The termination of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III) will allow the United States to uncontrollably build up its combat capabilities and put the world on the brink of nuclear disaster.
Major General Andrei Sterlin, head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and Alexander Khryapin, a leading researcher at the Center for Military-Strategic Studies of the Military Academy of the General Staff, wrote about this in an article for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
The military noted that with the termination of START-3, which expires in February 2021, the situation in the world will become more complicated. However, the United States has not expressed a decision to extend the agreement.
“We emphasize that this is an extremely dangerous path, because the world will again, as in the second half of the 20th century, balance on the brink of a global nuclear catastrophe,” the article of August 6 says.
Khryapin and Sterlin noted that the fate of such agreements as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) are also under threat.
According to representatives of the General Staff, over the past 20 years, the United States has taken steps to destroy the system of treaties in the field of security in order to implement the concept of “Rapid Global Strike”, but with the use of nuclear weapons.
In addition, if new treaties are ruptured, Washington may try to drag the Russian Federation into a new arms race.
On July 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also stated that the risks of a nuclear confrontation have seriously increased recently. Moscow has previously noted more than once that there can be no winners in a nuclear collision.
However, in February 2018, the United States adopted a new doctrine, according to which it reserves the right to a preemptive nuclear strike. In addition, Washington completed the modernization of the country’s nuclear forces and began developing new low-yield missiles.