The president is preparing to withdraw the US from the pact that allows Americans and Russians to fly over their territories, to ensure that they are not preparing to launch attacks
FROM THE MAIL TO NEW YORK. President Trump is preparing to withdraw the US from another arms control treaty. This time it is the Open Skies Treaty, which allows Americans and Russians to fly over their territories, to ensure that they are not preparing to launch conventional or nuclear military attacks. The New York Times reveals it.
The treaty had been negotiated in 1992 by Republican President Bush Father, immediately after the end of the Cold War. The US accuses Russia of violating it, and would like to extend it to China, which instead refused to participate. The problem directly affects the European countries of NATO, which are part of Open Skies, because Moscow could react by blocking also their reconnaissance flights, indispensable for monitoring the movements of Russian troops along the eastern borders of the Alliance.
Trump already retired last year from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. All this seems to announce the will to exit also from the New START, that is the treaty that limits the nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia to 1,550, and expires at the beginning of next year. This would lead to the demolition of the entire arms control plant created during and after the Cold War, paving the way for a possible new arms race, targeted not only against Moscow, but now also against Beijing.
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