Russia and the INF: Don’t Call it a Circumvention

Aaron Stein 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Arms Control Wonk podcast. My name is Aaron Stein. I'm a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog. I'm also an associate fellow with the Rural United Services Institute in London and a PhD candidate at King's College.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:20

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis. I'm the founding publisher of Arms Control Walk, and I'm the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. And today we're going to talk about the State Department's finding that Russia is violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is kind of a big deal.

Aaron 0:42

Yeah, no, it's big, and it builds on the podcast that we did, I want to say about a month ago, a couple weeks ago, on the same subject.

Jeffrey 0:50

Right, except for now we don't sound like we're underwater.

Aaron 0:53

We don't sound like we're underwater or in a tank. And now we have the State Department's compliance report that gives us a little more credence to the allegations that were swirling around at the time when we first recorded the podcast.

Jeffrey 1:05

Right. So if you didn't listen to that podcast or you haven't been following the issue for a long time, there have been concerns expressed in various courts, Capitol Hill, among the arms control community, that Russia might be in violation of the INF Treaty, which was signed in the 1980s but is a pretty important treaty. Pretty important arms control treaty for the security of Europe.

What's happened now is the State Department has issued its annual compliance report. Every year the State Department issues a report on U.S. and other countries' compliance with arms control agreements, and in that document There is, for the first time, a direct statement by the State Department that the Russians are in violation of that treaty. Not that we have concerns, not that we have questions, but that there is a treaty and they're cheating.

Aaron 2:03

It comes at an interesting time. Tensions between the US and Russia are, I'd say, high over Ukraine. There are concerns about Russia.

Jeffrey 2:13

Aaron, did you see my tweet about reset the other day?

Aaron 2:18

I did, yeah. Maybe we're back in 1968. We've gone back. Maybe this is another return to the past.

Jeffrey 2:25

For listeners, I observed that when Hillary Clinton gave that big reset button to the Russian foreign minister, I said, actually, reset worked. The problem was the button was set to 1968.

Aaron 2:38

Or maybe the bad translation was on purpose. Maybe we didn't really mean that we were just going to reset it. We just wanted to give off the impression that we were trying to do so.

Jeffrey 2:47

Yeah, actually, Aaron, can you explain that to me? I didn't catch. I know that there was some claim that reset was translated badly in Russian.

Aaron 2:55

That's my understanding. It was translated badly, and it meant something else. I can't remember what it meant. So it was sort of indicative of maybe the early problems that we were going to have with the quote-unquote reset.

Jeffrey 3:07

Not an auspicious beginning.

Aaron 3:09

No, but I think you make this point in your piece that this compliance report is a relatively regular thing, so perhaps it doesn't have much to do with Ukraine or the NATO issue.

Jeffrey 3:19

Right. You know, I've had to give a couple of interviews, and what I've been saying is Putin certainly hasn't done himself any favors when it comes to how we look at arms control violations, but this is not fundamentally about Ukraine. It's something that's been a long time coming. As best we can tell, and the finding itself is just a statement.

It doesn't actually provide any detail. But if you read all the press reporting, it looks like the Russians started testing this cruise missile in 2008. And that the U.S. started raising the issue with the Russians in early 2013 found the Russian response pretty unacceptable, or at least I think what people have said is that the Russians did not engage on the issue.

And in January, there was a New York Times story that followed a briefing that the U.S. gave to the NATO allies. So by January, it was clear that You know, the Russians were probably in violation and the Russians weren't responding. And so it was kind of an issue to start bringing up with allies. And so my understanding is that after that briefing, there was a process of putting this into the compliance report and the decision to find the Russians in violation of the move in March or April.

So it kind of has happened along with Maidan in Ukraine, but not because of it.

Aaron 4:48

Right, and it cleared up a little stuff that was swirling around on the outside. There were two issues or two concerns about Russian missile testing. The finding seems to point at a ground-launched cruise missile.

