Vinicius Martins Dalbelo
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 16, n. 3, e1173, 2021
1-24
The Trump Administration and
the United States withdrawal from
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty
A Administração Trump e a saída
dos Estados Unidos do Tratado de Forças
Nucleares de Alcance Intermediário
La Administración Trump y la retirada
de Estados Unidos del Tratado de
Fuerzas Nucleares de Alcance Intermedio
DOI: 10.21530/ci.v16n3.2021.1173
Vinicius Martins Dalbelo
1
Abstract
In 2019, the Trump administration finalized the American
withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF Treaty). For three decades, INF was fundamental to the
non-proliferation regime, European strategic stability and Russian-
American relations. This investigation correlates with prominent
American political studies: i) Trump’s populist conservatism; ii) a
conflictive global system with the rise of China and the resumption
of Russia. This paper employs a qualitative multimethod: causal
narrative with the historical method. Two sets of sources are
employed: (i) declassified U.S. government documents; (ii) narrative
sources. This study is expected to contribute to discussions about
Trumpism and American foreign policy.
Keywords: INF Treaty; Donald Trump; United States; Foreign Policy.
1 Doutorando em Ciência Política pela Universidade de São Paulo.
(viniciusdalbelo@gmail.com). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2477-4724.
Artigo submetido em 19/03/2021 e aprovado em 14/06/2021.
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RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS
ISSN 2526-9038
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The Trump Administration and the United States withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range [...]
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 16, n. 3, e1173, 2021
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Resumo
Em 2019, a administração Trump finalizou a retirada norte-americana do Tratado de
Forças Nucleares de Alcance Intermediário (Tratado INF). Durante três décadas, o INF foi
fundamental para o regime de não-proliferação, estabilidade estratégica europeia e relações
russo-americanas. Esta investigação dialoga com estudos políticos proeminentes sobre EUA:
i) conservadorismo populista de Trump; ii) sistema global conflituoso com a ascensão da
China e a retomada da Rússia. Este artigo emprega multimétodos qualitativos: narrativa
causal e o método histórico. Dois conjuntos de fontes são empregados: (i) documentos
desclassificados do governo norte-americano; (ii) fontes narrativas. Espera-se que este
estudo contribua para as discussões sobre o trumpismo e a política externa norte-americana.
Palavras-chaves: Tratado INF; Donald Trump; Estados Unidos; Política Externa.
Resumén
En 2019, la administración Trump finalizó la retirada estadounidense del Tratado de Fuerzas
Nucleares de Alcance Intermedio (Tratado INF). Durante tres décadas, INF fue fundamental
para el régimen de no proliferación, la estabilidad estratégica europea y las relaciones
ruso-estadounidenses. Esta investigación se correlaciona con destacados estudios políticos
estadounidenses: i) el conservadurismo populista de Trump; ii) un sistema global conflictivo
con el ascenso de China y la reanudación de Rusia. Este artículo emplea un multimétodo
cualitativo: narrativa causal con el método histórico. Se emplean dos conjuntos de fuentes:
(i) documentos desclasificados del gobierno de los Estados Unidos; (ii) fuentes narrativas.
Se espera que este estudio contribuya a las discusiones sobre el trumpismo y la política
exterior estadounidense.
Palavras-clave: Tratado INF; Donald Trump; Estados Unidos; Política Externa.
Introduction
This paper aims to understand the domestic and international factors of the
United State’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(henceforth INF Treaty) under the Trump administration in 2019. The disengagement
was unwelcomed by lawmakers (both Democrats and Republicans), international
allies, and most scholars since no benefit could be explicitly displayed. Still,
Trumpist advocates rejoiced in the president’s isolationist, unilateralist and hawkish
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approach and his commitment to reassert American might against international
foes. This inquiry correlates with two prominent fields in contemporary American
political studies: i) the persistent influence of Trump’s conservatism over American
politics and its effects on foreign policy and international role; ii) the emergence
of a conflictive multipolarity with China’s ascension and Russia’s resumption,
which has been called “New or Second Cold War.”
In 1987, Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
reached a historic moment when they signed the INF Treaty. Under the INF, the
superpowers agreed, in an unprecedented way, on the elimination of all their
Intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) and Ground-launched cruise missile
(GLCM) stockpile and related launchers. IRBM and GLCM are both ground-based,
ranging from 500km to 5500 km and multi-setting because they can transport
conventional, biological, chemical, and nuclear warheads (Hughes 2009). Until
1991, the U.S. and the Soviet Union (USSR) eliminated 2,692 missiles and initiated
a 10-year on-the-spot verification (up to 2001). In 2014, the U.S. accused Russia
of an alleged violation and material breach when bilateral tensions escalated.
