The Washington Times: Amid the widening U.S.-Russian spat over Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a strongly-worded statement accusing the Pentagon of nurturing an aggressive nuclear strategy threatening Russia.
The ministry cast a recent speech by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter as a veiled threat to back a hypothetical attack on Russia by its allies in Europe with U.S. nuclear weapons. The angry statement reflects a growing degree of mistrust and tensions between Moscow and Washington after the collapse of a U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal in Syria.
On Monday, Carter accused Russia of “nuclear saber-rattling” and argued that even though the Cold War is long over, nuclear weapons are still needed to deter Russia and other potential aggressors from thinking they could get away with a nuclear attack.
“Across the Atlantic, we’re refreshing NATO’s nuclear playbook – to better integrate conventional and nuclear deterrence, to ensure we plan and train like we’d fight, and to deter Russia from thinking it can benefit from nuclear use in a conflict with NATO,” Carter said. He emphasized that “obviously, we do not seek such a conflict to begin with, rather, we seek to prevent one.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry, however, interpreted Carter’s statement as a declared intention to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons.
“Carter’s statement means that if Russia comes under attack from U.S. allies, the Americans will be ready to back it and threaten to use their nuclear weapons against us,” it said in a statement. “We would like to think that Washington understands the meaning of such statements and their possible consequences for international security and stability.”
