While Obama Resets, Putin Rearms

Kremlin cheating on arms control agreements happens all the time. So it should hardly come as a surprise that Russia is violating the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

It certainly doesn’t surprise me.  I worked for President Reagan on the negotiation of that accord and warned at the time Moscow could exploit its defects to field prohibited ground-launched cruise missiles.

The trouble is not simply that Vladimir Putin’s cheating is giving Russia a new capability to threaten our allies and interests.  It’s also making a mockery of the whole arms control enterprise, in which successive U.S. administrations have massively over-invested.

So, we have the spectacle of Russian perfidy being met by American excuse-making, “quiet diplomacy” and pathetic inaction that only invites further bad behavior from Putin and his friends.