The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, perhaps the most infamous arms control accord of the Cold War era, is now 60 days from dying a slow and agonizing death. After browbeating the Russian government to address allegations of noncompliance and return to the limits set forth in the treaty, U.S. officials have finally decided it would be best to leave the treaty altogether.
“The United States has fully adhered to the INF Treaty for more than 30 years,” President Trump wrote, “but we will not remain constrained by its terms while Russia misrepresents its actions.” The Russians, in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s words, simply refuse to acknowledge that they are even doing anything wrong or violating their commitments in any way. “We have raised Russia’s noncompliance with Russian officials, including at the highest levels of government, more than 30 times, yet Russia continues to deny that its missile system is noncompliant and violates the treaty,” Pompeo remarked at the State Department.
The message from the administration is as clear as a mushroom cloud over the horizon: Moscow bears sole responsibility for shredding one of the most significant nonproliferation agreements in history.
The Russians would of course violently dispute this interpretation of events. Russian President Vladimir Putin has his own gripes with the United States, including his contention that America’s anti-missile systems are not exactly kosher with INF Treaty limits either. To their credit, the Russians eventually offered to allow the U.S. to inspect the 9M729 missile system that Washington views as a violation — an offer the Trump administration rejected as too little, too late. The Russians are apoplectic, although not surprised Washington chose to exit the accord rather than engage in talks to save it. As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian television this week, “There is no doubt that the Americans will quit the treaty in the end.”
Washington and Moscow will be pointing fingers at each other in the next few weeks and crafting their narratives about why the Reagan-Gorbachev agreement is now on the ash heap of history. While Pompeo intimated that the U.S. could very well continue abiding by the INF if the Russians confessed their sins and did the right thing (destroying the 9M729 system), the chances of this happening are about as likely as Trump apologizing to Hillary Clinton for calling her a criminal during the 2016 campaign. Unless Putin experiences a come-to-Jesus moment, the INF treaty that was the foundation of the U.S.-Russia nonproliferation regime for three decades is now shattered in pieces.
The question now is not whether the INF survives (that part is settled) but whether the 2011 New START accord limiting the number of U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear warheads and ICBMs is the last and final U.S.-Russia arms control deal on the chopping block. If Washington and Moscow are unable to extend the limitations for another five years or negotiate new terms by 2021, New START will expire without anything to take its place. Trump has already called New START a bad deal, and if John Bolton is still in the White House over the next two years, you can bet that he will do everything in his bureaucratic power to kill this treaty as feverishly as he helped kill the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Agreed Framework, and the Iran nuclear deal.
One hopes it doesn’t come to that. The last thing we need is two nuclear superpowers, untethered to any restrictions, free to research, develop, build, and deploy an ever larger amount of nuclear weaponry.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
