Nuclear arms race looms as US leaves missile treaty

The US will withdraw from a nuclear treaty with Russia, raising fears of a new global arms race.

‘We chose to untie our hands in order to protect America effectively in the 21st century’: John Bolton at the White House yesterday. Picture: AP

The US will withdraw from a nuclear treaty with Russia by tonight, raising fears of a new global arms race with Washington no longer “tied” to existing weapons controls.

The Trump administration’s departure from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty comes after Russia failed to ­destroy a missile that it had dev­eloped secretly.

Washington suspended the treaty in February, starting a six-month countdown to formal withdrawal. Moscow has said it will not change course.

President Donald Trump made it clear that his concern was not only Russian cheating but US military rivalry with a China unconstrained by treaty obligations.

He said he would spend billions building missiles “until the others come to their senses”. He added: “This is a threat to anyone, be it China or Russia.”

US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that after tonight, Washington would be free to compete with Beijing.

He said Washington was also “unlikely” to extend New Start, the last remaining pillar of the arms control regime developed during the Cold War, leaving the US and Russia without constraints on their nuclear arsenals for the first time in three decades.

“We’ve had our hands tied by this treaty while China develops its intermediate-range weapons unconstrained by any treaty obli­gations,” Mr Bolton said.

“We chose to untie our hands in order to protect America effectively in the 21st century.”

The INF treaty, signed in 1987, had its roots in the Euromissile crisis of the 1970s and 80s when the US deployed land-based cruise missiles to Europe.

The intermediate-range missiles could hit their target within 10 minutes, leaving little time for ­decision-making or a change of course, and their deployment prompted protests across Europe.

The INF paved the way for their removal.

NATO members have pledged not to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe after the treaty is terminated. “Russia does not believe NATO,” its Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov, said this week.

New Start, the 2010 iteration of the Reagan-era nuclear arms reduction agreement with Moscow, was “flawed from the beginning”, Mr Bolton said. The US wants a new treaty that includes China but Beijing is not interested.

The Times