Jeffrey 5:01

Right, it says the violation is a ground-launched cruise missile, but contains no additional details whatsoever about the nature of the violation, which has allowed the Russians to sort of start their defense efforts. It's actually a little frustrating because, as you mentioned, I'd written this article in April arguing that the Russians probably were in violation and that the U.S. should say so if that was true.

And I said they should let them have it in the compliance report. And so I'm kind of happy that they mentioned it in the compliance report, but there are no details whatsoever. So we have to guess. Or use open source analysis to try to figure out.

Aaron 5:42

That's where I was going. Maybe with some of the pictures that have been put out there and some of the analysis that's already been done, we can try and fill in the gaps about what exactly this ground launch cruise missile looks like.

Jeffrey 5:58

Right. So the only thing that we've seen so far are launchers. Pictures of launchers and pictures of canisters. And there's only one grainy image that Hans Christensen found. I'm so jealous. I was going to do this analysis.

Aaron 6:17

He beat you to it.

Jeffrey 6:18

I would have done it this morning if I didn't have some lousy podcast to record.

Aaron 6:22

I know. It's the arms control on podcast fault.

Jeffrey 6:27

Mostly so. I should say the treaty prohibits both the missiles and the launchers, right? Trucks that they drive around with, and we've got lots of pictures of the truck and some pictures of the canister, and there's one picture of the missile, and gosh, if it doesn't look like a Land-based variant of a sea-launched cruise missile that goes to like 3,000 kilometers.

Aaron 6:53

Which the 3,000 kilometers, I think, is particularly the salient point in that. So it's a big violation. Probably the reason why it's included this time.

Jeffrey 7:04

Right. The treaty goes from 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers. So, you know, it'd be one thing if the Russians showed up and said, yeah, well, it's 510 kilometers, but it kind of depends how you calculate it. And It's like, no, this is right smack. If, I should say, if it's the same missile.

Aaron 7:24

Assuming the analysis or the pictures that we're looking at So the analysis that's been done based on the pictures is correct. We also know who the manufacturer is, which allows us to draw a few more, I guess, inferences about what exactly this missile is supposed to look like and what it's supposed to do. And perhaps maybe the Russian justification that what they're going to be saying behind closed doors about what exactly this thing is for.

Jeffrey 7:47

Yeah, so there's this company called Novator, which makes all kinds of cruise missiles, including cruise missiles that go in shipping containers, which you can imagine that's going to be easy to verify. But they've got something called the 3M14, which is a sea-launched cruise missile that's got a kind of short range range. You know, they say it's sort of 500 kilometers for themselves, which, you know, it just happens to be the treaty limit.

And the ones they sell, they say are 300 kilometers, which just happens to be the missile technology control regime limit, right? The limit imposed by the voluntary guidelines.

Aaron 8:26

It's very convenient.

Jeffrey 8:27

Right. Just, you know, it's like, Hey, how far does that go? What's his legal limit? 300 kilometers goes 300 kilometers. But, There are longer range missiles that Novator makes and it's kind of all of the same, you know, the same family. And so there's something called the RK 55 and the, the missile that's under discussion, something called the R 500 is said to look a lot like the RK 55.

And although the Russians have always said it has a 500 kilometer range You don't have to do too much research before you quickly find Russian officials saying things like, but of course, if we left the INF Treaty, we could extend the range.

Aaron 9:16

Right, which certainly doesn't engender confidence.

Jeffrey 9:18

No, none at all. And so it seems like what has happened is they've started testing this much longer range cruise missile. And they've tested it several times. And now there are pictures of launchers for the thing. And so it may be heading out into the field. And so having spent a year playing nice with the Russians, it's time to let them have it in public.

Aaron 9:41

Yeah. And there's also a second concern that was coming out. So we have the cruise missile on one hand, and there's the The continued concerns, albeit they weren't named in the finding, at least overtly, at least I know of, about ballistic missiles.

