Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s Ambassador to the United States, has issued a warning to Washington: stop threatening Russia with nuclear war. Antonov cut to the chase in his article published by The National Interest on Sept. 28:
“I would like to warn American military planners about the fallacy of their assumptions that a limited nuclear conflict is possible. They apparently hope that the United States would be able to take cover behind the ocean if such a conflict happens in Europe with British and French nuclear weapons. I would stress that this is an extremely dangerous ‘experiment.’ It is safe to assume that any use of nuclear weapons could quickly lead to an escalation of a local or regional conflict into a global one.”
Yet he added: “I want to believe that, despite all the difficulties, we and the Americans have not yet approached a dangerous threshold of falling into the abyss of nuclear conflict. It is important to stop threatening us. Today, it is difficult to predict how far Washington is ready to go in exacerbating relations with Russia. Will the U.S. ruling circles be able to give up their plans aimed at wearing out our country with the prospect of its dismemberment?”
Antonov reviewed the collapse in relations between Moscow and Washington, arguing that it is the result of U.S. policy decisions made over the last three decades.
“Washington withdrew from the [INF, ABM, and Open Skies] treaties in order to gain security advantages, especially in confronting Russia. It is in a constant search for opportunities to achieve global military dominance,” Antonov writes. “Over previous decades, the NATO military machine has approached Russia’s borders in several ‘waves’—where a powerful striking fist was raised over my Motherland. How should we have reacted? We warned our colleagues that such steps were counterproductive, increased the risk of an arms race, and we could not ignore the aggravating threats along the perimeter of the Russian boundaries, especially our Western boundaries. I remember long-hour gatherings at NATO headquarters where I had to participate repeatedly in discussions on the harmfulness of global missile defense, the importance of respecting international commitments on strategic stability, and the danger of deploying shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Russian exhortations turned out to be in vain.
