{"id":1598567,"date":"2022-08-10T08:31:53","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598567"},"modified":"2022-08-10T08:32:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T12:32:47","slug":"the-cold-war-heats-up-as-russia-cancels-u-s-inspections-of-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-cold-war-heats-up-as-russia-cancels-u-s-inspections-of-nuclear-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cold War Heats Up as Russia Cancels U.S. Inspections of Nuclear Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-cold-war-heats-up-as-russia-cancels-u-s-inspections-of-nuclear-weapons%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598567&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Since 2010, the United States and the Russian Federation have performed on-site inspections of each other\u2019s nuclear weapons under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/new-start-treaty-inspection-activities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New START treaty<\/a>. These inspections are part of the portfolio of tools we rely on to keep the temperature down between the superpowers and reduce the risk of someone triggering a nuclear war. Last night, Russia announced that they would be <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-moscow-european-union-government-and-politics-afa44358e6c188b56c4d284abec698e3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suspending access for the United States<\/a> to inspect their weapons facilities. The suspension was described as \u201ctemporary,\u201d but it\u2019s clear that the Kremlin is trying to use these inspections as a way to pressure America into lifting sanctions on them. (Associated Press)<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Russia on Monday announced a freeze on U.S. inspections of its nuclear arsenals under a pivotal arms control treaty, claiming that Western sanctions have hampered similar tours of U.S. facilities by Russian monitors.<\/p>\n<p>The move reflects soaring tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia\u2019s military action in Ukraine and marks the first time the Kremlin halted U.S. inspections under the New START nuclear arms control treaty.<\/p>\n<p>In declaring the freeze on U.S. inspections, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the sanctions on Russian flights imposed by the U.S. and its allies, visa restrictions and other obstacles effectively have made it impossible for Russian military experts to visit U.S. nuclear weapons sites, giving the U.S. \u201cunilateral advantages.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So the Russian Foreign Ministry is claiming that the only reason this is happening is the American sanctions on Russian air traffic are preventing their inspectors from coming to the United States to perform their duties. But that is clearly nonsense. From the beginning of the sanctions, both countries agreed that exceptions would be made for diplomatic and humanitarian flights. The inspections obviously fall under the blanket of official state visits, so the inspectors would not be blocked from coming to the United States and the State Department has made that clear.<\/p>\n<p>So what is the Kremlin really up to? In addition to describing the freeze as being temporary, the Russians are saying that a suspension of inspections is allowed under the treaty in \u201cexceptional cases.\u201d To be fair, that term is rather vaguely defined, so they may have a point there.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s all diplomatic doublespeak. What\u2019s really going on here should be obvious to the casual observer. Russia wants to have the sanctions we\u2019ve imposed on them lifted and they are trying everything short of military force to make that happen. That\u2019s why Britney Griner is starting a nine-year prison stretch for bringing some cannabis vaping products in her luggage. It\u2019s why they\u2019re having \u201cunscheduled maintenance\u201d outages in their natural gas pipelines. And it\u2019s why the START inspections are being suspended.<\/p>\n<p>Putin has been making thinly veiled threats or at least suggestions that he might deploy nuclear weapons on an almost weekly basis since the early days of the Ukrainian invasion. Actions like this one are only raising international tensions further. It also prompts us to ask the same question that\u2019s been bouncing around since the early weeks of the war. Exactly how mad has Mad Vlad gotten in his elder years? Is he really crazy enough to light off a nuke? I\u2019m trying to maintain a positive attitude here and assume that he still realizes he would be ushering in the end of the world so he wouldn\u2019t do it. But I\u2019m no longer anywhere near 100% confident in that assumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since 2010, the United States and the Russian Federation have performed on-site inspections of each other\u2019s nuclear weapons under the New START treaty. These inspections are part of the portfolio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1598766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1598766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}