The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has two big problems: Russia doesn’t abide by it, and China’s not a party to it.
The INF Treaty, as it’s known, is a Cold War-era agreement with the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union designed to eliminate ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles that have a range of 300 to 3,400 miles.
In the past year, the U.S. has repeatedly and publicly accused Russia of violating the 1987 treaty by secretly deploying a new generation of ground-launched cruise missiles in the western province of Kaliningrad, within range of America’s NATO allies.
“The Russians are in abject violation of the INF Treaty,” said retired Gen. James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama. “The Russians do not harbor good intentions toward the United States, and there shouldn’t be any illusions or any ambiguity about that,” Clapper said on CNN last Sunday.
The U.S.’s official position is that Russia should abide by the INF, if for no other reason than to reinforce the precept that arms control agreements work.
“When you make agreements, when you sign treaties, you have to live up to those treaties,” said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, after consulting with NATO allies at a defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels. “Our effort is to bring Russia back into compliance. It is not to walk away from the treaty.”
But the seeds of the treaty’s demise have already been planted the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act just passed by Congress and awaiting President Trump’s signature.
Included in the defense authorization is $58 million for the U.S. to design its own road-mobile cruise missile to match the Russians, and which, if produced, would also violate the treaty.
Russia has long been itching to get out from under the restrictions of the treaty signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, says Randall Schriver, nominated to be assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs.
“When I served in government in the Defense Department before, the Russians approached us and asked the United States to jointly withdraw from the INF Treaty,” Schriver testified at his confirmation hearing Thursday. “We declined at that time, but unfortunately, it appears they’ve simply violated the treaty in the intervening years.”
Many in Congress, and some U.S. commanders, are beginning to think the 30-year-old treaty may have outlived its usefulness.
“China is not a member of the INF Treaty, and therefore, they have not been restricted over the last few decades in terms of developing missile technology,” argued Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., at Thursday’s Armed Services Committee hearing.
Perdue says 95 percent of China’s missile inventory does not comply with the INF, a missile inventory he notes is the biggest “in the history of the world … bigger than Russia’s, it’s bigger than ours.”
The language of this year’s NDAA cites testimony from U.S. Pacific Commander Adm. Harry Harris, who told Congress in April that he worries other countries, including China and Russia, are outpacing the U.S. because of the limitations of the INF, which Russia violates with impunity.
“It is not in the national security interests of the United States to be unilaterally legally prohibited from developing dual-capable ground-launched cruise missiles … while Russia makes advances in developing and fielding this class of weapon systems,” Harris said. “Such unilateral limitation cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.”
The mood in Congress, as expressed in the NDAA, is that it’s time to either compel Moscow to comply, or consider giving up on the landmark treaty altogether.
“I hope it’s something that will come to a head sooner rather than later instead of letting the status quo persist, which is that Russia, which benefits more from the treaty, also benefits from violating the treaty while we stand idly by,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
Critics argue that abandoning the treaty would force the U.S. to spend billions more on missiles it can’t afford, while playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who would like nothing more than to blame the demise of the treaty on the U.S.
“If Washington proceeds as the congressional language now suggests, the Kremlin will continue to maintain its innocence,” wrote Steven Pifer in an essay for the Brookings Institution.
“Moscow would welcome an American decision to quit the agreement,” Pifer wrote. “It would leave Russia free to deploy its intermediate-range missiles openly, without the pretense of adhering to the accord.”
The NDAA contains language that stops well short of signaling any abrogation or violation of the agreement is imminent.
“The conferees do not intend for the United States to enter into a violation of the INF Treaty so long as the treaty remains in force, and nothing in this provision should be construed to force the United States into a violation of the treaty.”
But the INF Treaty Preservation Act of 2017, which is part of the authorization act, also contains a not-so-veiled warning to Moscow.
“The INF Treaty prohibits testing and deployment of ground-launched intermediate-range missile systems, but it does not prohibit research and development,” the law notes.