Jeffrey 9:54

Right. So in my April piece, I pointed out that there is a second missile system, not a cruise missile, but a ballistic missile called the RS-26. And this is, as far as I can tell, a two-stage version of an ICBM. So basically the ICBM is three stages, and they just took off the third stage and they put a bunch of warheads on it.

And what the Russians have done, which is quite clever, is that they put one warhead on it and they tested it to an ICBM's range. And then they said, okay, this is an ICBM and it counts under the New START Treaty, and so it's controlled that way. And then they turned around and put several warheads on it so that it had less than an ICBM range and started testing it at a reduced range.

So they basically have... Created an intermediate range ballistic missile, but they've exploited these treaty provisions to argue that it's really an ICBM. And so there is actually, thanks to a colleague of mine, who I'm pretty sure would prefer I didn't name him, I tracked down the original debate. And this was actually an argument in the 1980s when the treaty was ratified.

The person who negotiated the treaty said, hey, could you do something like this? Could you test something to an ICBM range and then put a bunch of warheads on it and then have an IRBM? And the guy who negotiated the treaty said yes.

Aaron 11:30

Was this on the American or the Russian side?

Jeffrey 11:32

The American side said yes, but I don't think it's a problem because we're going to have these strategic treaties and so it doesn't matter. And then the legal advisor for the state department said no. And the place that the hearing leaves it at leaves it is the Senate saying like, well, we'll have to follow up on this.

They may have, or they may have not. But the point is it's kind of a, a legally ambiguous issue. Area. Politically, it's a real problem, but legally, the Russians may have an argument.

Aaron 12:01

Well, maybe we give them credit where credit is due. They found a loophole that maybe a lot of us had forgotten about to develop a system that they're interested in doing so.

Jeffrey 12:12

Well, and I think that's why the State Department chose to focus on the ground-launched cruise missile. It's a clearer violation of Even if the RS-26 is a bigger political problem, and I think it probably is, it's better, I think, to start with the system that is the more egregious violation in which the aggression is the legal argument.

Aaron 12:42

I'm always baffled by this. You said it's perhaps a bigger political problem. Problem, the ballistic missile vicious, the cruise missile. Maybe I'm just new school. I find cruise missiles to be much more worrying than ballistic missiles. And I follow the Dennis Gormley argument that we don't pay enough attention to them. So why would you say that? Why do you think that the ballistic missile would cause more problems for the U.S. than, say, a ground-launched cruise missile?

Jeffrey 13:10

Well, the first thing I should start with saying, I'm also a B-dentist.

Aaron 13:13

Yes, I know.

Jeffrey 13:14

We need a whole podcast on how terrible cruise missile proliferation is going to be. Right.

Aaron 13:19

No, because I think you're spot on. Obviously, I think you're right that the ballistic missile has posed more problems over the time, but I don't know why. I really don't get it.

Jeffrey 13:30

So, I mean, my theory on this is that you can put multiple warheads on a ballistic missile.

Aaron 13:41

Right.

Jeffrey 13:43

It's going to have more range than the cruise missile. You know, they say, you know, I think the outside range of the cruise missile is probably 3,000 kilometers, whereas you probably get 4,000 or maybe more out of a ballistic missile. So the Russians kind of have more places further back that they could put the RS-26 and more warheads on it.

And so, you know, if you imagine, and this is what I think the fundamental problem is that the The Russians want a capability to threaten Western European capitals from Russia. And having that capability, I think they believe, or at least we have to worry about, maybe will make the Dutch and the Belgians and the Spanish and the Germans, the Italians, less willing to come to the aid of, say, the Latvians, if suddenly they have a bunch of motorcycle gangs showing up.

