The U.S. intelligence community has identified Russia as a threat to the U.S. nuclear weapons program due to its violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, intelligence leaders said Thursday on Capitol Hill.
Russia was a recurring topic during a Senate intelligence committee hearing on worldwide threats and in the written statement of Daniel Coats, director of national intelligence, who delivered the intelligence community’s threat assessment to lawmakers.
During the hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked CIA Director Mike Pompeo whether he believes Russia is using “active measures and covert influence efforts to undermine our nuclear modernization efforts, our missile defense deployments, and the INF treaty.”
“Yes,” Pompeo said, without elaborating.
Cotton has raised the issue repeatedly, earlier this year urging continued support for U.S. nuclear modernization and the study of potentially new nuclear capabilities in the face of Russia’s own program to update its deterrent.
The intelligence community’s global threats document highlighted Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty through its deployment of a ground-launched cruise missile: “Moscow probably believes that the new GLCM provides sufficient military advantages that make it worth risking the political repercussions of violating the INF Treaty.”
The United States has expressed concern about Russia’s adherence to the treaty since 2013, determining earlier this year that the nation has deployed such a cruise missile. The State Department said in its 2016 arms control compliance report that Washington has provided Moscow with “more than enough information . . . to identify the missile in question.”
The DNI assessment noted that Russian officials have complained that the country’s neighbors are not similarly prohibited from fielding such systems with INF-compliant ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Some experts have argued in favor of multilateralizing the INF treaty for this reason – to encourage compliance by a greater number of actors, particularly China.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday in Washington. The White House said Trump, whose presidential campaign remains the focus of probes regarding Russian interference in the election, “emphasized his desire to build a better relationship” between the two countries. The State Department said the sides “agreed to continue discussions to resolve other issues of bilateral concern, including strategic stability.”
It is unclear whether the meetings included discussion of the INF Treaty or other bilateral arms control agreements, such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
The intelligence assessment also called Russia a “major threat to US Government, military, diplomatic, commercial, and critical infrastructure” through its cyber program, and noted as threats the modernization of Chinese and North Korean nuclear missile forces.