Moreover, American concerns about the Chinese current missile build-up have
become central in its strategic unease since the late 2000s. Trump’s response
was to withdraw the U.S. from the INF Treaty unilaterally on August 2, 2019.
The complete withdrawal was expected but still was met with broad concern.
The INF’s primary motivation had been a critical framework for European
security since the 1980s, Russian-American relations, and the international non-
proliferation regime.
The 32-years-old Treaty generated extensive research. Overall, the conclusions
about its existence and continuity have been positive. In the 1990s, researchers
established its success in the non-proliferation regime, but since the early 2000s,
a vertical proliferation has been befalling in China, North Korea, Iran, India,
and Pakistan. The international system presently faces a very high possibility
of new testing, development, and deployment of formerly banned missiles by
Russia and the U.S. European and Asian theatres are severely more affected
by the INF’s end; still, it engenders menacing security effects over the whole
international system.2
2 The New York Times chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, Steven Erlanger, made a summary about
current American challenges in the nuclear arena. Presently, the U.S. faces a growing threat from nuclear
adversaries, less arms control overall, and generalized doubt about its resolve to act, after Trump’s isolationist
approache (Erlanger 2021).
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Russian-American and Chinese-American rivalries have been ascending
continuously since the early 2010s. The first is strategic competition, in which the
two most important military powers keep their struggle over areas of influence
(Pautasso 2014). The second is economic competition and future strategic one,
given China’s rapid military build-up and current preponderance in international
trade, tech industries, and infrastructure. Although the concept of a “New or
Second Cold War” is not widely embraced nor unanimous, a new competitive
multipolar framework might be dominant from now on. So, the INF demise is
a central piece because its security effects will overflow to other dimensions of
geopolitics and international affairs.
Moreover, the American current political scenario has dominated media
outlets worldwide with the recent 2020 presidential election. The Trumpist-4-
years White House has placed the U.S. in an isolationist pathway not seen since
before World War II and has been identified as a brand new variety of American
conservatism (Ayerbe 2018; Pecequilo and Lopes 2018). The Republican party had
been overwhelmingly Reaganist since the 1980s, but now, its future is uncertain.
Still, even with Trump’s defeat, political scientists are foreseeing a lasting and
prevailing influence of this new American politics approach, this is, Trumpism.
The INF Treaty demise is a specific part of this context, however a critical
one. During the Cold War, the two most dangerous scenarios were derived from
missile development, testing, and deployment: the Cuban missile (1962) and
Euromissiles (1983) crises. Although the INF had prohibited only two missile
classes, those represent more geostrategic complexities than other varieties.
First, in continental countries such as Russia and China, they can be deployed
extensively and possibly threaten all of Europe and Asia. Second, to deploy
countervailing and countermeasure deterrence missiles, the U.S. would need
special permissions from other governments. Since the demise, Japan, South
Korea, Poland, and Germany explicitly warned they would not accept American
IRBM and GLCM in their territories.
This research paper is based upon a multimethod design, combining the
causal narrative with the historical approach to grasp the U.S. withdrawal
pathway. The first correlates strongly with comprehensive storyline epistemology
because intertwined variables (international and domestic) acted parallelly and
sequentially, steering the U.S. to the path of withdrawal. The second enhances
internal validity by employing source-triangulation as a crucial methodological
tool to support the findings. This source-driven has engaged official unclassified
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U.S. government documents, such as reports on adherence to and compliance
with arms control, the Congress’ National Security Defensive Acts (NSDA), and
Trump Administration INF Treaty Integrated Strategy. Narrative sources are
also utilized, such as Trump’s press releases and Twitter posts, John Bolton’s
memoir, and official communiqués. The spatiality encompasses the Department
of Defense, Department of State, the U.S. Mission to International Organizations
in Geneva, the U.S. Congress and the White House.
This paper has been divided into four parts. Section one begins by laying out
the INF Treaty’s historical background and looks at how it took a crucial role in
the non-proliferation regime, European security stability, and Russian-American
relations. Section two describes the missile proliferation during the Obama
administration, the ascending rivalry with Russia and the alleged violation. In
section three, I review the present pieces of evidence from the Trump administration
to examine the INF’s recent history and demise. Finally, the final remarks section
assesses the outcomes and short and medium-term missile proliferation and
impacts on contemporary international security.