Again, for R2P. For R2P, right? To protect the poor Russian speakers who could move back to Russia but definitely don't want to. So maybe I'm too flip when I say the RS-26 is the bigger problem. Oh, the other thing I should say is I think the cruise missile is probably conventionally armed. Right. So it's a serious violation in the sense that the treaty bans missiles of that range, whether they are armed with conventional weapons or nuclear weapons.

But I think it's probably conventionally armed.

Aaron 15:14

Although, you know, we'll see.

Jeffrey 15:18

But certainly the RS-26 is definitely armed with nuclear weapons.

Aaron 15:22

I mean, so let's assume that the RS-26 will be the bigger political issue. Why do we then think that the State Department chose to include the glickum as the outright problem versus the RS-26, which maybe is also a problem?

Jeffrey 15:38

I think because the argument that the glickum is a violation is simply a cleaner, more straightforward argument to make. The terms of the treaty are very clear. It is an egregious violation, and it's very hard for them to argue that this cruise missile is, you know, if it were like 510 kilometers, I think the Russians would be really effective at muddying the waters.

But if it turns out that it's 2,000 or 3,000 kilometers, it's just a... There's no alternative math that can solve that problem for the Russians. So I think it's a cleaner, clearer argument that the Russians don't take these treaties seriously, which is an important point. Because remember, their whole argument that they should be allowed to muck around in Ukraine...

Is that... this isn't them being bullies. This is, you know, some historical interest they have, and they kind of... their hopes are that, you know, like the Germans will sort of like be like, oh, okay And part of that is them holding up this idea of being law-abiding. I think the RS-26 is such an ambiguous issue because they did exploit this new pole.

They did test it to an ICBM range. People can say, like, well, there are new start limits, and they can only have so many warheads. It's a problem. It's still counted. So I think the strategic decision to focus on the Glicken was the right one, although, you know,

Aaron 17:06

Yeah, well, you know.

Jeffrey 17:07

Wouldn't it hurt to say we had serious compliance concerns about the RS-26?

Aaron 17:11

Yeah, I mean, I tend to agree with you there. I mean, I think you should also note that they say a lot, I mean, in open source reporting, that they're uncomfortable with the INF. Oh, yeah. You know, so I mean, I think this adds to that. And I think, A, if we take that, let's take the compliance report, the fact that, let's take that as a given.

Let's take the fact that they expressed discomfort with the INF on top of it. And then let's take the fact that we think that they may have developed two different systems that are – or one that's a blatant violation of one is ambiguous, let's say. What are we supposed to do about it? What are the political next steps that the United States can take?

To either pressure the Russians to comply with the treaty obligations, do we try and live with this? Or do we simply try to force them in the corner to where they either have to choose between withdrawing from the treaty or re-upping into it? Understand what I'm saying there? What should we do?

Jeffrey 18:11

I think, so it is not often that Steve Rademacher and I agree about anything. And Steve Rademacher was a Bush administration official who dealt a lot with arms control issues. And we just ideologically are inclined to disagree. And even when we do agree, it's rare that we agree about why. But his analysis, I think, is more or less correct in this case.

And that's the Russians do want out of the treaty. They actually mentioned the issue to Rumsfeld, who's reported to say, like, yeah, I don't care. But... I know, right? Profiles in courage.

Aaron 18:55

That's the devil's advocate argument to this. You know what I mean? That era of the United States that led to the abrogation of another missile treaty.

Jeffrey 19:03

Right, right. But in fact, the Russians don't want to pay the political cost of leaving the treaty. They would love to have intermediate-range nuclear forces But for this whole thing I mentioned about the Germans, they don't want to be seen as the people who are... Pulling out of treaties and rapidly arming themselves, right? Because that's not their story.

Their story isn't, oh, we need these weapons to bully our neighbors. Their story is, oh, evil NATO is pushing us around. And so if they're the ones pulling out of treaties, that's a harder story to tell. So the first thing I would say is it makes no sense to pull out of the treaty because that's what the Russians want, right?

