I have also been trying to figure out if Trump's threat to withdraw from the INF is really that terrible. On first glance, it looks like an easy yes, because the INF was a pretty important nuclear arms control agreement when it was signed, I think nuclear arms control is really important, and, well, everything Trump does is pretty terrible.
But the treaty is only between the U.S. and Russia.1 It doesn't, for example, bar China from developing an arsenal of intermediate-range nuclear weapons. And these days we are living in more of a multi-polar world. The nuclear powers are not just the two sides of the cold war. Also, Russia is openly violating it. So instead of being the only side still abiding by it, maybe it actually makes sense for the U.S. to scrap the treaty and use that to negotiate a new more-comprehensive agreement that might really be honored?
On the other hand, the Trump Administration is no good at negotiating these kinds of deals. (Look at the ludicrous "agreement" with North Korea that Trump claims he reached to stop its nuclear program and which doesn't seem to exist at all beyond the President's bragging about it.) I don't think this administration is inclined to make multi-lateral deals like this, nor are they capable of pulling off something that complex.
So maybe there's a good argument to scrap the treaty and our blind squirrel of a president has finally found a nut, but also it would be better if we left the treaty when we got someone more competent in charge.
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1. And maybe other former Soviet republics. I'm not sure if they all inherited the USSR's various treaty obligations when they each became independent or if the world decided that only Russia was the successor to the USSR for the purposes of those treaties.
But the treaty is only between the U.S. and Russia.1 It doesn't, for example, bar China from developing an arsenal of intermediate-range nuclear weapons. And these days we are living in more of a multi-polar world. The nuclear powers are not just the two sides of the cold war. Also, Russia is openly violating it. So instead of being the only side still abiding by it, maybe it actually makes sense for the U.S. to scrap the treaty and use that to negotiate a new more-comprehensive agreement that might really be honored?
On the other hand, the Trump Administration is no good at negotiating these kinds of deals. (Look at the ludicrous "agreement" with North Korea that Trump claims he reached to stop its nuclear program and which doesn't seem to exist at all beyond the President's bragging about it.) I don't think this administration is inclined to make multi-lateral deals like this, nor are they capable of pulling off something that complex.
So maybe there's a good argument to scrap the treaty and our blind squirrel of a president has finally found a nut, but also it would be better if we left the treaty when we got someone more competent in charge.
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1. And maybe other former Soviet republics. I'm not sure if they all inherited the USSR's various treaty obligations when they each became independent or if the world decided that only Russia was the successor to the USSR for the purposes of those treaties.
