ven before Russia intervened in Ukraine, European arms control was in trouble. Russia and the West were accusing one another of violating the letter and the spirit of existing agreements. Moscow complained about NATO’s ballistic missile defenses (BMD), conventional military deployments in former Soviet bloc states, and other measures Russians described as threatening. NATO governments hoped for, though probably never expected, Moscow’s cooperation in building joint missile defenses and reducing Russia’s large inventory of tactical nuclear weapons, and thought, too optimistically, that they could assuage Moscow’s irritation at having lost its superpower status.
Read Full Article »
