Ukraine, the INF Treaty and JFK
Submitted by Renee Parsons
As the Ukraine war lurches closer to WW III, President Donald Trump promised to end the Ukraine war upon his inauguration. However, now with an Alaskan summit in the wings, the President continues to confuse himself as a ‘peace president’ without achieving peace in Ukraine, with no criticism on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, unwarranted attacks on the Houthis and still defines Iran as an adversary.
Although Trump’s August 6th Executive Order bewildering entitled “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of the Russian Federation” has not impeded his proposal to host a meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin. The EO cites “actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Trump’s policy of Government by Executive Order has assumed its predominant role displacing the once historic if tainted Congressional legislative action, this Order focuses on the “importation into the United States of certain products of Russian Federation origin, including crude oil; petroleum; and petroleum fuels, oils, and products of their distillation” while specifying it “necessary and appropriate to impose an additional ad valorem duty on imports of articles of India, which is directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil.”
There was no explanation on how the import of Russian oil to India threatens US national security and foreign policy. Trump’s position that any country buying Russian oil will be tariffed with secondary sanctions includes China which is busily unloading its billions of dollars worth of American investments.
Despite the EO distraction, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would meet with Russian President Vladmir Putin on August 15th in Alaska. In his win the Nobel Peace Prize fervor, the “peace president” lost sight of his promise to end the Ukraine conflict.
In lieu of an agreement with Trump demanding a Russian ceasefire or risk new secondary sanctions, Trump chose an Alaskan off ramp for Ukraine.
While there appeared to be no specific agenda or identified preconditions, Putin’s interest lies in improving bilateral relations with a restart of the Start Agreement as well as “strategic co-operation,” yet presumably discussion of the Ukraine war will be front and center.
With personal motivation as a driving force, Trump has belatedly realized that in order to win a Peace Prize, it would be helpful to do some peace-making rather than bomb Houthi and Iranian civilians.
Trump’s intention that “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” is indicative that there may be a brick wall awaiting the President who remains personally aloof from the Russian twelve point agenda for Ukraine which has been clear and unequivocal since the Special Military Operation began in February 2022.
No surprise that Russia will not support territorial concessions as the four oblasts are internationally Constitutional as well as Russian dominated by language and population. Russia’s control of the battlefield negates Ukraine on the peace agreement as not subject to its approval as there is nothing new in Putin’s proposals as they have been public since February 2022. In other words, the entire Donbas region will remain integral to Russia.
While Ukraine President Zelensky is not attending the meeting, the reality that Russia has prevailed in the Ukraine conflict, the Trump neo-cons continue to provide funding and weapons.
If the Alaska meeting occurs as scheduled, Trump has all the authority he needs to bring the war to an end as the self-absorbed Europeans vested interest in NATO’s expansion will collapse; no longer able to justify its existence.
Trump is consumed with an unwavering desire to be acknowledged by the Noble Peace Price despite his avoidance of the genocide in Gaza, Trump’s desire for brilliant news headlines boasts that he single-handedly brought an end to the war.
The meeting serves a historic commemoration that Alaska was sold to the United States for $7.2 million by Russia in 1867 as a strategic move by Catherine the Great protecting Russia’s borders and its sovereignty.
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As if all that were not enough to fret about, there is currently a sort-of revival of the INF Treaty which the Trump Administration withdrew from in 2019. At about that time, I wrote an essay entitled “American Presidents Renege on Agreement with Russia Opening its Border to NATO” which articulated exactly what the title described.
That article included a summary of how Trump’s then-foreign policy advisor John Bolton made an unscheduled trip to Moscow to inform Russian President Vladimir Putin that the US was withdrawing from the Treaty.
What was uncertain at the time was whether Bolton had made the trip to Moscow at Trump’s order with INF withdrawal on the agenda or whether he made the trip withdrawing from the INF on his own accord. That question remains although an educated guess is that even if Trump was aware of Bolton’s purpose in Moscow, Trump probably remained oblivious to the precise consequences of US withdrawal from the Treaty.
Here is a bit of that original article:
“The Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan in 1987 in Reykjavik, Iceland eliminating thousands of missiles that would potentially have carried nuclear warheads. To Gorbachev and Reagan’s credit, the INF abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons while allowing first-hand observers of missile destruction and on-site verification as part of Reagan’s ‘trust but verify’ motto.
By 2019, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending compliance with the Treaty and cited development of a prohibited missile by Russia while Putin countered that the US anti ballistic system in Europe which was within striking distance of Moscow could be used for offensive purposes. The Treaty ended a superpower build up in Europe as it banned ground launched missiles with a range of up to 3400 miles.
In October, 2018, US national security advisor John Bolton arrived for two days of talks with Russian officials who called the INF withdrawal as “dangerous” and “showing a lack of wisdom” as a “mistake.” Known to be belligerent to the Russians and arms control agreements, Bolton was also to meet with Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov and Secretary to the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin who was looking for ‘clarification’ on US intentions.
In response, Putin denied any violation of the INF and announced suspension of Russian involvement in the Cold-war era INF Treaty to pursue a new generation of hypersonic missiles.”
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What we know today is that the Russians, never a people to sit on their haunches meditating their next step, developed, in the absence of the INF, a hypersonic technology which led to the devastating Oreshink missile system authorized by the Russian government in November, 2024.
What we know today is that Scott Ritter was the first INF Inspector on the ground in Russia when the Treaty was implemented in 1988. Ritter says that the ‘dumbest thing in the world” was to get out of the INF as it was a ‘pure treaty’ because it benefitted both sides. Withdrawal of the INF encouraged Russia to take the hypersonic Oreshnik step. Ritter knows its capabilities and its potential horror, inside and out like no other American.
Described as a ‘game changer,” an intermediate range ballistic missile that travels at ten times the speed of sound, is impossible to intercept with an unpredictability to maneuver in the atmosphere, that easily bypasses all existing air defense systems and has the capacity to blanket all of Europe including its cathedrals at risk.
Recently the US relocated its B61-12 thermonuclear bombs to the UK for the first time in two decades. Designed for precision strikes as part of the US’s nuclear modernization program, the B61 can be wiped out by Oreshnik in fifteen minutes, according to Ritter. Being a dual capable system of conventional and nuclear gives Oreshnik an added military flexibility.
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There are still Americans who recall the immediate after-effects of the 911 attack on the Twin Towers as well as the collapse of Building Seven. In the immediacy of those first moments, there was a stunned confusion, a disorientation that changed the fabric of American society. There was an inability to absorb the immediacy of the event without fully understanding its meaning or its consequence.
And as the implications of future military conflicts are considered, 911 was a comparatively minor, ineffectual occurrence as compared to the detonation of a nuclear device in one American city.
The US government’s own obsolete priorities have no understanding of the profound destructive power in its collusion. Trump needs to read and study JFK’s mesmerizing speech at American University just before his death and remind the world of its message.
9-11 confirmed to many Americans in a perverse way that we are still the special ones in the world, where other nations are jealous of American liberty and its freedoms.
As the US clings to its false sense of supremacy, the painful truth is that there can be no escape, no human imagination can adequately predict the instant effects of vaporizing, its destructive capabilities too horrific beyond mortal experience.
There will be no escape from the immediate consequences of a nuclear war with evolving uncertainties undisclosed except that life will never be the same – as we once knew it.
Renee Parsons has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and a staff member in the US House of Representative in Washington, DC. Before its demise, she was also a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.