WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty will only endanger NATO allies by and fuel a dangerous arms buildup in Eastern Europe, Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, told Sputnik.
On Monday, media reported that US lawmakers had sent a proposal to the White House urging the Trump administration to withdraw from the INF arms control treaty that was negotiated between the United States and Russia in 1987.
"For God’s sake why doesn’t the US take responsibility for its extremely provocative behavior?" Caldicott, who is also the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said on Tuesday.
Far from ensuring security and defense for NATO’s eastern European member-states, the arms buildup was endangering them by alarming Russia and forcing it to respond with its own weapons build up and force expansion in reply, Caldicott noted.
Caldicott queried whether US government policymakers and members of Congress recognized the inevitable catastrophe that would result from their policies in Europe and that they were headed towards "global nuclear holocaust."
The arms race was also driven by the giant US defense contractors with the financial clout they enjoyed over so many members of Congress, Caldicott explained.
In the short run those sales would ensure the giant US corporations continued to make enormous profits from their advanced weapons sales to the US and NATO armed forces. But in the long run, the same policies would ensure total destruction for all, Caldicott warned.
The growing drive by members of the Senate and House of Representatives to scrap the INF treaty was particularly worrying because the treaty had stood for 30 years as a major diplomatic protection against a new arms race getting out of control in the heart of Europe, Caldicott maintained.
"An imperative INF treaty prevented the deployment of unverifiable US cruise missiles which could be hidden from satellite verification in haystacks and other places and which would have ended nuclear arms control," she stated.
Russia could have no defense against the deployment of such hard-to-detect intermediate range weapons in the heart of Europe, Caldicott pointed out.
"Deployed in Europe they [US cruise missiles] could reach Moscow in 15 minutes traveling just above the contours of the land. Pershing-2s on the other hand would reach Moscow in three minutes," she said.
Caldicott is the author of many books, including "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex" and "War in Heaven:" The Arms Race in Outer Space." The Smithsonian Institution has named her one of the most influential women of the 20th century
The INF treaty prohibits the development, deployment or testing of ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles.