The INF creation and importance for international security
In the 1960s, the USSR deployed its first intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM), placing the U.S. continental territory under an international foe’s reach
for the first time. The development, production, and deployment of ballistic
missiles became central concerns during the Cold War. In the 1970s, the Soviets
developed a powerful intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), the SS-20,
threatening Western Europe. At the time, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) responded with a dual-track strategy: NATO would continue negotiating
a diplomatic response towards the Soviet military build-up, whilst the U.S.
would develop and deploy its improved IRBM version, the Pershing II (Collins
2009). Known as the Euromissile crisis, the 1983 IRBM American-Soviet dispute
is considered the second most dangerous moment in the Cold War (after the
1962 Cuban missiles crisis). The works of McGeehan (1982), Haass (1988),
and Hughes (2009) focused on the initial developments, NATO’s response and
the massive popular outrage, which stirred up the Nuclear Freeze campaign
in the U.S. and Western Europe. Complementarily, Glitman and Burns (2006)
and Rueckert (1993) focused on within-case studies and historical approaches
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to explore the negotiation itself. Overall, all scholars recognized the improving
Soviet-American relations since 1985, when Reagan found Gorbachev a willing
Soviet leader to negotiate.
After the USSR fall, the Treaty was inherited by six former republics: Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However, Russia
became the de facto successor, remaining the major military power after the
Soviet secession. The Treaty kept a withdrawal rule, which stipulated that either
party to request termination should respect a six-month deadline and present
consistent motivation.
However, the INF restricted scope has always been criticized, and alternatives
were put to lessen its fragility. The U.S. and its allies have created the Missile
Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to prevent the technology transfering needed
to create offensive missiles. The MTCR was strengthened in the 1990s when
Russia and other former members of the Warsaw Pact joined, promoting what
Kearn (2012) called a “big cut in supply” (Kearn 2012, 24:26). In 2003, another
significant development took place when the George W. Bush administration
(2001-2009) launched the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) against trafficking
in weapons of mass destruction and equipment necessary for its use, such as
ballistic missiles (U.S.Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation
2019). Kearn (2012) concluded the INF Treaty, the MTCR, and the PSI have been,
jointly, successful in limiting horizontal proliferation, i.e., in countries that did
not have prior technologies for ballistic missile development. However, during
the 2000s, the international system observed a vertical proliferation, in which
the former missile possessors continued to develop and improve their technical
capabilities. China, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan refused to participate in the
control regimes and managed to develop capable IRBM, among other offensive
missiles (Kearn 2012). For a long time, India has also refused to be part of the
MTCR, but that changed in 2016 after the country became an official member
(MTCR 2021).
INF’s role in international regimes is vastly explored. It seems indisputable
the INF Treaty wielded a crucial role in the non-proliferation regime. The first
assessments came in the 1990s in Ozga (1994) and Bowen (1997), whose main
concern was the MTCR first-decade effectiveness. The authors concluded the
missile non-proliferation regime improved qualitative and quantitatively, with
prominent missile exporters accepting self-imposed restrictions. In the 2000s,
Feickert (2003) and Gormley (2008) continued such evaluation. Although their
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writings were not restricted to the INF Treaty, the scholars reassessed arms control
and non-proliferation regimes and manifested the Treaty’s continuous importance
and effectiveness. However, it was noticed limited usefulness regarding the GLCM
proliferation for two mains reasons. First, GLCM components are similar to
civil aviation, so the trading restrictions were not viable restraint tools. Second,
GLCM-related rocketry (as the American Tomahawk missile) was broadly used
by the U.S. Army during the Gulf War (1990-1991) and Iraq (2003-2011) and
Afghanistan (2001-) wars (Kearn 2012).
In parallel to the non-proliferation regime, and despite it, the beginning of
the 21st century testified the gradual return of Russian-American rivalry. In 2002,
Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), another
significant Cold War outcome signed by Richard Nixon in 1972. The ABM Treaty
prevented a likely and costly arms race to create anti-ballistic missile defense
systems (Schulzinger 2012).
3
Such defense systems have been a constant in
international security since the early Cold War years because, as Matchett (2021)
affirms, they create an overall feeling of safety, and its defensive nature is much
more political admissible. However, missile defense systems have a fatal flaw:
they are cost-prohibitive and are moderate easily overrun by offensive systems.
