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November 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with John Bolton, U.S. national security adviser, at the Kremlin on October 23.
(Photo: Maxim Shipenkov/AFP/Getty Images )
Trump to Withdraw U.S. From INF Treaty
P
resident Donald Trump announced in October that he plans
to “terminate” the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty, raising concerns about the return of Cold
War-style tensions over U.S. and Russian
analysis deployments of intermediate-range missiles
in Europe and elsewhere and the future of
the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).
Trump’s sudden decision follows a years-long U.S.-Russian
dispute about whether Moscow has developed and deployed a
prohibited missile, known by its apparent Russian designation
9M729, and comes amid fears expressed by some government
officials and defense policy experts that China, which is not a
party to the INF Treaty, is gaining a military advantage in East
Asia by deploying large numbers of treaty-noncompliant missiles.
Still, critics of Trump’s withdrawal plan argue that it recklessly
removes all constraints on the deployment of Russia’s illegal
missiles, lets Russia off the hook for its violation, and goes
against the wishes of allies in Europe and elsewhere who want to
preserve the treaty. They also claim that the administration has
not exhausted all diplomatic, economic, and military options to
pressure Russia to return to compliance and that the military can
counter China by continuing to field air- and sea-launched cruise
missiles that do not violate the accord.
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The president’s decision to withdraw from the treaty appears
to have come together quickly and demonstrates the strong
influence of his national security adviser, John Bolton, a forceful,
longtime critic of the INF Treaty and New START.
“Russia has violated the agreement; they have been violating
it for many years,” Trump said after a Oct. 20 campaign rally in
Elko, Nevada. “And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear
agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.”
“We’ll have to develop those weapons,” Trump said, referring
to the intermediate-range missiles prohibited by the treaty,
“unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all
come to us and say, ‘Let’s really get smart, and let’s none of us
develop those weapons.’”
“[B]ut if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it and we’re
adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable,” he added.
The INF Treaty required Russia and the United States to
eliminate permanently their nuclear and conventional ground-
launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to
5,500 kilometers.
Since 2014, Washington has accused Moscow of violating its
commitment “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-
launched cruise missile (GLCM) having a range prohibited under
the INF Treaty. The Trump administration later identified the
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