A landmark arms control treaty that then-US president Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago is dead, prompting fears of a new global arms race.
The Washington and Moscow yesterday walked away from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
If they choose not to extend or replace the larger New START treaty when it expires in early 2021, there would be no legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time in nearly a half-century.
The US has blamed Russia for the demise of the treaty, saying that for years Moscow has been developing and fielding weapons that contravene the treaty and threaten the US and its allies, particularly in Europe.
However, without the constraints of the treaty, the administration of US President Donald Trump has said that it can now counter Russia — and China.
The US has complained for years of an unfair playing field — that Russia was developing weapons that breached the treaty and that China, which was not a signatory, was developing similar weapons that would have contravened it as well.
Trump has not committed to extending or replacing New START, which imposed limits starting last year on the number of US and Russian long-range nuclear warheads and launchers.
Trump has called New START “just another bad deal” made by the administration of former US president Barack Obama, and US National Security Adviser John Bolton in June said that it was unlikely that the administration would agree to extend the treaty for five years, which could be done without legislative action in either capital.
The Trump administration thinks talks about extending New START are premature.
It has claimed that with China’s growing arsenal of nuclear warheads, Beijing can no longer be excluded from nuclear arms control agreements.
Trump has expressed a desire to negotiate a trilateral arms control deal signed by the US, Russia and China.
Arms control advocates remain worried about the future.
Laura Kennedy, who formerly represented the US at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland, warned Americans not to let their eyes glaze over when confronted with the complex diplomacy of arms control.
They should raise the issue now with the US Congress and all candidates running for the White House next year, she said.
“This isn’t ‘wonkiness.’ It’s our future and the future of the planet,” Kennedy said. “Nuclear issues are so consequential that we simply cannot abandon a serious arms control effort. Nor can the US afford to cite its concerns over INF or other issues as an excuse to let the New START treaty lapse.”
Over its lifetime, the 1987 treaty led to the elimination of 2,692 US and Soviet nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. Until its demise, the treaty banned land-based missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km.
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