Nuclear Tensions Between US, Russia Reach ‘Dangerous’ Point: Experts

• Nuclear Tensions Between US, Russia Reach ‘Dangerous’ Point: Experts
  by http://www.presstv.ir/ , 31 Oct 2016 
  US-Russian relations have slipped to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War, with tensions now spilling over to nuclear pacts and each side accusing the other of cheating, experts say.
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  “I would have to say that, without question, this is the low point in US-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War,” Steven Pifer, an arms control expert at the Brookings Institution, told NPR.
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  The relationship took a turn for the worse two years ago with the conflict in Ukraine and slid lower last year with Russia’s air campaign in Syria, noted Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine.
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  This year, tensions have continued to mount with Russian and US aircraft buzzing each other over the Baltic and Washington accusing Moscow of trying to interfere in the US presidential elections, he added. Bickering over nuclear issues has also increased markedly in recent months.
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  Early this month, Russia moved a battery of nuclear-capable missile launchers within range of three Baltic states, in what US officials said was a gesture to express displeasure with NATO.
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  In late October, Russia unveiled images of a new intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed the Satan 2, which, it says, can carry up to 15 separate warheads powerful enough to destroy an area the size of Texas.
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  The US, in September, flew three long-range nuclear bombers over Eastern Europe to participate in NATO military exercises. These developments have worried nuclear arms experts. “We are in a dangerous situation,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told NPR. “Certainly a situation that is much more dire or tense than it was 10 years ago.”
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  In 1987, four years before the Soviet Union collapsed, Washington and Moscow signed a long-negotiated treaty – known as the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty – to eliminate their arsenals of nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
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