核武器

周日的美国导弹发射。

08.20.19 | 4 min read | 文字Matt Korda&汉斯·克里斯滕森

Arms Control Twitter has been abuzz since yesterday’s announcement that the United States had conducted a惊喜发射周日下午的战斧导弹。

This wasn’t just your regular missile launch, however. It was a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from a ground-based Mark-41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), traveling to a distance of “more than 500 kilometers,” according to the Department of Defense.

In other words: a violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty––if the treaty still existed. It正式死亡8月2日，在美国和俄罗斯宣布其各自的条约义务的六个月后。但是，发射是美国安全政策的重要步行，该政策试图减少这种武器，而是我们为原子科学家公告, makes the United States needlessly complicit in the INF’s demise and frees Russia from both the responsibility and pressure to return to compliance.

发布有点令人惊讶，但我们知道它即将到来。早在三月，美国国防官员宣布that DoD would test two missiles after the treaty expired on August 2nd: a ground-launched Tomahawk in August and a ground-launched ballistic missile in November.

Although the US test isn’t an official INF violation (because the treaty is dead), the timing and characteristics of the test itself has raised a few popular questions, which we will answer below:

The test took place only 16 days after INF died. That’s awfully quick to develop this missile configuration––does it mean that the United States was secretly violating the treaty this entire time?

No. Sunday’s test features an existing missile being launched from an existing missile launcher. It isn’t exactly a difficult engineering feat to cobble this together on short notice.

In fact, one of the most interesting things about the video is the haphazard nature of the test itself. As pointed out byMichael Duitsman，看起来五角大楼只是将VLS发射器螺栓固定在半拖车上，在附近种了一个巨大的美国国旗，并发射了。

Why is everyone so worked up about the launcher?

这是事情变得非常有趣的地方。用于启动战斧的MK-41 VLS发射器是相同类型的发射器，该发射器将用于从罗马尼亚和波兰的AEEGIS ASHORE ASHORE ASHORE ALLICE弹性导弹防御站发射SM-3拦截器，一旦后者完成。

多年来，俄罗斯一直说，这些基于地面的MK-41 VLS发射器向欧洲部署构成了INF的违规行为，因为从理论上讲，它们可以用于发射超过500公里的战斧。从法律上讲，这不容易持有水 - 第七款，《 inf条约》第7款指出，要考虑违反该条约的发射器，它实际上必须执行a ground launch of a prohibited missile. Since this never happened while the INF Treaty was in force, the Mk-41 VLS launchers weren’t in violation.

What’s more, the United States has consistently stated that although Mk-41s can launch Tomahawks, the ones deployed in Romania and Poland cannot. In December 2017, the State Department宣布that “The Aegis Ashore导弹Defense系统没有anoffensive地面-launched ballistic or cruise missilecapability. Specifically, the系统缺乏软件,火来讲ol hardware,support equipment, and other infrastructure needed to launch offensive ballistic or cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk。”

也许这是真的perhaps it isn’t。但是，没有某种美国透明度措施，可以使宙斯盾的岸上系统可见，俄罗斯被迫仅依靠美国承诺。对于普京来说，这根本不会削减它。话虽这么说，也有可能永远无法满足普京的透明度，因为他对岸上的Aegis Ashore的主要关注似乎是针对欧洲的一般部署导弹防御措施，而不是其进攻潜力。

那么，美国为什么要进行此测试呢？

Both the timing and the nature of the test indicate that it’s driven primarily by political––rather than strategic––considerations. In all likelihood, the Trump administration asked the Pentagon to conduct an INF-violating test under a very tight timeline, and the quickest option also happened to be the most controversial. Also, any chance to give the INF Treaty’s corpse the middle finger is one that this administration will surely take.

不幸的是，该测试几乎可以肯定会进一步巩固俄罗斯对欧洲导弹防御部署的怀疑，并使克里姆林宫能够将美国描绘成问题而不是俄罗斯。

现在，中国可以对不加入武器控制谈判或限制的决定完全有证明。毕竟，当它拥有比俄罗斯和美国少得多的核武器时，为什么会这样做，或者考虑在俄罗斯，印度和现在的美国都在开发此类武器时限制其Infrange导弹？

With this flight test, the Trump administration has placed the United States firmly in the group of nations that it previously criticized for developing INF-range weapons. Instead of seeking to build international pressure against INF-missile proliferation, the Trump administration has needlessly surrendered the legal and political high-ground the United States previously had, and has now become part of the problem.