Valdai Club

The new US defense strategy logically shifts the focus to confronting military powers, primarily China and Russia, but also, though to a lesser degree, North Korea and Iran. Terrorist groups and organized crime are considered a secondary threat.

Problems of the INF Treaty compliance on both sides could be resolved within the Special Verification Commission on the INF Treaty, writes Valdai Club expert Vladimir Batyuk. Moscow’s position remains unchanged: Russia is for maintaining this most important disarmament agreement.

It is obvious that the Trump administration is now at a dead end on the Korean issue. Militant statements and even a demonstration of strength (such as putting on an alert of the US Louisiana-based strategic aviation) cannot continue indefinitely. Sooner or later the question will arise - and what then? Kim Jong-un will not make concessions under the American pressure - he has nowhere to retreat. Then President Trump will have to move from words to deeds (that is, to a large-scale military and, possibly, even a nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula) - or to step back himself.

The INF Treaty is in Russia's national interests, its denunciation will have extremely negative consequences for the Russian-American relations and for the situation in the world. At the same time, Russia still has the ability to develop and produce intermediate-range and medium-range missile systems.

The American establishment views Russia as a former great power in permanent decline, pretending that it is still a great power on the back of Putin’s nationalist mobilization effort. Many in Washington strongly believe that by being tougher on Russia (compared to Obama’s “weakness”) they can bring about the infamous regime change in Russia and thereby resolve the “Russian issue.”

NATO simply does not have enough forces and facilities. The leader of the alliance - the United States – has too many military and political commitments in the various regions of the world and too little "bootsontheground". The Russian response to the NATO deployment in Eastern Europe with four infantry battalions on a rotating basis looks like an overreaction.

The United States is currently deploying a European anti-missile defense system, in line with the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPPA), which focuses not on ICBM interceptor technology, but on destroying intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The EPPA provides for deploying the European missile defense system in four stages.