The China Agenda Behind Trump Leaving the INF Treaty
A recent decision by the Trump administration could have major implications for defense and security in Asia, although you could be forgiven for missing it, what with the Democratic landslide in the midterm elections and the Mueller investigation causing near-daily meltdowns by America’s commander-in-chief.
The decision the Trump administration announced was that the US will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 60 days, unless Russia stops testing weapons that Washington says are in violation of the agreement.
The INF Treaty was the capstone of arms control efforts undertaken during the late 1980s, a deal signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ban the development, production and deployment of nuclear-tipped ballistic and ground-launched cruise missiles with a range greater than 500 kilometers and less than 5,500 kilometers.The agreement came about after the Soviets started deploying intermediate-range missiles such as the SS-20 in Eastern Europe in the late 1970s. Given its mobility, load and accuracy, the SS-20 was regarded as a highly effective offensive nuclear weapon that threatened all of NATO Europe. After considerable and often acrimonious debate, NATO responded by emplacing its own INF in Western Europe, mainly the Pershing II ballistic missile and the Ground-Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM).
It was a move that caused considerable protest in Western Europe, with anti-nuclear marches, demonstrations and sit-ins at US bases across Europe. But the NATO INF deployments had their political effect in bringing the Gorbachev regime to the negotiating table, and the INF Treaty was the first agreement to effectively ban a whole class of nuclear forces, at least by the US and Russia. Within three years of its coming into force, nearly 2,700 missiles were withdrawn and destroyed.
Why Trump wants to leave the treaty
Flash forward to 2018. Trump’s foreign policy coterie, led by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton – a man who was never a fan of arms control agreements – has accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty by continuing to test two types of missiles.
The first is the SSC-8 cruise missile, reportedly a ground-launched version of the ship- and submarine-based Kalibr missile system. The INF Treaty does not apply to sea-based or air-launched intermediate-range delivery vehicles.
Russia has been testing the SSC-8 for the past decade and it supposedly has a range of 2,500 kilometers, placing it clearly within the banned zone.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-11/china-agenda-behind-trump-leaving-inf-treaty
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