President Trump rarely admits mistakes, so it was good on Tuesday to see him reverse his claim of Monday that Russia may not have interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. The problem is that he still doesnt seem to understand the nature of the adversary known as Vladimir Putin whom he wants to make his friend.
I have full faith in our intelligence agencies, Mr. Trump said Tuesday at the White House. He added that he unintentionally erred Monday when he said, I dont see any reason why it would be Russia that had done the cyber-hacking. He said he meant to say, I dont see any reason why it wouldnt be Russia.
We wonder who thought of that one, but never mind. At least Mr. Trump has at last publicly sided with his own advisers over the former KGB agent in the Kremlin. He also said we are doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in the 2018 election, which his intelligence advisers have also warned him about.
Less encouraging is Mr. Trumps continued enthusiasm for working with Mr. Putin on issues like Syria and arms control. On nuclear weapons in particular, Mr. Trump is a neophyte compared with the Russian who wants to rewrite the historical record to lure the President into further reducing the U.S. arsenal.
Nuclear weapons are the greatest threat of our world today, Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday. Russia is a great nuclear power, were a great nuclear power. We have to do something about nuclear, and so that was a matter that we discussed actually in great detail, and President Putin agrees with me.
Uh oh. In an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace Monday, Mr. Putin lamented Americas unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) during the George W. Bush Administration. We didnt want the United States to withdraw from the ABM treaty, but they did despite our request not to do it, Mr. Putin said.
What Mr. Putin didnt explain is that the ABM Treaty, which limited deployments of missile defenses, was a bilateral pact that the U.S. adhered to and the Soviets repeatedly violated, notably by building a large, phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the ABM Treaty was effectively voided, yet Republican and Democratic Presidents kept the treaty in place.
George W. Bush finally withdrew from ABM in 2002, explaining that the Cold War had ended, Russia was no longer an enemy, and the treaty hindered the U.S. ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks. The Bush Administration understood that the treaty left the U.S. defenseless against a missile from the likes of Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Bushs withdrawal was legal under the treatys termination clause, and at the time Mr. Putin said the move was mistaken but presented no threat to Russias security. Yet on Monday Mr. Putin said Russias development of new offensive weaponry like the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile was born as a response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty.
… Mr. Putin wants to draw Mr. Trump into an arms-control negotiation that would revive the ABM limits while expanding Barack Obamas New Start reductions in U.S. missiles. Mr. Trump is so confident of his personal deal-making skills, and so untutored in nuclear arms, that we hope the negotiations never begin.
This is where Congress needs a containment strategy for Mr. Putin and for Mr. Trumps desire to cut deals with him. Members of both parties can make clear that no new arms deal is possible until Mr. Putin stops cheating on current treaties; that no limit on missile defenses is tolerable; and that any new deal must be submitted to the Senate as a treaty requiring a two-thirds vote for ratification.
The Wall Street Journal
