more of Clinton's legacy that we as a country will pay dearly for.
Billy you be the man! Jan. 20th can't come soon enough....
January 3, 2001
Russia transfers nuclear arms
to Baltics
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russia is moving tactical nuclear weapons into a military
base in Eastern Europe for the first time since the Cold War
ended in an apparent effort to step up military pressure on the
expanded NATO alliance, The Washington Times has
learned.
The transfers of battlefield
nuclear weapons to the Russian
enclave of Kaliningrad followed
threats several years ago to
position such weapons outside of
Russia's territory in response to
expansion of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO).
Kaliningrad is a Baltic Sea port
located between Poland and
Lithuania, and a major military
base for Russian ground and naval
forces, including the headquarters
of the Baltic Fleet.
The movement of the new battlefield nuclear arms was
detected in June and is a sign Moscow is following through
on threats to respond to NATO expansion with the forward
deployment of nuclear weapons, according to U.S.
intelligence officials familiar with reports of the activity.
The precise type of new tactical weapons could not be
learned. Some defense officials said they are probably for use
on a new short-range missile known as the Toka. A Toka
was test-fired on April 18 in Kaliningrad. It has a range of
about 44 miles.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declined to
comment on intelligence reports of the movement of tactical
nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad.
However, Mr. Bacon said in an interview: "If the Russians
have placed tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, it would
violate their pledge that they were removing nuclear weapons
from the Baltics, and that the Baltics should be nuclear-free."
Russia and the United States announced in 1991 and
1992 a non-binding agreement to reduce arsenals of tactical
nuclear weapons.
In 1991, President George Bush ordered the military to
unilaterally cut U.S. arsenals of tactical nuclear arms.
Weapons were removed from ships and from many overseas
bases.
The Soviet and Russian governments announced in 1991
and 1992, respectively, that all tactical nuclear weapons were
removed from Eastern Europe to more secure areas in
Russia. It was not clear whether that included nuclear
weapons based in Kaliningrad.
Some U.S. tactical nuclear arms remain in Europe and
Moscow has continued to demand their withdrawal in arms
talks with U.S. officials.
Moscow also has refused to discuss the status and
deployment of its tactical nuclear weapons with the United
States, despite the Clinton administration's provision of
millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Russia to help eliminate its
nuclear arms or protect them against theft, according to
defense officials.
Clinton administration arms-control officials suggested the
tactical nuclear arms in Kaliningrad may be part of an attempt
by Moscow to test the incoming administration of
President-elect George W. Bush.
Cuts in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear arsenals are
supposed to be discussed in new U.S.-Russian negotiations
on a START III arms treaty.
The forward deployment of new tactical nuclear arms is
viewed by many defense officials as a worrisome sign
Moscow is beefing up defenses against NATO.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted
to NATO in 1999, angering Moscow, which fears
encroachment by what it views as a Cold War alliance
against the Soviet Union.
There also has been talk of some or all of the Baltic states
— Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — joining the alliance.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said during a visit to
Lithuania in June that it is "possible" the Vilnius government
could join the alliance in the future. "We have indicted that the
door to NATO remains open," Mr. Cohen said at the time.
In June 1998, Russian military officials stated that if the
Baltic States joined NATO Moscow would base tactical
nuclear arms in Kaliningrad.
Russia already has deployed its most advanced
air-defense missiles, the S-300, in Kaliningrad, a sign that it
plans to protect the enclave from attack.
Defense officials said Russian military exercises in the
summer and fall of 1999 called Zapad-99 or "West-99"
simulated a NATO attack against Kaliningrad. During the
maneuvers, Russia's forces resorted to use of nuclear strikes
and carried out air-launched cruise missiles against targets in
Europe and the United States.
One official said the intelligence information about the new
tactical nuclear arms was discovered in June but withheld
from most policy-makers until last month, when it was first
reported in the Military Intelligence Daily, the Defense
Intelligence Agency's main intelligence report.
An intelligence official, however, said Kaliningrad nuclear
reporting was not suppressed.
The Kaliningrad nuclear arms are part of an estimated
4,000 to 15,000 low-yield nuclear weapons in Russia's
stockpile. They include artillery shells, short-range missile
warheads, nuclear air-defense and ballistic missile defense
interceptors, nuclear torpedoes and sea-launched cruise
missiles, and nuclear weapons for shorter-range aircraft.
Russian military officials in the past have denied any
nuclear arms are stored at the military facilities in Kaliningrad,
although U.S. intelligence agencies suspected some nuclear
arms, particularly naval weapons, are still there.
The sharp decline in Russia's military forces since the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has increased
Moscow's reliance on tactical nuclear weapons.
Defense analysts said the Russian military views these
tactical weapons as war-fighting arms, in contrast to its
strategic nuclear weapons that serve primarily as deterrent
forces.
Russia's government announced in 1999, following
NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia, that nuclear forces would
remain the key element of military power.
At the time, Vladimir Putin, who later became President
Boris Yeltsin's successor, announced that Mr. Yeltsin had
signed three decrees outlining the development of Russia's
nuclear weapons complex, including a new concept for
developing and using nonstrategic nuclear weapons. |