What we have to do is give them Don't give them. We have to make them choose between having the intermediate range nuclear forces or paying the cost of being seen as the ones who killed the treaty. And so actually, although, you know, there's this sense of issuing a compliance report is just kind of like sending a sternly worded letter.

The Russians hate this being a public issue. I mean, they really are upset about this. Ivo Dalder used to be the U S ambassador to NATO in front of him. It's a really nice guy. Was at the Munich security conference and raised this issue as a private citizen with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. And Lavrov, he was really angry.

And his response was, that's not a conversation that the two countries should be having in public. Which of course makes me think like, no. This is absolutely the conversation I want to have in public. So step one, and I argued this in the piece, and I think the State Department is totally right to do it, is make a public issue of it.

We've done that. And then now there's this question about what we do next.

Aaron 21:00

Yeah. I mean, I tend to agree with you that the way to do it is to ensure that they have to pay the political costs for leaving the treaty. I mean, one of the things that I think is lost, though, is, I mean, I guess not lost, is A, I think we need to unpack why it is that they would actually want an intermediate-range missile, nuclear forces.

And B, I think we need to go there. I mean, I think we need to talk about the fact that could they use the U.S. abrogation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty as – Justification for pulling out of this down the road. I mean, I'm not trying to blame this on anybody. I'm just trying to put myself in their mindset to figure out why exactly this is what they want this so that we can try and come up with a better policy solution than naming and shaming.

Jeffrey 21:55

Okay, well, we can do that. And then I actually have a list of proposals that the president's political opponents have released, which are actually not so bad. I don't agree with all of them, but we can talk about those. But in terms of why I think it's a problem, and that's probably the place to start is, I think these two systems are a political problem and they're not a military problem yet.

And what I mean by that, the reason I think they are a political problem, is I think the Russians are building dedicated systems to threaten Western Europe.

Aaron 22:37

Again.

Jeffrey 22:38

Again, because I think they want to put pressure on Western European governments to be accommodating to Russian interests. And so I think the Russians would love to get back to an era In which there are hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in Western Europe that the United States and NATO are going to get us all killed if we aren't more sensitive to the Russian needs to muck around in politics of their neighbors.

And so for me, the big issue is making sure that NATO... Keeps cohesive that NATO doesn't, you know, that basically the Dutch don't say, well, we really care about our NATO ally in Latvia, but you know, we don't want to get nuked for that, right? We don't, we don't. I, I guess I, I often point out, right? NATO is bigger than And richer and more powerful than Russia, but that's only collectively, right?

So, like, NATO has to stay together. So, from my perspective, whatever responses that we envision have to deal with what is essentially a political threat from these missiles, which is that they're intended to make Western European capitals Reluctant to follow through on their commitment to their allies in the east.

Aaron 24:07

I think that's a pretty salient point. I think even though this compliance report just coincided with Ukraine, I think there's a lot of parallels there to the thinking that you were talking about. What's So what do you think we should do? I mean, you said you had a list of four policy proposals that were put out by the president's opponents.

Right.

Jeffrey 24:29

Well, they're not bad. I mean, I don't agree with them all, but let's talk about them. I think I could agree with each of them, but in modified form.

Aaron 24:39

Okay.

Jeffrey 24:40

Okay, so policy idea one, require the administration to acknowledge that Russia is violating the INF Treaty through its illegal tests of both a new intermediate-range cruise missile and a new intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Aaron 24:52

They've done one of the above thus far.

Jeffrey 24:54

They have stated that the Glickham is a violation. They have been silent about the RS-26. I would not be silent about the RS-26, so I agree that they should say something about But I'm not sure I would say it's a violation. I think I would say we have serious concerns that it may be a violation. And that even if it's not a violation, we have serious concerns about it.

And we're not sure that we should deal with this in a new start context. In other words, the law may actually be on the Russian side in this case. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a crappy thing for them to do.

