Insight
Is Trump right to nuke the INF Treaty? by Ian Bond 2 November 2018
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is a cornerstone of European stability. The US should challenge Russian treaty violations, but not abandon the treaty without a better plan. Donald Trump’s announcement on October 20th that the US would withdraw from the 1987 IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was typical of his erratic approach to policy. In seemingly impromptu remarks to reporters at the end of a campaign rally in Nevada, Trump said of the treaty: “We’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out”. Though the US had been concerned for some years that Russia was violating the agreement, the timing of Trump’s comments came as a surprise to US allies in Europe, for whom the treaty has been an important stabilising instrument for over 30 years. The treaty, signed in 1987 by US president Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, eliminated a whole class of weapons that Europeans found particularly threatening: Soviet intermediate-range missiles were capable of reaching European targets quickly and striking accurately. The Soviet Union’s willingness to give up this capability was an important sign that Gorbachev was serious about reducing tension in Europe. Without it, there will be fewer constraints on Putin’s newly assertive Russia. Trump did not say exactly when the US would withdraw – and as with his abrupt reversal of course on North Korea, he could still change his mind. On the other hand, Trump’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton, is a long-standing opponent of arms control treaties, which he regards as constraining the US’s total freedom of action in its own defence, and will no doubt work to keep Trump on the current path. The INF treaty gives each party the right to withdraw “if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests”. It has to give six months’ notice, and state what the “extraordinary events” are. Bolton was keen to underline on a visit to Moscow on October 23rd that the US was not interested in using the time to revive the treaty, describing it as “outdated, outmoded and ignored by other countries”. The US is likely to say that the “extraordinary events” centre on Russia’s testing and deployment of a new ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) known in Russia as the 9M729 and to NATO as the SSC-8. The CER INSIGHT: IS TRUMP RIGHT TO NUKE THE INF TREATY? 2 November 2018
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