Why the cost of Donald Trump’s plan to scrap nuclear arms control treaty may not be worth the gains in Asia
- Ankit Panda writes that a US pull-out from 1987 treaty would expose Europe to a threat from Russian cruise missiles
- The move may be aimed at countering China, but the benefits of doing it this way are debatable
The sole remaining cold war arms control treaty between the United States and Russia may be on its last legs. US President Donald Trump, egged on by his arms control-averse adviser on national security affairs, John Bolton, has said Washington will leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Signed in 1987, the treaty was the first to result in the destruction of an entire class of nuclear and conventional weaponry.
It barred both the US and the Soviet Union from developing, possessing, testing or deploying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (310 to 3,417 miles). Air- and sea-launched missiles – both nuclear and conventional – were not included.
At the time, the treaty helped defuse rising tensions in Europe, where US Pershing-II and Gryphon missiles were pitted against Soviet SS-20 ballistic missiles, raising the prospect of a damaging exchange that could have easily spiralled into an all-out nuclear war.
The confidence forged between former US president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, helped build trust between the superpowers in the cold war’s final years.
