Hard to fathom, and nuclear-armed

The United States has declared its intention to rescind unilaterally one of the landmark treaties that helped end the Cold War. The 1987 agreement with Russia, as the then Soviet Union, ended the deployment of medium to long range nuclear missiles by Nato and the Warsaw Pact in Europe. It was an epoch-making accord. Now it is to be torn up.

“Trust but verify” was the approach taken by the Americans at the time, but today it seems there is so little trust left, and little agreed verification of either side’s activities. The only odd thing in this grim recession of international relations is how it meshes with the notion that Donald Trump is supposed to be some sort of Russian stooge. It is a genuine puzzle, wrapped in an enigma. During his election campaign, Trump happily declared that it was Hillary Clinton and not he who wanted to provoke war with Russia for no good reason. Then came the allegations of Kremlin collusion with the Trump campaign – plus lurid tales of “kompromat”. Trump was conjured as a sort of ultimate Russian agent of influence.

Now, though, President Trump seems to want to restart the Cold War that was won and ended by President Reagan 30 years ago. He seems far from tame. The American-Russian relationship is not only increasingly confrontational, as it has been slowly growing for many years, but simply impossible to fathom. Who would trust either side?