President Trump’s announcement that he plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is worrying news for U.S.-Russian relations and for the prospect of effective arms control moving forward.
The INF Treaty was negotiated by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Each party agreed to eliminate their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 km. It was a quite successful arms control agreement, at least until recently. In the last few years, Moscow has tested and deployed cruise missiles that appear to violate INF limits.
This is the Trump administration’s rationale for terminating the agreement. And the reasoning has a powerful logic. If Russia isn’t going to fully comply with the treaty, why should the United States?
The problem is that simply withdrawing is the most extreme option available and robs us of viable diplomatic solutions while doing nothing to pressure Russia to get back into compliance. Indeed, terminating the agreement is probably the option most likely to generate a new arms race.
It is worth noting that the Russians claim we cheated first by deploying missile defense systems in Europe that, if used offensively, would violate the terms of the INF treaty. It’s a debatable accusation, but this mutual suspicion is resolvable over the negotiating table. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has barely made an effort to discuss it with Moscow.
Instead of pressuring Moscow to bring itself back into compliance with the treaty, Trump’s planned withdrawal – along with not-so-subtle hints that the administration plans to ramp up production of just the type of missiles the INF prohibits − merely gives the greenlight to Russia to expand their own capabilities in this area.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/terminating-inf-treaty-makes-no-sense
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