{"id":301289,"date":"2025-08-18T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=301289"},"modified":"2025-08-18T05:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T04:30:28","slug":"putins-step-back-or-smart-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/putins-step-back-or-smart-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin&#8217;s Step Back or Smart Move?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>17 Aug 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ritter knows more about nukes, strategic balances, missile systems, etc. than almost anyone else, having been the first US Weapons Inspector for the enforcement of the new INF Treaty in 1988.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Putin&#039;s Step Back Or Smart Move? | Scott Ritter\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ckf93_KOFmc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><em>Scott Ritter was a US Marine Corps intelligence officer for 12 years. As a chief weapons inspector for the UN Special Commission in Iraq, he was labeled a hero by some, a maverick by others and a spy by the Iraqi government. In charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq, Ritter was on the front lines of the ongoing battle against arms proliferation. He has had an extensive and distinguished career in government service with assignments in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. In 1991, Ritter joined the United Nations weapons inspections team, or UNSCOM. He participated in 34 inspection missions, 14 of them as chief inspector. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, citing U.S. interference in the inspections. He is the author of many books, including<\/em> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Scorpion-King-Americas-Suicidal-Embrace\/dp\/1949762181\"  target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scorpion King<\/a><\/span>: America&#8217;s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump; Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein; Target Iran: The Truth about the White House\u2019s Plans for Regime Change; <em>and<\/em> Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/author\/scott-ritter\" ><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><i>Contributor author<\/i><\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">: Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West\u2019s Road to War, <\/span><\/a>\u00a0<em>Clarity Press. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, with a B.A. in Soviet history.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>17 Aug 2025 &#8211; Ritter knows more about nukes, strategic balances, missile systems, etc. than almost anyone else, having been the first US Weapons Inspector for the enforcement of the new INF Treaty in 1988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[450,253,249,875],"class_list":["post-301289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-depth-videos","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-putin","tag-trump","tag-wmd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301293,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301289\/revisions\/301293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}