If you missed out on the first nuclear arms race, you’re in luck. It’s back. On Friday, the Trump administration announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a landmark deal signed in 1987 by President Reagan. ADVERTISEMENT This treaty marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. INF and follow-on agreements led to the demise of thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia that used to be aimed at us. The very next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would follow suit: “Our answer will be symmetrical,” Putin said. “Our American partners declared that they will suspend their participation in the treaty, so we will suspend ours as well. They said they would start research and development, and we will do the same.” Of course. This is how an arms race starts. We have seen this movie before, and it does not end well. In "Arms Race One," the United States built an insanely large nuclear arsenal that peaked at more than 30,000 warheads in the 1960s. Russia, then the Soviet Union, had 40,000. Today, thanks to arms control agreements that are now on the chopping block, both sides are down to about 4,000 each; still way too many but heading in the right direction. Climate research shows that just 100 weapons detonated on cities could end civilization as we know it. How much did all of this cost? About $6 trillion. How did we survive it? By sheer good luck. In the words of former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, who had a front row seat to the buildup, “There is only one way to win an arms race: refuse to run.” Global sanity got a leg up when the stars aligned and two enlightened leaders agreed to change course. In 1985, President Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev declared that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The INF Treaty followed two years later. The Cold War began to thaw and finally melted away with the Soviet Union in 1992. But in "Arms Race Two: The Sequel," now we have the U.S. and Russian presidents conspiring in the opposite direction — to kill nuclear arms control. It is no secret that Russia has been chafing at the INF Treaty’s limits for years, seeking a way out. Regrettably, Moscow deployed prohibited land-based cruise missiles near its western border. Rather than seek to keep Russia inside INF and thereby constrained, President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE has handed Putin a free pass to get out of the deal. Soon, Russia will be able to leave the treaty, blame the United States and build as many intermediate-range missiles as it wants. This is not progress. This is no solution. This makes things worse. Think of it like highway speed limits. The limit is 65, and Russia is speeding at 75. If we throw away the speed limit, Russia can now go 125 with no constraints. How is this better? The Trump administration could seek to save INF by sitting down with Moscow and putting all the concerns on the table. Russia has its own problems with INF, such as the deployment of U.S. missile interceptors in Poland and Romania. There is a precedent for this. Back in the 1980s, the Reagan administration accused Russia of violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Did President Reagan leave the treaty in a huff? No, he worked with Moscow to come back into compliance. That is what President Trump should do today. “The Trump administration is risking an arms race and undermining international security and stability,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiGOP leaders face new calls to boot Greene Biden, Bass press for police reform after meeting Floyd family Kinzinger calls for Greene to be removed from GOP conference after Holocaust remark MORE (D-Calif.) said. “The administration should exhaust every diplomatic effort and work closely with NATO allies over the next six months to avoid thrusting the United States into a dangerous arms competition.” But having a one-sided conversation with Moscow will not work. “I’m asking both ministries to no longer initiate any negotiations on this issue,” Putin said Saturday. “Let’s wait until our partners are ready to hold an equal, meaningful dialogue on this extremely important topic.” By refusing to deal with Moscow’s concerns, the Trump administration is effectively killing INF. Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton has wanted INF dead for years. Bolton wrote in 2011, quoting Charles de Gaulle, “Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: They last while they last.” Bolton led the Bush administration’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and from the Agreed Framework with North Korea in 2002 and led Trump out of the Iran nuclear deal just last year. These moves have proven to be major strategic blunders. ADVERTISEMENT But the biggest blunder may be yet to come. The New START Treaty, signed by President Obama in 2010, is the last major agreement limiting nuclear arms, and it expires in two years. It can be renewed for five years, but only if Washington and Russia agree. This agreement has served the United States well, and there are no indications of Russian violations. It deserves to be renewed. But given the fate of INF, the future of New START is up for grabs. If New START is killed, it would be the first time there have been no speed limits on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals since 1972. We would be back in the Wild West. We are speeding, with nuclear weapons, along a dangerous mountain road, and we are driving blind. Tom Z. Collina is director of policy for Ploughshares Fund, a public grantmaking foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons and to prevent conflicts that could lead to their use.