Russian missile development facilities, undisclosed location
The United States has a track record of asking nations to prove a negative when it comes to compliance with arms control agreements, and then holding them to account when they fail to do so.
The deficit of integrity over U.S. claims against Iraq regarding weapons of mass destruction and Iran and its nuclear program speaks volumes about how corrupt America's policymaking apparatus has become. Now the United States is making the same mistake again by pulling out of the INF Treaty,
which it claims Russia violated.
"A high degree of confidence is required before the United States will publicly charge another party with violation of an international agreement." Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Thomas Graham, Jr. delivered those remarks during
testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 1994. At that time, the ACDA served as the lead agency regarding arms control compliance. The intelligence community supported the ACDA's mission of making firm compliance judgments by providing the necessary intelligence information and analysis.
ACDA was supported in this effort by the CIA's Arms Control Intelligence Staff, or ACIS. ACIS provided intelligence support tailored for the specific compliance monitoring and verification requirements stemming from arms control agreements such as the INF Treaty and the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START). It brought a different skill set and mindset than the work being done by the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, or NPC, whose targets were less structured and far more nebulous and nuanced.
It was one thing to assess that nation A was exporting technology capable of supporting nuclear enrichment to nation B; it was far different to determine that Russia had destroyed its silos to the depths mandated by a treaty.
For the former, there was far more latitude in interpreting data used to make assessments.
The latter required a level of specificity that was unforgiving and often difficult to achieve.
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