Nuclear Modernization in the 21st Century by Aiden Warren & Philip M Baxter

Author:Aiden Warren & Philip M Baxter [Warren, Aiden & Baxter, Philip M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138350557
Google: IL3FwQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 50697597
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-01-15T11:43:24+00:00

The demise of the INF Treaty

Further evidence of the Trump administration’s drive to redefine and readjust the United States’ nuclear weapons position is witnessed in the withdrawal from the INF Treaty. In October 2018, President Trump loosely detailed at a Nevada rally that he would withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia. The pivotal 1987 agreement prohibits both the U.S. and Russia from possessing or manufacturing ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 480 to 5,470 kilometers. For several years, the U.S has accused Russia of breaching this deal through the development of a variety of missiles, including “the Novator 9M729 – known to NATO as the SSC-8.” In his announcement, Trump stated that the U.S. was “not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to … if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it” then “we are going to develop the weapons.”49

The main concern with the INF departure is that the Administration did not do anything substantive to persuade or coerce Russia back into compliance, which should have been the defining goal. In fact, it virtually eradicated legal and political pressure on Russia and essentially gave the Kremlin carte blanche to develop and deploy INF systems in greater numbers and without any treaty limitations. To some extent, these developments are hardly surprising given the deterioration of bilateral relations over the last 5–6 years. While Russia under Putin has regularly contravened international agreements, the Trump administration has also undertaken a pattern of withdrawing from such agreements. The President has removed America from more than a dozen international commitments, pointing to an imperative to reassert America’s international control by “letting go,” and undermining the very post-World War II liberal international order that the United States defined and orchestrated. Given the INF Treaty’s crucial stabilizing contribution to Europe’s security, America’s NATO allies once again questioned the commitment of Trump to the organization itself and broader EU security. That said, according to Kimball and Reif, if NATO member states really wanted to sustain a key arms control treaty that has contributed to their security for more than two decades, they needed to be more assertive and active in insisting that the United States and Russia pursue diplomatic options at an earlier date.50

Clearly, Trump’s preparedness to end reciprocally beneficial agreements so as to placate his domestic base does not augur well for global stability. On November 4, 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Russia was in material breach of the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and that the United States planned to suspend U.S. requirements under the treaty in 60-days unless Russia returned to compliance. While NATO foreign ministers collectively agree, declaring “that Russia has developed and fielded a missile system, the 9M729, which violates the INF Treaty [and] it is now up to Russia to preserve the INF Treaty,” the Trump administration’s thin 60 day demand and “hope” that Russia would “change course,” came across as a concession that the INF Treaty was for all intents and purposes dead.

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