Aaron 25:38

Right. So you sort of violated in spirit, even if you found the correct loophole, it's still a violation in spirit. You shouldn't have done so.

Jeffrey 25:47

Right. I mean, you know, you can certainly imagine signing a contract with someone. And if they take advantage of a loophole that you didn't realize was in there, you're going to be reluctant to sign another contract, right? So if our goal is to settle our differences with negotiations and diplomacy, which I think should be our goal, hopefully the Russians' goal, then, you know, they can't go around exploiting every loophole.

You know, like that's not cool.

Aaron 26:20

Yeah.

Jeffrey 26:21

So I guess that's, I don't know. I would say the Glickham's a violation. I'd say we have serious concerns about the RS-26. Okay, the second one. You're going to like this one because this gets down to Turkey a little bit. Well, only vague. Require that the Aegis Ashore sites we are deploying in Europe be able to defend against these new Russian missiles.

Just as our sea-based Aegis systems can. So what this says is that the U.S. missile defenses that are going into Poland should be able to shoot down Russian intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles fired at Western Europe.

Aaron 27:06

That'll go over like a ton of bricks in Moscow, particularly...

Jeffrey 27:12

Although that's no longer a bug that's a feature, right?

Aaron 27:16

Yeah. With proposal to that one, we've gotten ourselves into a bit of problems with the EPAA and ballistic missile defense in Europe because we so stridently said that it was not against Russia and that this was for Iran, that the prospect of an Iranian nuclear deal Now raises the question about whether their missiles pose a threat to Europe in the future and what exactly it is we're doing with the missile defense system.

Jeffrey 27:44

Yes, I think our rhetoric on these issues has been suboptimal. Go ahead, by the way.

Aaron 27:49

By the way, I support NATO missile defense. I'm not against it. I just think the rollout's been a little problematic because, let's be honest, the original plans for all these missile defense systems were built around Russian missiles. So maybe we just go back to the future on that one, too. Is that the policy proposal?

Jeffrey 28:07

And it's also not clear to me that an Aegis ashore site in Poland would provide defense against either missile. Particularly a cruise missile. Certainly, yeah. The cruise missile is a real question. And even the... So my modification of this would be NATO should certainly do a study to figure out what the appropriate missile defenses are.

Aaron 28:38

Is that a Blue Ribbon Commission?

Jeffrey 28:40

No, I think you could do like a real study. I mean, somebody wants to feed General Welch lunch. That's fine. But yeah, I think I would certainly say to the Russians that if they're going to deploy Prohibited intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles, we are going to deploy defenses against them. And I wouldn't be very sympathetic to Russian complaints if I had to put some of those in former Warsaw Pact countries.

In fact, I would have no sympathy for the Russians in that case.

Aaron 29:12

No, in particular, if you're looking at ways to reassure outside of nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey 29:16

Right. But I think this is too specific.

Aaron 29:18

I agree.

Jeffrey 29:19

It's you should do X. And it's like, I might do X. I'm not against doing X, but I'd actually like to do a study to figure out what the optimal thing to do.

Aaron 29:27

Yeah, I think that proposal has a lot of political baggage behind it. But I think that's for another podcast.

Jeffrey 29:33

Indeed. Okay, the third one. Begin research and development, which is allowed under the INF Treaty, of our own intermediate range capabilities, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff state we need in our defense, especially against China and its hundreds of such missiles. What do you think?

Aaron 29:52

I think we chose to eliminate these systems for a specific reason, and that in a way, if you want to risk... Alliance cohesion that you were talking about with Option One, the prospect of a new American medium range system with the potential to be deployed in Europe, is that the part of the proposal or not? could cause problems with the allies? Well, if it's intermediate range, I can't fire it from the United States, right? So I think this is a bad idea. Yeah, so I, I have a modified version of this proposal. All right, and, and so I think it's half a bad idea. Okay

Jeffrey 30:34

I think it is, first of all, it is a terrible idea to broaden this out against China.

