Is US threat to exit INF Treaty a political stunt aimed at China?
Questions arise over Trump’s stance on Beijing’s missiles and the impact on East Asian security
US President Donald Trump’s intention to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prevents the United States and Russia from producing and installing ground-based missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, has raised fears of an arms race in East Asia, with some speculating that Washington wants to deploy this kind of projectile in Japan or at Guam to face China’s strategic threat.
But the quality and quantity of sea-based US missiles already in the region, coupled with the probable reluctance of concerned countries and communities to host nuclear land-attack projectiles, make experts believe Trump’s annoucement about the INF pact actually has little to do with military strategy.
"INF weapons are already at sea in such quantities that the agreement really only has symbolic value at this point,” Lyle Goldstein, a research professor at the US Naval War College, told Asia Times. However, he pointed out that symbols did really matter, and along with many other signs, the US withdrawal did seem to signal a ramping up of Cold War tensions, including in the nuclear domain.
Trump accuses Russia of violating the INF accord, which the United States and the Soviet Union signed in 1987 during the end days of the Cold War. Particularly, the US government says Russia has deployed the Novator 9M729 land-based cruise missile on their soil since 2016.
http://www.atimes.com/article/is-us-threat-to-exit-inf-treaty-a-political-stunt-aimed-at-china/
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