official.

However, Russia is denying its new Yars M missile represents an INF violation.

Retired Lt. Gen. Victor Yesin, a former commander of Russian strategic forces and current consultant to the chief of the general staff, said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon that Russia is complying with the terms of INF because the Yars M, also known as RS-26, is an ICBM and not a banned intermediate-range system.

“According to the information I have, Russia closely follows the obligations arising from the 1987 INF Treaty and 2010 New START Treaty,” Yesin said. “The RS-26 ballistic missile, which is a Topol class ICBM, is not covered by the INF Treaty as its range is over 5,500 kilometers. Russia officially informed the U.S. about that in August 2011.

The issue of Russian INF compliance was raised in Moscow on Monday by presidential aide Sergei Ivanov, who told a television interviewer that Russia would not adhere to INF treaty constraints indefinitely.

“A legitimate question arises: On the one hand, we have signed the Soviet-U.S. treaty, and we are honoring it, but this can’t last endlessly,” Ivanov said according to Interfax.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said June 19 that some of Russia’s “neighbors,” a reference to China, were developing INF missiles and suggested Moscow would not allow the INF treaty to hinder its strategic arms buildup.

“We cannot accept a situation that would put the strategic deterrent system out of balance and make our nuclear forces less effective,” Putin said on the same day Obama announced plans for a one-third cut in the U.S. deployed nuclear warhead arsenal.

Two U.S. intelligence officials said the new Yars M mobile missile is not an ICBM and that the administration needs to confront the Russians on the system or risk undermining the entire arms control agenda.

The Russian INF violation initially was disclosed in vague terms by members of Congress, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R., Calif.), and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.).

McKeon and Rogers wrote to Obama in April describing earlier concerns over what they called “a massive Russian violation and circumvention of an arms control obligation to the United States of great significance to this nation and its NATO allies.”

“Briefings provided by your administration have agreed with our assessment that Russian actions are serious and troubling, but have failed to offer any assurance of any concrete action to address these Russian actions,” the two chairman stated in the April 12 letter.

They noted that Senate Intelligence Committee members also have raised concerns about “clear examples of Russia’s noncompliance with its arms control obligations.”

McKeon and Rogers said they expected the administration’s annual arms control compliance report, due to Congress April 15, to “directly confront the Russian violations and circumventions.”

“We also seek your commitment not to undertake further reductions to the U.S. nuclear deterrent or extended deterrent until this Russian behavior is corrected,” they said.

McKeon said in a statement in response to Obama’s Berlin disarmament speech that “Russia is cheating on a major existing nuclear arms control treaty.”

“I have been urging the president through classified and unclassified correspondence to take seriously these violations by Russia since last year, but the president has ignored these concerns,” he said.

In February, McKeon and Rogers wrote to Obama asking why he had not responded to a classified Oct. 17 letter outlining “significant arms control violations by the Russian federation.”

“It is clear that the Russian Federation is undertaking both systemic violation and circumvention of a significant arms control obligation to the United States,” they said. “Such is the reality that confronts the United States, despite four years of your best efforts to ‘reset’ relations with that country.”

“How can President Obama believe [the Russians] are going to live up to any nuclear treaty reductions when he knows they are violating the INF treaty by calling one of their missiles something else?” one official said…

U.S. officials said the first details about the INF-range RS-26 missile emerged last year and intelligence assessments later confirmed the missile violates the INF treaty.

However, senior Obama administration officials so far have played down or dismissed the violation to avoid upsetting current and future arms talks with Moscow, the officials said.

Mark B. Schneider, a specialist on Russian missiles at the National Institute for Public Policy in Virginia, said the new Yars M missile appears to be an INF violation.

“There is increasing evidence that the ‘new’ Russian ICBM that they now call the Yars M or Rubezh is either a circumvention or violation of the INF Treaty,” Schneider stated in an email.

Other potential INF violations outlined in Russian press reports include Moscow’s development of a new ground-launched cruise missile, and reports that the Russians have used anti-ballistic missiles and surface-to-air missiles as surface-to-surface missiles, Schneider said…

A House Armed Services Committee staff member said administration officials recently told Congress that Russia was complying with the New START treaty.

The staff member said the issue of Russian treaty violations is not new and efforts were made in last year’s defense authorization bill to press the administration for answers to concerns expressed by both House and Senate members.

