The INF Treaty and the enterprise of nuclear arms control are at risk, as Andrew Lichterman of IALANA affiliate Western States Legal Foundation and LCNP's John Burroughs explain in the below IPS opinion piece. LCNP and WSLF helped develop a RootsAction-led online campaign enabling constituents to contact their representative and senators to urge action to save the treaty - please participate! As this piece explains, Congress has the authority and power to do so.
Renew Nuclear Arms Control, Don't Destroy It
Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs
NEW YORK, Jan 2 2019 (IPS) A hard-earned lesson of the Cold War is that arms control reduces the risk of nuclear war by limiting dangerous deployments and, even more important, by creating channels of communication and understanding. But President Donald Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton appear to have forgotten, or never learned, that lesson.
In late October, Trump announced an intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo subsequently states that the US will suspend implementation of the treaty in early February. While US signals have been mixed, initiation of withdrawal at that point or soon thereafter appears likely.
Agreed to in 1987 by the United States and the Soviet Union, the INF Treaty prohibits the two countries from deploying both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges between 310 and 3420 miles.
The main reason cited for withdrawal is that Russia has tested and deployed ground-landed cruise missiles the treaty prohibits. Russia denies that the missiles violate the treaty and has made its own accusations, foremost that US ballistic missile defense launchers installed in Eastern Europe could . be used to house treaty-prohibited cruise missiles.
Comments