Death of a nuclear arms treaty

It’s a grim tale of all-out regret, which echoes strangely and deeply in the Trump era. On August 2, more than 31 years of history came to a swift end when the United States officially withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

What follows is the story of the US’ militaristic attitude its repercussions from an analytical article by Fars new agency titled “Death of a nuclear arms treaty.”

Signed in 1987, the INF Treaty prohibited the US and Russia from fielding ground-launched cruise missiles that could fly between 310 and 3,400 miles. The agreement was supposed to improve bilateral relations toward the end of the Cold War too. However, the two nations still built up cruise missiles and went their separate ways. Quite the consequence.

This is not about who violated the landmark arms control treaty’s terms or who didn’t come back into compliance, hence putting the last nails in the coffin of INF Treaty. This is about a hellish fight down the line, and another step backwards for nuclear bombs going off in a new arms race, which could doom humanity on a planetary scale.

Thanks to the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw, there are now no on-site inspections: baseline, elimination, close-out, short notice, and perimeter portal monitoring. Under such a horrifying scenario, the world community has a herculean task to make sure the U.S. and Russia still fulfill their nuclear disarmament duties. If only.
Let’s get this straight: Arms control reduces the risk of nuclear war by limiting dangerous deployments and by creating channels of communication and understanding. President Donald Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton appear to have forgotten, or never learned, this Cold War era lesson. Instead, they are both fixated on exploiting not just fears and phantasms from abroad but fears and phantasms about “the other” at home.
At some deep level, the INF Treaty further prohibited the two countries from deploying both nuclear and conventional missiles. The main reason cited for US withdrawal is that Russia tested and deployed ground-launched cruise missiles the treaty prohibits. Russia dismisses that the missiles violated 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.

The treaty is still important for global stability. It remains a key element of the arms control framework limiting nuclear weapons and arms racing. Often forward deployed and intermingled with other forces, the missiles the treaty prohibits are among the weapons most likely to lead to miscalculation or misadventure in a crisis. This is no longer simply being predicted. After US withdrawal, we are distinctly living it. 

The treaty highlights the ethical imperative to achieve a nuclear weapons free world as well. It is designed to stimulate, support, and advance humanity’s quest for the security of a nuclear free world. With tensions growing among the two nuclear-armed countries in potential flashpoints like Ukraine, it is long past time for the nuclear-armed states to negotiate with each other. The best course would be to use the dispute over the INF Treaty as a moment to renew the negotiating frameworks and institutions and avoid catastrophe.
The problem is that Trump has expressed general hostility toward any international obligation that might limit US use of force or military capabilities. He sees negotiations as a zero-sum game to be won or lost. He doesn’t seem capable of imagining international agreements that benefit all parties and make the world a safer place.

Now, to put this in the context of the moment: The United Nations and the global anti-nuclear movement must act and leave space for new diplomacy. There is a legitimate question as to whether it is legal under international law for Washington to withdraw from the UN-ratified treaty. Despite Trump’s dangerous move, the US and Russia can still renegotiate agreements like the INF Treaty to address the riskiest elements of their nuclear confrontation. The time to start building a new climate for negotiations is now.

The US and Russia must fulfil their disarmament duties by either re-joining the INF Treaty and addressing its limitations of verification and other technical issues, or move forward in the process of negotiating a new nuclear weapons convention. Withdrawal, sitting on their hands, or offering no better way forward is inadequate and unacceptable.
As long as Washington, which has put aside 1 trillion US dollars to modernize and expand its nuclear-weapon facilities and missile silos, refuses to adopt the treaty, there is no other way to outlaw all nuclear weapon-related activities, set out measures for disarmament, address victim assistance and environmental remediation, and acknowledge the disproportionate impact these weapons could have on humanity.

At their best, nuclear weapons don’t provide security. It is in the interests of all nuclear-armed states to reduce and eliminate the perceived value of their nuclear weapons, decrease economic incentives for nuclear-weapon production, and reject nuclear weapons in their collective security doctrines.