<doc-sep>The Trump administration just announced it will officially withdraw from an aging nuclear missile treaty with Russia, a move that could kick-start an arms race and threaten the European continent — but also allow the US to better prepare for a war against China. On Friday morning last week, President Donald Trump issued a statement that put the final nail in the coffin of the Cold War-era agreement, finalizing a decision that many experts — both happily and nervously — expected for months. “Tomorrow, the United States will suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty and begin the process of withdrawing from the INF Treaty,” Trump said. “For arms control to effectively contribute to national security, all parties must faithfully implement their obligations.” In a press conference around the same time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “Russia has jeopardized United States security interests, and we can no longer be restricted by the treaty while Russia shamelessly violates it.” Trump was so pleased with his decision that he even made a reference to it during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. “Decades ago the United States entered into a treaty with Russia in which we agreed to limit and reduce our missile capabilities,” the president said. “While we followed the agreement to the letter, Russia repeatedly violated its terms. That is why I announced that the United States is officially withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty.” This is a big deal. The INF Treaty was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987. The agreement prohibited Washington and Moscow from fielding ground-launched cruise missiles that could fly between 310 and 3,420 miles. Both countries signed the agreement as a way to improve relations toward the end of the Cold War. However, both sides still could — and since have — built up cruise missiles that can be fired from the air or sea. The problem is that Russia has clearly violated that agreement in recent years. In 2014, the Obama administration blamed the Kremlin for testing a ground-based cruise missile in direct violation of the accord. (Russia says the US has violated the agreement too, a charge the US denies.) NATO, the US-led military alliance formed to thwart the Soviet threat, said last December that Russia violated the treaty’s terms. And partly after seeing Russia announce the construction of hypersonic cruise missiles last year, the Trump administration took the final step: It would leave the deal Moscow wouldn’t stick to. So last October, Trump proclaimed the United States would leave the treaty, adding that he would give Russia 60 days — until February 2 — to come back into compliance. That led to months of hurried negotiations between Washington and Moscow to compel Russia into compliance again, but neither side caved. Now the US will officially leave the deal in six months, giving Russia a short amount of time to adhere to the agreement once more and change America’s mind. That’s unlikely to happen, though. Which means that in only a few months, the Trump administration will have ended a decades-long pact that softened the rough edges in the US-Russia struggle for military superiority — and could reignite Cold War tensions once more. Why it was a good idea to leave the INF Treaty — and why it wasn’t Experts I spoke with last October about the prospects of the INF Treaty’s demise unanimously agreed that Russia has violated the agreement and that the US needed to do something about it. Where they differed, though, was over how to do that. The answers fell into two camps: those who felt the US should try to coerce Russia into compliance with what they say is a historic and useful treaty, and those who said the US should leave the treaty entirely because it’s hurting America’s security. Let’s take each in turn. Why the US should have stayed in the INF Treaty Having the treaty in place reduces tensions between the US and Moscow, some experts say, mostly because both countries destroyed about 2,600 ground-based cruise missiles in total, along with their corresponding launchers, as a result of the treaty. That was particularly important for Washington’s allies in Europe, who were directly threatened by Russia’s stockpile. “Living in Europe, they care about INF more than anyone because they are within INF ranges,” Heather Williams, an arms control expert at King’s College in London, told me. But it seems Trump made the announcement that he would be pulling the US out of the treaty before consulting with America’s European friends — and they’re not happy about the decision. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas last October called it a “regrettable” move, saying that the treaty is “an important pillar of our European security architecture” and that the US decision “raises difficult questions for us and Europe.” Experts also point out that leaving the agreement will do little to make Russia want to abide by it. “Punching out isn’t going to bring them into compliance, and now lets them justify a buildup even more while painting us as the bad guys,” said Vipin Narang, a nuclear expert at MIT. These are legitimate worries. It’s possible Russia could have been even more brazen in its development of ground-based cruise missiles, and that remaining a signatory in the agreement somewhat curbed Moscow’s ambitions. But if the US tears up the deal, Russia could openly and more quickly build up its arsenal — all while claiming the US made it okay to do so. That could kick-start a new arms race between the two countries, where each side would try to one-up the other with better weaponry. Washington and Moscow would grow their arsenals of ground-launched cruise missiles. That, along with other issues in the relationship, could potentially put both countries on the path to war, many worry. There are ways to pressure Russia to comply with the agreement, experts told me.<doc-sep>Nick Schifrin: Both sides removed thousands of warheads and destroyed ground-launched missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. But for the last few years, the U.S. says Russia has developed and deployed this missile, on display last week in Moscow, that violates the treaty, and Russia refused U.S. requests to destroy it. Today, President Trump said, as long as Russia wasn't abiding by the treaty, neither would the U.S.