the americans broke or withdrew from every one of those treaties under the clinton or bush administrations, and have not adhered to any of them under obama, either. so, the russians no longer feel obliged to abide by rules that the americans are clearly refusing to abide by (there's a direct causal link between the invasion of iraq and the occupation of crimea, in terms of the validity of the international law that banned both actions). the feasibility of this is unclear, but the international law that you're referencing simply does not exist anymore.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/whats-up-in-space-russia-wants-to-nuke-asteroid-apophis/63838/

Ryan Norton
what is the word that TWN redacted in your comment? Was it B-u-s-h or R-e-a-g-a-n? I mean really (exasperated sigh), I find Republicans generally offensive too but that's no reason to put them on our 'swears' list of banned words, is it Weather Network?

jessica murray
recent presidents, in order: clinton, bush, obama. they're clearly using a very conservative algorithm.....

strange. it didn't get cancelled, there. the redacted word was "bush". reagan, for all his other faults, was actually pretty pro-active about following international law.

(and, sorry - that came out poorly. i meant that reagan was fairly pro-active about arms treaties, such as the one mentioned in the article, rather than broadly pro-active about international law. the 80s were a period when a lot of these kinds of agreements were signed, carrying on from the 60s and 70s. they were systematically dismantled and ignored in the 90s and 00s, as a corollary of the perceived american victory in the cold war. russia's decision to reciprocate is more recent, and really only cemented after the invasion of libya)