Nuclear missiles: Trump tears up a treaty

“If you think Europe is under strain now, wait until it faces a new nuclear arms race,” said Edward Lucas in The Times. That’s what awaits us, after last weekend’s decision by the United States and Russia to scrap the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The deal dates back to the late Soviet era, when thousands of medium-range nuclear missiles were stationed on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Thanks to the INF, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, more than 2,600 such nuclear missiles were destroyed. “We were all safer as a result.” President Trump has now suspended participation in the INF – citing the fact that Russia has illegally developed a new ground-launched cruise missile, the 9M729. The US has threatened to leave the treaty altogether in six months unless Russia complies. Vladimir Putin responded by announcing that Russia, too, would abandon the treaty, and would develop new weapons that were previously banned.

Critics of President Trump will inevitably blame him for “starting a new arms race”, said The Daily Telegraph. “But this move was a long time coming and Russia is to blame.” Russian forces began testing banned missiles back in 2008. In 2014, Barack Obama raised the issue directly with President Putin, but did nothing.

Russia continues to deny the truth and refuses to take steps towards compliance. Nato’s members, meanwhile, fully support the US decision to withdraw from the INF. Trump’s position has the virtue of honesty. “No one in their right mind will welcome these events, but at least we know where things stand.” On the contrary, Trump “has made an elementary error”, said The Independent: he has “played into Putin’s hands”. Russia can now blame the US for the collapse of a crucial arms control treaty. The rest of Nato opposed the move, but “had to go along with the US president’s unilateral decision, because most of its members understand the value of unity, even if Trump does not”. The real reason Trump ripped up this treaty isn’t Russia, said Michael Burleigh in The Mail on Sunday: it’s “fear of China”. Beijing isn’t bound by the INF, and has been free to develop mid-range missiles, which the Pentagon sees as a potential threat. But rather than scrapping the treaty, the US should have increased the pressure on Russia and challenged China to join it too, said the FT. Persuading Moscow and Beijing wouldn’t be easy. But the alternative is far worse: the deployment of weapons that leave Europe’s capitals vulnerable to surprise attack. “No one can gain from a return to a nuclear free-for-all.”