U.S. Agrees to Divulge British Nuclear Secrets to Russia
BY Herschel Smith
13 years, 10 months ago
From The Telegraph:
Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.
Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems, said: “They want to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”
Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.”
Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.
The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called “special relationship”, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
Details of the behind-the-scenes talks are contained in more than 1,400 US embassy cables published to date by the Telegraph, including almost 800 sent from the London Embassy, which are published online today.
Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.
Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.
The Telegraph is referring to the New START treaty already ratified by the U.S. Senate, and for which Secretary Gates lobbied. I had previously argued that the treaty was one-sided and brought the U.S. no discernible advantage in any area of weapons or nuclear technology, or foreign policy. When Ronald Reagan advocated for the initial START treaty, even Time Magazine noted that it was one-sided in favor of the U.S., a fact which caused Time incorrectly to predict its failure. Reagan negotiated from a position of strength.
But what we’ve learned now goes past a bad treaty – and it was a bad treaty. It goes to reputation, to status, to honoring allies and friendships, to standing. It makes this administration out to be pusillanimous weasels willing to sell out even our closest friends to enemies and criminals for a mere smattering of success on the world stage.
We pressed the reset button in foreign policy with Russia, but Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev viewed this as having made us sniveling lackeys. Our enemies think we are fools and clowns, while our allies cannot trust us. So much for success on the world stage. Mr. Obama, we all knew Ronald Reagan, and you sir are no Ronald Reagan.
On February 5, 2011 at 1:37 am, celebs4truth said:
Look…You’re just not going to get me to buy that wikileaks just somehow magically comes up with millions of ‘classified’ documents because somehow people held in highly classified confidence have found it in their conscience to spill the beans and secretly pass highly sensitive instruments in the dark to a lucky amateur journalist…who just happened to have had sex with multiple known CIA operative/informant women, who then try to set him up with phony sexual assault charges (specifically, for not wearing a condom LOL) which the French government all the sudden declares to be a horrible and ugly act that needs to be punished…and arrests him…and then lets him go…making him a martyr for “free speech” where the governments of the world can then use to demonize free speech on the evil internet…all the while wikileaks continues to operate in the open, with full media attention the entire time…with these supposed highly sensitive documents that they continue to parade around in threatening fashion…while the ‘mainstream’ media grabs the baton with effortless grace and runs with the entire story like it was all scripted in a Hollywood back office on late nights and weekends for the past 18 months! It’s all to perfect…It all somehow works to the globalists advantage in furthering middle eastern destabilization…the media gets to subconsciously sub-plant negative free-speech and internet controls/kill switch messages, while no real information has yet to come out that supports any truth about the New World Order and it’s minion presidents and dictators all around the world who commonly stage false flag terror events to demonize humanity and these tyrant’s enemies! …and no, I’m not interested in the swamp land you have for sale either!
On February 5, 2011 at 1:45 am, Herschel Smith said:
Normally I delete spam posts, but I have to thank you for this one. This is too rich. I cannot even begin to untangle the contradictions, non sequiturs, misspellings, poor grammar, and hysterical rantings. I must read your comment again to let it wash over me and bask in it. Indeed … this is why I write, for comments just like this one!
On February 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm, jj said:
“Our enemies think we are fools and clowns, while our allies cannot trust us.” How the hell, did we as a nation, let this happen?
On February 5, 2011 at 3:32 pm, joetote said:
If this is proven top be true, the U.S. is done as a perceived world leader! If this President has in fact done what is charged in the leaked cables, he must be impeached immediately! As Pat asked above. Were the people in the Senate notified as required of this action? If so, why did the Senate vote to allow this to happen? Or is it possible this is another “we didn’t read the entire thing” moment? If in fact the leaders of the Senate did in fact have knowledge of this action then they do should be brought up on charges!
Again, this is alleged but something I feel is in line with the actions of this Marxist we now have in the White House. Very scary!
On February 6, 2011 at 9:39 am, bob sykes said:
If it is true, then according to the tit-for-tat rules of international relations, the UK will have to do something that seriously damages US interests. Seriously. Perhaps denying our subs basing rights (the most appropriate). Otherwise, the UK leadership will be shown to be so supine that they and the UK can simply be ignored.
On February 7, 2011 at 12:04 am, Ryan said:
I thought that at this point everyone knew this was bunk? It is nothing more than a piece of journalism carried by one single British online news site, that is spinning already known information going back a decade or more, into the new narrative of how the British are being screwed in the ‘special relationship’. Tele is not really taken seriously by most Brits due to exactly this type of journalism.
There is a reason why Wikileaks -chose them-
And the fact is, you can paint a very precise picture of the British sub-based deterrent based on British and US defense reviews.
It’s a hollow piece of journalism that has been carried in the US by people with an axe to grind with the current administration. I value this site, but recently Ive become a bit alienated with the political opinion beyond that has to do with policy surrounding A-stan. And even then, I find myself glossing over those parts…
On February 8, 2011 at 5:51 am, Elli Davis said:
I think the special relationship will continue even if those allegations prove to be true because friendship with the US has always been the central theme of British foreign policy. But there clearly are limits to the reliance of Britain on that special relationship and more disruptions like this one can really leave its mark on it.
On February 10, 2011 at 2:04 am, desertpete45 said:
damn Marxist-leninist obama. His goal is to destroy America. where the hell are the real Americans?????????????????? This mutt needs to be impeached and imprisoned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1