The Cold War ended more than 20 years ago, but now the world is facing a new kind of conflict, a war of rhetoric. As President Trump tweets daily to form US foreign policy, world leaders, investors, financial markets, and stock exchanges around the globe are continually in a panic.
On February 22, 2019, CGTN reported Putin stating that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban missile-style crisis if the US wanted one. He then threatened to place hypersonic nuclear missiles on ships or submarines near America’s territorial waters.
This is the latest response to Trump’s threat to leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Pact), which bans Russia and the US from stationing short-and-intermediate-range land-based missiles in Europe.
Putin's comments warned that Moscow will match any American move to deploy new missiles closer to Russia by stationing its own missiles closer to the US or by deploying faster missiles or both.
He also said, according to Reuters, that Russia could deploy hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines which could lurk outside US territorial waters if Washington moved to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe.
Putin specifically referred to naval delivery craft, submarines and surface ships when he stated Russia can put them, given the speed and range (of our missiles) ... in neutral waters, and because they are always moving, the US will have to work to find them, according to the Kremlin.
On January 23, 2019, Moscow demonstrated their Iskander-M guided missile system along with the 9M729 and the 9Ì728 missile systems, which can reach speeds of Mach nine and a range over 1,000 kilometres.
The US State Department dismissed Putin's warning as propaganda, saying it was designed to divert attention from what Washington alleges are Moscow's violations of the INF Treaty.
According to RT news, former congressman Ron Paul wants the US and Russia to bury the hatchet before their military posturing gets out of hand, while praising President Putin’s “reasonable” response to the US pull out from the INF Treaty.
“There’s no reason in the world why two countries like Russia and the United States can’t get along together,” Paul said, pointing to the two nations’ cooperation in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. “Why haven’t we taken real advantage of the elimination of the Cold War in 1989-1990?”
Paul was unhappy with both countries’ warlike posturing, saying he would like to see each country quiet down. He also blamed the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the INF Treaty for accelerating the conflict, suggesting that Putin has more legitimacy because he is merely responding to US and NATO aggression, while Trump may be using the treaty’s dissolution as an excuse to build more weapons.
Source(s): Reuters, CGTN, RT