Despite this weakness, defensive systems exert a strong appeal in American
presidents and lawmakers (especially Republicans), having Reagan’s Strategic
Defense Initiative a meaningful case.4
Following this pattern, Bush proposed to develop missile defense systems
in Poland and the Czech Republic, met with criticism and suspicion by Russian
authorities. Although Bush claimed the operation targeted Iran’s offensive
capabilities, the Kremlin understood it as an anti-Russian initiative. In 2005,
Russian officials privately informed the American government of their pretension
to leave the INF treaty, which came out publically in 2007. Harding (2007)
presented the most compelling argument, arguing that Russia used the INF
withdrawal as an implicit threat and retaliation against the U.S. “missile shield”
in Europe. It is crucial to have in mind that without the INF, Russia can develop
3 The ABM Treaty dealt with increasing concern with offensive capabilities, and the search for an effective
defense system. With an effective defense system, one of the superpowers would have the ability to negate
a first strike, destabilize strategic parity and encourage preemptive attacks.
4 The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a Reagan’s proposed missile defense system in outerspace to defend
American and American-allies territories from ballistic nuclear weapons. He pledged for a defensive system to
end nuclear-war possibility. Although the SDI had an important role in bilateral negotiations, it never came
to fruition, given techonological and economic constraints.
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and deploy offensive missile systems against Western and Eastern Europe that
could easily overwhelm American defensive systems. Both in Russia and the
U.S., the INF restrictiveness was criticized by hawkish characters, especially
considering China’s rapid IRBM developments and stockpiling. For the Kremlin,
Russia had more enemies on its borders than the U.S., so the Treaty was ill-suited
to tackle their regional security concerns. However, Russia would not leave the
INF Treaty, and in 2007 it officially proposed at the United Nations (UN) its
globalization or multilateralization to incorporate new regional IRBM-owners.
The U.S. government supported the request, but countries like China refused
the expansion (Kearn 2012).
The Obama Administration and the Russian violations
The missile proliferation came to be an acute dispute in current international
security policy-making. The Obama administration (2009-2017) carried out
the anti-missile defense project in Europe, renaming it the Phased Adaptative
Approach (PAA). The PAA set up four phases to the European defense system
deployment. It began with the SM-3 Block IB maritime interceptor missiles in
the Mediterranean (2011), followed by SM-3 Block IA (2015) in Romania, then
SM-3 Block IIA model (2018) in Poland, and finally would reach a more accurate
and robust SM-3 Block IIB model around 2020 (U.S. Bureau of Arms Control,
Verification, and Compliance 2011). Eventually, for budgetary and technical
restraints, the PAA last phase was abandoned. The Russians continued their
criticism, stating two potential menaces. First, the American system endangered
global strategic parity because the interceptor missiles would be effective against
their intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Second, the American reasoning
was unconvincing, and the Kremlin affirmed the Iranian inability to produce
and deploy shortly a perilous IRBM against American allies in Eurasia (Collina
2014). The Russians became sharper unease in 2013 when Iran negotiated the
Joint Plan of Action, an agreement to freeze its nuclear program in exchange
for economic and technological assistance with six powers.5 Even after the deal,
5 The Geneva Interim Agreement was the first formal agreement between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979
diplomatic breakup. Eventually, it led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, when Iran signed up
a nuclear deal with the United Nation’s Security Council permanent members plus the European Union. The
JCPOA has receiving great attention since the Trump administration unilateral withdrawal. Recently, the Biden
administration has promised to reengage America commitments to the deal (Davenport 2021).
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the U.S. decided to stick to the defense system, which the Kremlin defended
to be compelling evidence that the PAA was an anti-Russian initiative. Finally,
the anti-missile defense systems issue has been expanding globally as the U.S.
decided to supply its allies in the Middle East (United Arab Emirates and Saudi
Arabia) and Far Asia (Japan and South Korea). Not for nothing, anti-missile
systems came to be part of different countries’ military doctrines in the 2010s,
such as China since 2013 (Farnsworth 2013).