Aaron 30:38

Yeah, China does need to be involved.

Jeffrey 30:40

Because if you're going to put pressure on the Russians to comply or we will do X, it is a terrible idea to say comply or we are going to do X, which we would like to do anyway.

Aaron 30:57

Because we're afraid of China.

Jeffrey 30:58

Right, because it does raise the question, like, well, wait a minute, if you guys build these things and then we comply and come back into the treaty, are you just going to turn around and say we need them for China? And I think the clear reading of three is yes.

Aaron 31:10

Yeah, I agree.

Jeffrey 31:12

So they may be useful against the Chinese. I'm not denying that, although I don't know where we put them. I'm not sure that. But the other thing is, Why not say they're only conventional? Why not say we will do a study of intermediate range missiles, but only of conventional ones? I mean, don't we already have that capability with air launch cruise missiles?

Aaron 31:45

Yes. I mean, in a way, are we just replicating a capability we already have to go tit for tat with the Russians?

Jeffrey 31:56

Well, there are some advantages to being able to put things in the ground. And actually, what I imagine is if you had intermediate range, we're doing all this research on hyperglide systems. So I think what I would say, how I would modify it, is I would say something like, we have a whole range of conventional strike programs under development.

And we have... Artificially constrained those research and development programs out of deference to the INF treaty. We're not prohibited from doing that research, but we haven't done it because, you know, unlike the other party to the treaty, we actually care quite a bit about its viability. So I think I would say, hey, you know, as long as you guys are deploying 3,000 kilometer range conventionally armed ground launch cruise missiles, We're certainly going to look at the same thing in our own options.

And it may be that it turns out that we don't need them.

Aaron 32:57

Right.

Jeffrey 32:58

Okay. Right. But I would definitely raise the prospect, which I think would terrify Moscow. I mean, I think the idea of, you know, even conventionally armed intermediate range systems in Europe would terrify the Russians. Now, I also agree with you that it would be really, really politically difficult to put those in.

Aaron 33:21

Yeah.

Jeffrey 33:22

And so you could never do nuclear weapons, which is the other reason I would rule out nuclear weapons is just for the political piece. Just to make it much easier to deal with the allies. Right. I think if you raise the issue of putting new intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe, you're actually doing exactly. Yeah. That's exactly what Putin wants.

Putin wants us to have that big messy fight among ourselves and to distract from the fact that they violated the treaty.

Aaron 33:47

Yeah.

Jeffrey 33:48

Yeah. I would do the R&D but conventional only and be willing to take yes for an answer if the Russians come to their senses.

Aaron 33:56

What's the fourth one?

Jeffrey 33:57

Impose sanctions against Russia until it comes back into compliance with the INF Treaty.

Aaron 34:03

We've gathered on the Russian sanctions bandwagon.

Jeffrey 34:07

Well, yeah. This is my concern. Is I think sanctions are valuable in pressuring the Russians on their seizure of Crimea and their destabilization of Ukraine. So I don't think I want to use them on this issue. So I have a counter proposal.

Aaron 34:27

Yeah, and we have that same issue pop up about problems with our allies across the pond.

Jeffrey 34:36

Correct. So you know what I would do?

Aaron 34:38

Hmm.

Jeffrey 34:39

I would initiate a review, both of our own national export controls, but also of the multilateral regimes, like the missile technology control regime.

Aaron 34:52

Which needs an update.

Jeffrey 34:54

Does need an update to encompass penetration aids.

Aaron 34:59

Ah, so we go to the RAND study.

Jeffrey 35:01

Right, right. So basically saying to the Russians, hey, you know, If you're putting us in this position, we're going to have to defend against these things. Then, you know, in a non-adversarial way, we're just going to have to tighten up the export control procedures.

Aaron 35:23

Maybe the Russians would be fine with that.

