美国国家公共电台 NPR 'A Dangerous Situation' As U.S.-Russia Tensions Spill Over To Nuclear Pacts

'A Dangerous Situation' As U.S.-Russia Tensions Spill Over To Nuclear Pacts¹

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The U.S. and Russia are two mighty³ nuclear powers, powers that have made deals over the years to reduce their arsenals⁴. But just like a marriage gone bad, things have soured between Washington and Moscow. Quarrelling over nuclear issues has increased markedly in recent months, with each side accusing the other of cheating. NPR's David Welna reports on how this has played out.

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE⁵: Item - Russia, earlier this month, moves a battery of nuclear-capable missile launchers within range of three Baltic states. Item - three U.S. long-range bombers⁶, the kind used for nuclear weapons, fly last month to Eastern Europe for military exercises. Item - Russia, last week, unveils images of a new intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed⁷ the Satan 2, whose warhead, it claims, can destroy an area the size of Texas.

STEVEN PIFER: I would have to say that, without question, this is the low point in U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War.

WELNA: Steven Pifer is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who's now an arms control expert at the Brookings Institution. Things went downhill, he says, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago. They slid further last year with Moscow's intervention⁸ in Syria and, this year, got worse with Russian warplanes buzzing U.S. ships and planes in the Baltic and Washington accusing Moscow of meddling⁹ in the presidential election. Hans Kristensen, who tracks nuclear arms at the Federation¹⁰ of American Scientists, is worried as well.

HANS KRISTENSEN: We are in a dangerous situation - certainly a situation that is much more dire¹¹ or tense than it was 10 years ago.

WELNA: Even during the dying days of the Cold War, things did seem better.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet¹² Union.

WELNA: At a 1987 White House signing of a nuclear treaty, President Ronald Reagan strode in with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. And Reagan declared he had a Russian maxim¹³ to share.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FORMER PRES RONALD REAGAN: Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty, the maxim is doveryay, no proveryay - trust, but verify.

WELNA: The treaty they signed aimed to eliminate both countries' intermediate-range ground-launched nuclear missiles. Twenty-nine years later, Washington is accusing Russia of violating that so-called INF treaty and has called a rare meeting of a special verification commission for next month. Again, Brookings' Steven Pifer.

PIFER: What the administration has said is that they provided enough information to the Russians that the Russians could identify the missile in question. The Russians said, no, they haven't got enough information, so you're in that kind of war of words.

WELNA: Part of that war of words, Pifer says, was Russia's announcement earlier this month that it will no longer take part in a joint¹⁴ program to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium.

PIFER: That, I believe, was a little bit of a poke¹⁵ at President Obama, who attaches a lot of importance to the nuclear nonproliferation agenda.

WELNA: Meanwhile, over the next few months, the U.S. and NATO allies are to move thousands of troops, as well as tanks and other heavy equipment to nations along Russia's western border. Arms control expert Kristensen expects that action will provoke yet another reaction from Moscow.

KRISTENSEN: This is a gradual escalation¹⁶ of tensions between the two sides that goes beyond discourse¹⁷ and just disagreements over a treaty. It's getting pretty deep now.

WELNA: What's really needed, he adds, is the kind of dialogue these nuclear rivals once had and now seem to have lost. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.

1 pacts   

条约( pact的名词复数 )； 协定； 公约

参考例句：

• Vassals can no longer accept one-sided defensive pacts (!). 附庸国不会接受单方面的共同防御协定。
• Well, they are EU members now and have formed solidarity pacts with members such as Poland. 他们现在已经是欧盟的一部分了并且他们和欧盟成员诸如波兰等以签署了合作协议。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

4 arsenals   

n.兵工厂，军火库( arsenal的名词复数 )；任何事物的集成

参考例句：

• We possess-each of us-nuclear arsenals capable of annihilating humanity. 我们两国都拥有能够毁灭全人类的核武库。 来自辞典例句
• Arsenals are factories that produce weapons. 军工厂是生产武器的工厂。 来自互联网

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 bombers   

n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟

参考例句：

• Enemy bombers carried out a blitz on the city. 敌军轰炸机对这座城市进行了突袭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Royal Airforce sill remained dangerously short of bombers. 英国皇家空军仍未脱离极为缺乏轰炸机的危境。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

9 meddling   

v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He denounced all "meddling" attempts to promote a negotiation. 他斥责了一切“干预”促成谈判的企图。 来自辞典例句
• They liked this field because it was never visited by meddling strangers. 她们喜欢这块田野，因为好事的陌生人从来不到那里去。 来自辞典例句

10 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

11 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

12 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

13 maxim   

n.格言，箴言

参考例句：

• Please lay the maxim to your heart.请把此格言记在心里。
• "Waste not,want not" is her favourite maxim.“不浪费则不匮乏”是她喜爱的格言。

14 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

15 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

16 escalation   

n.扩大，增加

参考例句：

• The threat of nuclear escalation remains. 核升级的威胁仍旧存在。 来自辞典例句
• Escalation is thus an aspect of deterrence and of crisis management. 因此逐步升级是威慑和危机处理的一个方面。 来自辞典例句

17 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。