New nuclear arms race looms
The Trump administration says the US will pull out of a nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, ending a cornerstone Cold War agreement and raising fears of a new nuclear arms race in
Europe and Asia.
US President Donald Trump said Russia was violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a charge Moscow denies, leaving the US at a disadvantage because of its own compliance at a time when global threats had changed considerably in the more than 30 years since the pact was signed.
‘‘We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other,’’ Trump said in a statement yesterday. ‘‘We will move forward with developing our own military response options, and will work with Nato and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.’’
The treaty covers groundbased, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5500 kilometres. It has been a central element of Europe’s security strategy for more than three decades, and its signing was considered a crucial moment in Cold War arms control, eliminating more than 2600 missiles and ending a yearslong standoff with nuclear missiles in Europe.
The Trump administration has argued that Russia has not been complying with the pact since 2014, and that it puts the US at a military disadvantage against China, which is not bound by the treaty.
The collapse of the pact highlights the cost of poor relations between Washington and Moscow, which even during the Cold War managed to hammer out mutually agreeable arms control pacts.
The withdrawal signals the increasing peril treaties face from a Trump administration that emphasises national sovereignty over international cooperation.
In addition to withdrawing from the INF Treaty, the US president has also left the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and has threatened to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the World Trade Organisation.
His withdrawal from the INF Treaty has fuelled concerns that he will decline to extend the main nuclear arms treaty with Russia and risk a return to the early days of the nuclear arms race.
The demise of the INF Treaty opens the door to the deployment of American intermediate-range missiles in Europe and Asia, potentially increasing tensions in a standoff with Russia and China. The US has said that none of the intermediate-range missiles it is considering deploying would carry nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that, effective yesterday, the US would suspend participation in the agreement, starting a six-month countdown to a final withdrawal. This leaves a slim chance that Russia could end missile programmes widely seen as a violation, salvaging the treaty.
Trump said he would like to see a ‘‘new treaty that would be much better’’ and apply to more nations, although the chances of such an agreement are remote.
Russia is violating the treaty with the deployment of a banned missile, according to the administration, while China has never faced its constraints, deploying what a senior US official said were more than 1000 intermediate-range missiles banned by the treaty.
Russia has in turn accused the US of violating the INF Treaty through its missile defence systems in Europe, an allegation the State Department has rejected.
The Trump administration faced criticism among arms control experts for not doing enough to save the treaty.
‘‘Withdrawing from INF . . . isn’t the best way to punish Russia for its non-compliance,’’ Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to Nato, wrote in a Twitter post. ‘‘Rather, sticking with it is still the best way to keep a lid on Russian threat.’’
Russian President Vladmir Putin is likely to continue seeking new arms control talks with Washington, in part because negotiating over nuclear arsenals puts Moscow on a nearequal diplomatic footing with the much richer and better-armed US, analysts say. Russia’s far more limited defence budget also incentivises Moscow to avoid a full-fledged arms race.
There was no immediate response from the Kremlin, although Russian officials had earlier said they expected the US announcement.
Many Nato diplomats greeted the US decision with resignation, saying they would prefer to preserve the arms control treaty but were now focused on limiting a new arms race.
In Brussels, Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said it was Russia’s responsibility to start complying with the treaty again.
The push by the Trump administration to withdraw from the INF Treaty coincided with the arrival of John Bolton as White House national security adviser. Bolton oversaw the
Bush administration’s withdrawal from the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, paving the way for American missile defence systems that Russia has long decried. The former US ambassador to the UN is critical of international agreements and organisations he sees as constraining American power.
– Washington Post