The United Nations and the global anti-nuclear movement should also call on NATO member states to discuss changing their doctrine away from reliance on nuclear weapons and toward implementing their repeated commitments to nuclear disarmament. The existing security agreements for NATO and other US allies do not prevent these states from joining the nuclear ban. The obstacles are not legal, they are consciously and programmatically political.

After binning the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, war-party Washington says it now wants to quickly deploy new intermediate-range missiles in Asia.
New US Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he doesn’t know where and this shouldn’t take China by surprise: “Washington is no longer bound by the INF Treaty. We would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later.”
Although the new Pentagon chief and top Washington lobbyist for weapons-maker Raytheon hasn’t specified where the US intends to deploy these weapons, it’s not that hard to speculate. The stated idea is to compete with China everywhere, which has no intention to weaponized the restive region in the first place. Still, Esper insists: “And I want to say that 80 percent of their inventory is INF range systems. So that should not surprise that we would want to have a like capability.”
These false arguments should worry the international civil society and the global anti-war movement. They symbolize the twisted morality of those for whom conflict remains the natural state of human existence. The intended message is certainly received loud and clear in many capitals across the region too.  
Whatever this is, the new plan is in defiance of international law and ethical statutes in pursuit of such weapons deployments. It’s not hard to understand given the enormous profits American businesses and the cult of military-industrial complex will be able to rake in and its potential of reviving a new arms race.
Together with the Trump White House, the War Party wants permanent distrust and conflict to drag on without end in Asia. Previously talking up how the wars in Afghanistan and Syria can’t last forever, President Donald Trump now wants troops to stay in these countries forever, which is as close to a recipe for permanent war and occupation as one can get.
That seems to also be the case in Iraq and Yemen, where Trump says the US will continue to support the war against the Yemeni army and Ansarullah movement or that US troops will remain in Iraq, seemingly forever, to allegedly “watch Iran”. It might just be that the US will never get around to leaving China at peace with itself and its neighbors either. In other words, when it comes to the Pentagon, there is no such thing as over, ever. But why are we not surprised?
Esper’s announcement has coincided neatly with the Senate’s recent resolution expressing opposition to leaving West Asian countries. For all the war paths that might be taken again in this terrible new situation, a recent Pentagon report suggests that, “Even if a successful political settlement with the Taliban emerges, the US military should still maintain a robust counter-terrorism capability for the foreseeable future in Afghanistan.”
In that mind-boggling context, the same assumption apparently exists for Asia, where Esper insists, “That should be no surprise because we have been talking about that for some time now.” This is where Washington’s forever war lobby and self-styled triumphalist warriors will soon insist US troops would also be staying more or less forever. The phony justification is that their troops and missile deployments would allow them to “contain” China. Trump swears it also “creates American jobs”.
By every conceivable indicator, Washington’s trigger-happy officials and resource-war planners have every intention to remain on the path of arms trade in Asia. And to one degree or another, they all know that triggering a large-scale, state-sanctioned arms race is unlawful per international law.  
No Asian nation should ever adhere to this irredeemably flawed and deeply harmful practice in US foreign policy. It would bring no peace or stability by even the loosest definition of the word. Countries in the region should remain assertive and defy American meddling in their affairs, and instead invest more in regional cooperation and dialogue.
Asian nations know fully well that there is no nobility in falling into Trump’s trap of regional arms race or in normalizing his belligerence and falsehoods regarding China, Iran and Russia. They can expect anything from Washington now as Trump is a very unpredictable international actor. 
Asian nations can and should disregard Washington’s fake China, Iran and Russia concerns, go against the institution of immoral/illegal arms race, maintain normal ties with China, ignore the Disrupter-in-Chief’s ‘with us or against us’ tweets and publicity stunts, and work for regional peace and international stability.  

EA/ME