Nuclear disarmament, not US policy: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Marsha Freeman, from the Executive Intelligence Review in Leesburg, about the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute saying in its annual report that the United States and Russia have “extensive and expensive long-term modernization programs.”

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Talk to us about the recent findings by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute?

Freeman: Well I am sure that their numbers are correct and their analysis it seems to me would hold true that overall over the last number of years mainly because of Russian-US agreements there has been reduction in many of the nuclear arms categories but I think it is very important that they point out that both in Russia and in the US and in other countries as well there is a modernization program under way for nuclear arms which is very worrying.

I think in order to understand why it is happening you really have to step back and look at the strategic situation and there are two examples of why countries would be doing this. The United States announced the policy actually many years ago for a global strike force. This was under the Bush administration, it was not carried through at that time but it's being pursued again now by the Obama administration and this is a very disturbing kind of program which is to use ICBMs and to develop hypersonic vehicles supposedly to carry conventional weapons but as been pointed out by a number of people in the US and in Russia, really you would have no way when one of these things coming towards you of knowing whether it was a conventional or nuclear weapon. So this is a very dangerous, very destabilizing program that is under way now.

In addition to that, certainly what the Russians have to look at and I think what has prompted their modernization program is largely the ballistic missile defense effort that this administration is being involved in. You have countries within minutes of striking distance of Russian territory in Poland, in Romania, who are being outfitted with these kinds of so-called missile defense systems and this is a strategic threat to Russia and they are reacting as one would expect. So I think that is really the most disturbing part of what is going on now and the report indicates it but does not spell it out.   

Press TV: Having in hindsight all these pledges of nuclear disarmament, for example focusing on the New START Treaty and other pledges of reducing nuclear stockpiles worldwide, either these remarks are meaningless or it is moving at a much, much slower pace than anticipated?

Freeman: I do not think that you can really have a serious and honest view that you are going to move towards disarmament and getting rid of nuclear weapons when you have a military doctrine and you have a geopolitical strategy which is based on weakening Russia, encircling China. You know you now have an effort by the United States to try to really bully South Korea and convince Japan that they should join a US missile defense effort in Asia. This is not targeted at North Korea. This is targeted at China.

So if you are expanding NATO and you are surrounding Russian territory and that is your geopolitical and military doctrine, it does not fit into that picture to say that nuclear arms reduction is going to lead to disarmament and that is not the policy.  

AHK/KA

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