The refusal to address what one official called a “militarily significant” arms treaty violation led to the inclusion of language in last year’s version of the defense authorization bill that limited implementation of the 2010 New START arms treaty.

The fiscal 2014 defense bill includes a similar provision passed by the House earlier this month.

McKeon said the current legislation was approved “by an overwhelming margin” and “would prohibit further reductions while Russia is violating—if not in material breach of—its current obligations.”

“There is bipartisan agreement that faithfulness and an honest, open exchange are the heart of any successful arms control process,” McKeon said.

In response to the legislative provision in last year’s bill, Obama threatened to veto it if the provisions blocking New START implementation were in the final bill.

Obama’s pro-Moscow mentors Frank Marshall Davis and Alice Palmer and his friends in the Communist Party USA, worked for years to weaken in the US military in favor of the Soviet Union.

It would be wise to work on the basis that Obama is deliberately continuing their agenda.

http://www.trevorloudon.com/2013/06/...ores-warnings/

Obama cancels talks with Putin ahead of G-20 summit
By Jessica Yellin. Jake Tapper and Tom Cohen, CNN

updated 1:48 PM EDT, Wed August 7, 2013

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama formally canceled a much-discussed visit to Moscow next month for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing a lack of progress in bilateral relations since Putin regained the presidency a year ago.

Obama will still attend a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg in early September, but now will go to Sweden beforehand instead of stopping in Moscow to meet with Putin, the White House announced. "Following a careful review begun in July, we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September," a White House statement said.

In addition, no one-on-one meeting between Obama and Putin is scheduled for the G-20 summit, a senior administration official told CNN on the condition of not being identified. However, the two leaders would see each other at group meetings in St. Petersburg.

The White House statement noted progress in relations with Russia during Obama's first term, much of it when Dmitry Medvedev was president and Putin was prime minister. Putin regained the presidency in May 2012. "Given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last 12 months, we have informed the Russian government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda," the White House said.

The statement also cited Russia's recent decision to grant asylum to classified leaker Edward Snowden as a factor in the decision, but a senior administration official told CNN that the talks with Putin were likely to have been canceled regardless. "We just hadn't gotten any traction" on issues that the summit would have addressed, including missile defense and a reduction in nuclear missiles, the official said on the condition of not being identified, adding that attempts to find common ground on economic and trade agreements also were problematic. "We're not in the business of doing summits just to do summits," the official told CNN.

Despite canceling the Moscow talks with Putin, the White House said a meeting set for Friday between Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel with their Russian counterparts would proceed "to discuss how we can best make progress moving forward on the full range of issues in our bilateral relationship."

Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Putin, told reporters on Wednesday that "we're disappointed with the U.S. administration's decision," the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. "It's clear that the decision is linked to the situation around former CIA contractor Edward Snowden," Ushakov said, according to Tass, which quoted him as saying the situation "illustrates that the U.S. is not ready to build equal relations with Russia."

The invitation for Obama "remains in force," he said.

What Obama said on Leno

The senior Obama administration official said, "we still have business to do with these guys on Afghanistan and Iran as well as other issues."

On NBC's "Tonight Show" Tuesday, Obama said he was disappointed Russia had granted asylum to Snowden, a former government contractor who leaked details of National Security Agency surveillance programs that sparked a political firestorm.

The United States wants Russia to return Snowden to face trial on charges under the Espionage Act, but Russia instead granted him at least a year of asylum and he is in an unknown location in the country.

Russia's leaders have a proclivity for slipping into a Cold War mindset, Obama said, adding that it is essential that cooperation continues between the two nations.

Obama also criticized Russia for a new law banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations around minors."

Implemented last month after Putin signed it into law, the measure bars public discussion of gay rights and relationships anywhere children might hear it. The law has been condemned by Russian and international rights groups as highly discriminatory. "I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them," Obama said.

U.S. legislators from both parties had called for Obama to cancel the Moscow talks with Putin, and some suggested he also should refuse to attend the G-20 summit in Russia. "Putin doesn't deserve the respect after what he's done with Snowden," Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York told CNN on Wednesday. "He goes out of his way to stick the knife into the United States."

But Schumer said he supports Obama attending the G-20 gathering.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/politi...html?hpt=po_c1 Video at link