Former ambassador John Bolton, a recent contender to lead the State Department, urged President Trump on Friday to scrap a pair of nuclear arms reduction treaties with Russia.
Bolton offered the advice indirectly, during a speech before conservative activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C. He bracketed the proposal with a repudiation of “seek[ing] the approval of the international high-minded” — a statement that resonated with Trump’s populist, nationalist supporters — but also urged a hard line with Russia.
“The next step in the bilateral relationship with Russia is for this administration to abrogate the New START Treaty so that we have a nuclear deterrent that is equal to our needs to prevent future conflict,” Bolton said. “That would be a signal to Vladimir Putin.”
The former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations gave a more technical speech than red-meat stemwinder, but the subject of his remarks necessarily implicated contentious political issues. Republican approval of Putin has risen over the last year, as Democratic leaders accused Trump of having a cozy relationship with the Russian leader. Trump’s team responded by arguing that American allies fearful of Russia have taken advantage of U.S. support.
Bolton struck a balance between the two poles. “We are not looking to be part of an international world order such as that imagined by today’s equivalent of the World Federalists or many in the European Union,” he said. “We have made our own world order.”
Such a statement might alarm European allies who worry that the Trump administration might try to withdraw from international commitments. Bolton, however, emphasized that the American-made order he envisions calls for taking a strong hand with Putin. That includes a sharp warning to force Russian compliance with the INF treaty, a significant plank in Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy in the waning years of the Cold War, but one that Putin recently flouted by developing and deploying two battalions of intermediate cruise missiles.
“You know there is only one country in the world that’s bound by this treaty,” Bolton said. China’s not bound by it, North Korea and Iran aren’t bound by it. Theoretically, Russia is, but they don’t pay any attention to it. There’s only one country that can’t build intermediate range nuclear forces and that’s us. What sense does that make? I think president trump should say to Vladimir Putin, ‘You either bring Russia into compliance with INF or we’re going to get out of that one, too.'”
Bolton isn’t the only Trump ally contemplating such a withdrawal. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has also hinted that the United States scrap the deal. “There’s little reason for the U.S. to continue abiding by a treaty whose only other party continues to violate it blatantly,” Cotton said in response to Russia’ treaty violation. “Two battalions of cruise missiles don’t just magically appear overnight. And if the last administration showed us anything, it’s that ignoring these kinds of provocations simply means they will proliferate.”
