WASHINGTON — The U.S. is considering taking economic and other countermeasures against Russia for violating a key nuclear weapons treaty, a State Department arms control official said Wednesday.
Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told a House panel that the U.S. also is looking at what can be done militarily to make sure Russia does not gain a significant military advantage by not complying with the treaty.
President Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. Russia maintains it is in compliance with the treaty, which says the U.S. and Russia cannot possess, produce or test-fly a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles.
The current dispute over the treaty comes at a highly strained time between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia's intervention in Ukraine, Putin's grant of asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and other flaps that have heightened tension between the two nations.
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