<doc-sep>"This is one medium by which China can contest American influence in the Asia-Pacific," he said. "And it's unfair for the U.S. to voluntarily restrict itself in a bilateral treaty when one side of that partnership (Russia) is failing to live by its obligations. The U.S. ... is voluntarily fighting with one hand tied behind its back." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in early December that Washington would give Moscow 60 days to return to compliance before it gave formal notice of withdrawal, with withdrawal taking place six months later. The 60-day deadline expires on Saturday. Technically, a U.S. withdrawal would take effect six months after this week's notification, leaving a small window for saving the treaty. However, in talks this week in Beijing, the U.S. and Russia reported no breakthrough in their dispute, leaving little reason to think either side would change its stance on whether a Russian cruise missile violates the pact. "We have raised Russia's noncompliance with Russian officials — including at the highest levels of government — more than 30 times," Pompeo told reporters at the State Department. "We have provided Russia an ample window of time to mend its way. Tomorrow that time runs out."<doc-sep>
(CNN) — The US decision to suspend participation in a nuclear arms treaty long violated by Russia has triggered a wave of concern and fed into a decision to keep the iconic Doomsday Clock as close to the symbolic point of annihilation as it has been since the height of the Cold War. Analysts and critics said the US decision, announced Friday, risks triggering an arms race that could extend beyond Europe, has deepened fissures in the strained global arms control structure and heightened the chances of military conflict. They point to growing tensions between the US and China and Russia, the unresolved negotiations with an unpredictable North Korea and a new American hostility to multilateral pacts that fueled Washington’s decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal. Underlying these developments, they say, is a US and Russian drive to modernize their nuclear stockpiles even as they float doctrines that normalize using the most destructive weapons on earth. “This is a massive mistake,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, of the US announcement Friday. Risk of an arms race Alexander Vershbow, a former US ambassador who is now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, noted that “although the US withdrawal will not take effect for another six months, today marks the effective end of the INF Treaty, the only nuclear arms agreement to ban an entire class of missiles.” “The loss of the treaty creates a real possibility of an unpredictable and unconstrained US-Russian arms race in Europe and, potentially, in Northeast Asia as well,” Veshbow said. US officials rejected criticism, pointing out that they have tried in over 30 diplomatic engagements to get Russia to comply with the treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked about the dangers of an arms race Friday, pointed at Moscow. “The Russians are in violation of the agreement,” Pompeo said. “They have begun to move towards that risk that you actually just identified.” Moscow vehemently denies the US and Europe charge that Russia’s development of the Novator 9M729, a land-based cruise missile, violates the INF treaty. On Friday, the Kremlin lobbed accusations back at Washington, saying the US wanted to develop weapons that violate the treaty and is using Russia as scapegoat. The ground-based nuclear tipped cruise missiles covered by the bilateral agreement can fly between 310 to 3,100 miles, making them mostly a threat to Europe. Even as European governments expressed support for the US conclusion that Russia has been violating the 1987 treaty for years, officials privately expressed their concern about the treaty dying. Already, the White House is signaling the steps it will take. A senior White House official tells CNN that if Russia doesn’t reverse course, it will ultimately see US missiles tested and deployed in Europe. While it could be years before the US would place new missile systems, the official said that is the direction the Trump administration is headed in. Moscow will likely try to use the US decision against Washington, many said. Russia claiming Washington is the aggressor “Russia will continue diplomatic efforts to show that the US is an aggressive actor and is undermining global security with its move,” said Mark Simakovsky, a former State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Iran was quick to make that point, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif taking to Twitter to suggest any deal with the Trump administration is worthless. “Any deal with US govt is not worth the ink,” he said in a tweet. Those wary of the US decision to suspend participation in the Treaty flagged the possibility it could lead to new Russian or American deployment of long-banned missiles, feeding into a broader trend of destabilizing global developments. “Brash leaders, intense diplomatic disputes, and regional instabilities combine to create an international context in which nuclear dangers are all too real,” the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said in a statement. The group, which maintains the Doomsday Clock, said the Trump administration’s INF announcement played a part in its decision to leave the clock at two minutes to midnight - matching last year’s record and keeping it as close to midnight as it has been since 1953. The Bulletin and other critics noted that US negotiations with North Korea have not produced any concrete progress in constraining or rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear program or its drive to hone its nuclear and missile capabilities, leaving northeast Asia vulnerable.