US keen for missile tests after arms treaty ends
WASHINGTON: The United States will no longer be prohibited from having ground-launched intermediate-range missiles once it pulls out of an arms control treaty with Russia, but funds to test and develop the missiles may soon run out, officials say.
Washington said last year it would be withdrawing from the Intermediaterange Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), accusing Russia of failing to comply with it. Moscow denies it has violated the treaty and says Washington is pulling out because it wants to pursue a new arms race.
Within the next few weeks, the United States is expected to test a ground-launched cruise missile. In November, the Pentagon will aim to test an intermediate-range ballistic missile. Both would be conventional weapons tests — not nuclear.
US officials said this week that once existing funding runs out, future research and testing would be at risk because of resistance from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
Unlike in the Senate, which is led by President Donald Trump’s Republicans, the House declined to fund the Trump administration’s request of about US$96 million (2.9 billion baht) for the development of the missiles in its version of a fiscal-year 2020 budget and defence policy bill.
“If you cut this, you’re hampering the Department of Defence’s ability to respond to the Russian treaty violation,” said a senior US defence official, describing the Pentagon’s message to Congress.
“It’s not going to bring the treaty back, it’s going to help Russia.”
The 1987 pact banned groundlaunched nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres.
Washington and Moscow blame each other for the breakdown of the treaty, the latest in a growing list of EastWest tensions. The United States says it needs to develop its own intermediaterange missiles to deter Russia, even if it does not field them in Europe.
The Pentagon also sees a benefit in developing the new weapons as a counter to China, which boasts an increasingly sophisticated land-based missile force.
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, has opposed the US pullout of the treaty.
“Withdrawing from the treaty would allow [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to deflect responsibility and blame the US for both the treaty’s collapse and any ensuing arms race,” Mr Smith wrote in an op-ed earlier this year with the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
They added: “The Trump administration has played right into Vladimir Putin’s hands.”
The Pentagon hopes that the funding will be restored when the House and Senate confer to resolve discrepancies in the legislation. A Senate Armed Services Committee spokeswoman said those discussions were expected to take place in coming weeks.
US officials have been warning for years that the United States was being put at a disadvantage by China’s development of increasingly sophisticated land-based missile forces, which the Pentagon could not match thanks to the US treaty with Russia.
Defence Secretary Mark Esper said last month that leaving the INF treaty would free up the US military “to deal with not just Russia, but China”.
“China has a very, very capable and robust INF Treaty-range missile inventory, if you will. So you can see, it frees us up to do other things,” he said.
While no decisions have been made, the United States could theoretically put easier-to-hide, road-mobile conventional missiles in places like Guam.
The officials said it was not clear how China would handle the US leaving the INF.
“Who knows which way China might go? But they are going to have to react,” a US official said.