Why President Trump Is Right to Pull Out of Nuclear Treaty With Russia

Photo: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

The United States is withdrawing this week from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 31-year-old agreement with Russia. The decision to withdraw is the right move.

Russia has failed to comply with the treaty in recent years, allowing it an advantage over the United States, which has continued to abide by the treaty. At this point, the treaty is only limiting U.S. capabilities.

On Feb. 2 of this year, President Donald Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the treaty in six months unless Russia verifiably destroyed its nontreaty-compliant missile system. It has failed to do so by the deadline of Friday, Aug. 2.

This comes after the U.S. has spent five years trying to persuade Russia to come back into treaty compliance. The U.S. has known since at least 2014 that Russia had developed and subsequently deployed at least three battalions of the Novator 9M729, a ground-launched cruise missile.

The treaty, signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, prohibits such missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

NATO has completely supported the U.S. position, releasing a statement saying, “Unless Russia honors its INF Treaty obligations through the verifiable destruction of all of its ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile systems, thereby returning to full and verifiable compliance before the U.S. withdrawal takes effect in six months, Russia will bear sole responsibility for the end of the treaty.”

Russia has long denied these accusations, and instead accuses the United States of trying to start a new arms race.

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