The Cold War Arms Pact is at stake while Bolton meets Putin

The future of a historic Cold War arms control treaty is in abeyance as White House National Security Advisor John Bolton prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington. Moscow on Tuesday, just days after President Trump announced his intention to end the arms control pact.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, is an agreement that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed in 1987 to eliminate a whole category of nuclear missiles and to remove more than 2,500 of them. facilities in Europe.

After years of commercial accusations about violations, the United States and Russia appear to be on the verge of a final confrontation over the pact, after Trump announced Saturday that he he was more willing to accept the Russian violations and that he would therefore withdraw.

"We will end the agreement," Trump said. "We will withdraw."

The failure of the treaty threatens to escalate a nascent arms race between Washington, Moscow and Beijing, and to defeat an arms control architecture that US and Soviet diplomats have painstakingly constructed during the Cold War. According to officials, the Trump administration has not formally decided to withdraw, but Bolton has gone to Moscow to inform the Kremlin of his intention.

In Europe, the possibility of the dissolution of the treaty raised fears of a return to the 1980s, as Washington and Washington dotted the continent with nuclear-armed missiles, pushing hundreds of thousands of Europeans to protest. These tensions eventually led to the INF.

The potential disappearance of the INF threatens to "transform us once again in Central Europe and here in Germany into a place of nuclear madness," said Sigmar Gabriel, former German Foreign Minister, on Monday.

[GOP lawmakers criticize Trump’s decision to withdraw from nuclear arms treaty]

Kremlin press officer, Dmitry Peskov, warned that an American exit from the INF "would prompt Russia to take measures to ensure national security."

After Bolton met on Monday with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, the nation's security council issued a conciliation note.

"The Russian side reiterated its principled position on the importance of keeping the treaty in place and reaffirmed that it was ready for joint work aimed at eliminating mutual grievances relating to the implementation of this Treaty, "the Council said in a statement, according to the daily Interfax. Press Agency.

The INF prohibits the testing, production and deployment of nuclear and non-nuclear land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

When it was signed at the White House, the covenant garnered widespread support in the West. The Senate ratified it with a vote of 93 to 5. The European allies welcomed the fact that medium-range nuclear missiles would no longer be deployed in their backyard.

By eliminating short-flying missiles, the pact theoretically improved the decision-making time of leaders facing a nuclear strike.

But the treaty has begun to fray in recent years.

Beginning in 2014, as the links between the White House and the Kremlin deteriorated with Ukraine, the Obama administration began to publicly say for the first time that Russia was cheating on the pact. The Trump administration has since declared that Russia's deployment of a land-launched cruise missile known as 9M729, or SSC-8 in NATO language, violated the treaty.

Putin replied that US missile defense systems in Romania were violating the treaty because they could launch missiles at intermediate range. The United States refuted this allegation, claiming that the systems only launch interceptor missiles – or designed to strike other missiles – that are not covered by the treaty.

INF has long ranked Bolton.

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, before Russian violations came to light, Bolton and co-author Paula DeSutter said the INF had lost its usefulness, citing Gaulle: "Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last until they last. "

Bolton argued that INF had become obsolete as it limited only Washington and Moscow, as well as other countries, including China, Iran and North Korea, were free to develop intermediate-range missiles. He said that the United States should expand the treaty to include other members or withdraw completely to develop their own deterrence systems in the middle range.

"The US currency on the INF should be: expand it or delete it," wrote Bolton and DeSutter.

Three years later, in an article that he co-wrote in the Wall Street Journal with John Yoo, Bolton abandoned the suggestion to expand the FNI to a multilateral treaty and simply suggested that the United States withdraw in response to the Russian violations revealed publicly. year.

After meeting Patrushev, Bolton gave an interview to Ekho Moskvy radio in which he said that Asian allies threatened by Chinese missiles had applauded Trump's comments on the INF. He added that further consultations with US allies and Russia would be organized in the coming months, and stressed how the treaty had forced Washington and Moscow.

The breakthrough that led to the INF occurred after a painful episode of the Cold War arms race.

From the late 1970s, the Soviet Union deployed intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missiles, called SS-20s, which could strike European capitals in just a few minutes. The United States responded by installing Pershing II intermediate-range nuclear missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western European countries.

The build-up of nuclear missiles has prompted more than a million Germans to demonstrate in the streets and raised concerns across Europe. The pressure on Moscow finally led to the INF, which totally eliminated the missiles SS-20 and Pershing II.

If the US withdraws from the INF, NATO will have to decide how to strengthen its defenses against an unimpeded Russia in the production and deployment of intermediate range missiles. Tensions between the Trump administration and European capitals would likely hinder the redeployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

Bolton, in the 2014 article of The Wall Street Journal, hinted that the United States would not need to relocate Pershing II-type missiles to Europe. He said he was confident that NATO could protect Europe and counter Russia with mid-range deployments on air and naval weapons systems. INF only covers ground missiles.

"At worst, we could follow the Russians and use intercontinental ballistic missiles at distances less than intercontinental ones," Bolton wrote.

The United States could find other ways to defend itself against a Russia liberated from the INF.

The Trump administration announced earlier this year its intention to develop a nuclear-reaction nuclear-launched cruise missile in response to Russian FNI violations. The US military could also place Tomahawk cruise missiles on ground launchers and deploy them in the Pacific. They are currently on ships and submarines. The Pentagon, mandated by the Congress, is also in the early stages of developing a missile banned by the FNI for possible deployment if the treaty falls apart.

Europeans watch the negotiations with anxiety.

The "foreign policy" branch of the European Union said in a statement that, expecting Russia to attack human rights violations, it also expected to what the United States is considering the consequences of a withdrawal. "The world does not need a new arms race that would not benefit anyone, but would instead create even more instability," the statement said.

With regard to the cessation of the treaty, the partisans of the withdrawal see nothing more to lose, except the constraints imposed on the American army, especially in Asia.

"The INF Treaty no longer exists," said Franklin C. Miller, director of the Scowcroft Group and former Pentagon official. "The Russians killed him. By deliberate intent, the Russian government has cynically destroyed the INF Treaty, and so all those who say we must continue to believe in the treaty also want you to believe in unicorns. "

Disarmament advocates, however, argue that even a torn-down version of the treaty prevents Russia from facing what could become a much larger deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said Washington had not exhausted diplomatic opportunities to save the treaty.

He suggested, for example, that the United States inspect the Russian missile in question and propose either modifications that could prevent it from flying at intermediate distances, or the end of its deployment. In exchange, he suggested, the United States could hold Russian inspections of US missile defense facilities to demonstrate that the systems only contain defensive interception missiles.

Kimball criticized the Trump administration 's approach.

"It is a counterproductive, unilateral and impulsive decision that threatens to disrupt an already difficult European security situation," he said. "It's the fault of Donald Trump and John Bolton for the cause of Russia's INF problems, where they belong. We have not exhausted the diplomatic measures available to bring Russia back to the situation. "

Troianovski brought back from Moscow.