Jeffrey 35:25

But I wonder. I wonder. It's certainly going to make the Chinese annoyed. Sanctions are one thing, but I definitely think that we should take a serious look at making sure that the technologies that are associated with beating the defenses that we're going to have to deploy aren't getting out. And that might be a pain in the butt for the Russians when it comes to things like space cooperation.

Aaron 35:53

Yeah, I mean, I think what we're driving at here is that ideally the naming and shaming will get them to perhaps address this issue in a way where we wouldn't have to go there. Because actually the four options that were put forward, even with the modifications, have problems with them. And that we do want to cooperate with the Russians on a lot of other stuff.

That perhaps something like sanctions or further isolation... Particularly in the field of arms control, I should say, could hurt this in the future. So it's not easy. This is a complicated decision and the policy options are difficult. But I think we both agree that the steps that have been taken thus far are good ones. I mean, I think the naming of the compliance report is a good one.

Maybe, I think you The problems with the RS-26 aside and not calling out for what it is. But I don't think the administration has settled on a strategy yet. What do you think? And then maybe we'll wrap up right there.

Jeffrey 37:00

Yeah, I don't know that they have. If you read the New York Times report, and boy, somebody gave Michael Gordon quite a story. The argument was that the system is not yet deployed, the glickum.

Aaron 37:11

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 37:12

And the hope is that having not gotten anywhere in private conversations, that public conversations will then create enough pressure for the Russians to forego deployment.

Aaron 37:26

We're relying on Lavrov fuming, perhaps spilling over into policy decisions.

Jeffrey 37:32

Right. So having tested the system is a violation. And there's no untesting it. And so the Russians will have a latent tested capability. But there is, I think, some thought that in an ideal world, the Russians would agree to some measures that would result in the verifiable destruction of the prohibited missiles. I got to say, though, I'm not holding my breath.

Aaron 38:06

Me neither. Just as long as they don't show up in the People's Republic of Donetsk, I think I'll be happy. Otherwise, we could have some problems.

Jeffrey 38:15

Right. So I actually think a much more likely outcome is that this is one more thing that makes the Russians look bad and makes the Russians look like the problem. And my hope is that at some point, whether that's under Mr. Putin or under Mr. Putin's successor, there comes a point when the accumulated pressure of bad behavior leads to a broader foreign policy change.

And maybe in that context, down the road, we can get back to a point where there are no intermediate range ballistic or cruise missiles. But I'm not hopeful. How long did it take us to get rid of Krasnoyarsk? The radar? Do you know about the radar?

Aaron 39:02

I don't know about the radar. How long?

Jeffrey 39:05

No, I'm not saying do you know how long. I'm actually trying to remember. So the Russians built a radar in Krasnoyarsk that was in violation of the ABM Treaty. And we really complained about it for a very long time. And the Russians had a semi-innocent explanation, which basically is like complying with treaty was expensive and this was a cheaper way to to build radars.

But it was totally a violation and I think it took many years. Many, many years to get the Russians to finally agree that it was a violation and to take it down. I mean, I think maybe like five or six years.

Aaron 39:55

But they agreed, which leaves us on a positive note. So we don't have to end with doom and gloom. Eventually, we got them to get where they wanted to go. So perhaps we could see a replication of this with the INF. But don't hold your breath.

Jeffrey 40:11

You're right. For the record, what happened was, you know, And Dropoff drops dead, and after a short interregnum, we get Gorby. So, you know. Okay. Encourage Mr. Putin to take up smoking.

Aaron 40:23

Well, you know, he seems to be a pretty fit guy, but you know.

Jeffrey 40:27

Yeah, unfortunately, this may take a little longer.

Aaron 40:30

But it's a peaceful resolution to this. So I'm going to count this as a positive note to end this podcast, so we don't exactly have to end on doom and gloom.

Jeffrey 40:38

I'm with you.

Aaron 40:39

All right. So thanks, everybody, for listening, and thanks for talking, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 40:44

My pleasure.