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US Defense Secretary: Russia is nuclear saber-rattling
by Joseph Earnest May 3, 2016
Newscast Media WASHINGTON—US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has criticized Russia for what he described as "nuclear saber-rattling" and pledged to continue a robust military buildup on NATO's eastern flank to deter the Russian "aggression."
“Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling raises troubling questions about Russia’s leaders’ commitment to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and whether they respect the profound caution that nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to brandishing nuclear weapons,” he said Tuesday.
Carter said the NATO alliance would “keep the door open for Russia” for cooperation on global security challenges but it was up to Moscow to decide.
“We don't seek a cold, let alone hot, war with Russia. We don't seek to make Russia an enemy,” he said. “But make no mistake; we will defend our allies, the rule-based international order and the positive future it affords us.”
The Pentagon chief made the remarks at a ceremony in the western German city of Stuttgart in which he presided over the change of command for US European Command.
Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of US forces in South Korea, will take over from Air Force General Philip Breedlove, assuming a post that traditionally also makes him the supreme allied commander of NATO's European forces.
Scaparrotti will have to handle NATO’s tense relationship with Russia, which has deteriorated over the Ukraine crisis and the Russian bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
“We're moving from assurance to deterrence … moving from assurance to war-fighting posture,” a senior Pentagon official said.
In brief remarks, Scaparrotti said NATO faced “challenges to international law” by Russia. “We also face the immediate threat that terrorism poses as the world witnessed in the recent tragedies in Brussels, Paris and Ankara,” he said.
“And we face the significant influx of migrants and refugees that are challenging the social fabric of Europe,” the general added.
US officials accuse Russia of flexing its military muscles in Ukraine and Syria and provocative interactions with US armed forces.
In the latest such encounters on Friday, a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 performed a “barrel roll” maneuver over a US reconnaissance aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea.
US military experts have warned that the Baltic Sea has become increasingly unsafe for the American military forces there because of the military encounters with Russia.
“Since the end of the Cold War, the US military has never really had to fight an enemy that had its own arsenal of precision-guided weapons,” Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the US Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, was quoted by The Hill as saying on Saturday.
“It was able to use air bases and other bases located fairly close to the borders of an enemy because there wasn't that much of an air and missile threat to those bases,” he noted. “That is changing.”
On April 27, the US Air Force deployed two of its most advanced jets in Lithuania in Eastern Europe for the first time in a show of support for the region. The F-22 fighter jets had previously visited Poland, Estonia, and Romania.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were formerly ruled by the Soviet Union. They joined NATO and the European Union in 2004. Add Comments>>
Source: Press TV
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