Kearn’s vertical proliferation hypothesis has been proved, and it became further
accentuated in the 2010s. India successfully tested two IRBMs in the period, its
Agni-4 (3500 km) and Agni-5 (5000 km), which government officials considered
a major technological breakthrough in the country’s military capabilities. The
Indian example is exciting to understand the subtleties of missile proliferation in
international relations. The IRBM class encompass missiles varying from 500km
to 5500km, which raises meaningful geostrategic balance. In the Indian case, it is
well documented its geopolitical rivalry with Pakistan, and both hold deterrence
IRBMs aimed at each other. However, 1000km-IRBM is adequate for strategic
deterrence. Thus Agni-4 and Agni-5 IRBMs are very likely not directed against
the Muslim rival, but China. Not surprisingly, the Agni-5 could reach Beijing
from anywhere in India (Crail and Masterson, 2012). Moreover, other countries
developed their capabilities in the same period. Israel developed its Arrow-3,
used in missile defense systems. Iran tested the Quad-F and Quad-H models in
the Indian Ocean. North Korea tested its 2010 Musudan model several times,
although not always successfully. Two important conclusions can be drawn. First,
in all of these cases, the missiles are IRBM models that would be banned if the
INF Treaty was multilateralized after the Russian-American initiative. Secondly,
the intermediate-range missile proliferation has its main stage in Asia, fostering
a dangerous arms race in the region, which has been escalating recently.
With the acceleration of ballistic-missile vertical proliferation, INF critics
grounded their views in this new geopolitical environment. In the U.S., a hard-
line approach suggested the country could not adequately answer new challenges
imposed by regional contesters, such as Iran, North Korea, and China. During the
Obama administration, the Iranian nuclear program evolved into an existential
threat to American hegemony in the Middle East (Pecequilo and Forner 2017).
Fitzpatrick (2011) concluded that Iran was moving towards nuclear capability,
which could be attached to their also in development IRBM arsenal. Rubin
(2012, para. 36) described Iranian missile development as “a showcase of
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missile proliferation” and argued that all the major obstacles to development,
testing, and deployment would be rapidly overcome. In a very pessimistic
conclusion, Rubin affirmed the missile non-proliferation regime’s feebleness to
restrain Iran.
The North Korea case was assessed by Cha (2009), Fitzpatrick (2011), and
Visentini and Pereira (2014). Similarly, the authors concluded the continuous
threat imposed by a very isolated and recalcitrant state, engaged in a political game
of concessions and extractions with the U.S. based on its nuclear development.
Kearn (2012) contends that North Korea is potentially more dangerous than
Iran, given its biological and chemical weapons capabilities, which also could
be attached to the multi-setting IRBM. North Korea also poses a critical problem
as an essential source of prohibited missile technologies, providing missiles and
components to Iran, Syria, among others.
In turn, China represents a much more significant challenge for future
American international position and security strategies. The Asian aspirant to
superpower has been receiving a lot of attention from scholars and policy analysts
worldwide, including its missile build-up, as can be seen in Tanner et al. (2006),
Pecequilo e Carmo (2014), and Pinotti (2015). For our purpose, it suffices to
understand that China has engaged in a rapid arsenal-building, and two critical
concerns arise. First, about 90% of the Chinese arsenal is compounded by
IRBM, and its missile build-up continues. Second, although the U.S. continental
territory could not be reached from China with this missile model, the American
presence in the Pacific ocean is severely compromised by the Chinese strategy
known as A2/Area-Denial.6
Thus, it is not surprising that hawkish neoconservatives characters and
institutions in the U.S. vocally expressed resentment with the INF, which they
saw as limiting to American hegemony. On the other hand, the majority of
scholars thought otherwise. Kearn’s 2012 seminal work is a primary example.
The author argued the U.S. had several conventional options to respond to the
emerging regional security challenges, and the INF treaty withdrawal would just
add costly and unnecessary political disputes. Even worse, the Treaty’s demise
would probably foster a new missile race.
6 According to Kearn (2012, 60:61) “anti-access measure to be any action by an opponent that has the effect
of slowing the deployment of friendly forces into a theater, preventing them from operating from certain
locations within the theater, or causing them to operate from distances farther from the locus of conflict than
they would normally prefer”.
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To the dismay of international security policy-making specialists and scholars,
a 2014 dispute between the U.S. and Russia led to the 2019 INF Treaty collapse.
On January 30, 2014, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed an
alleged Russian violation after The New York Times had come up with the public
allegation on January 29. The paper quoted “a possibility that Russia might have
violated the INF Treaty,” and the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, had initiated dialogue with Russia and
NATO members (Gordon 2014). Presently, new pieces of information have been
released and permit a more detailed analysis. The U.S. first raised INF concerns in
May 2013, when Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Thomas
Donilon and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with Russian Security
Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. In June, the Russian Ambassador to the
U.S. Sergey Kislyak denied any non-compliant activity, which was reasserted in
November by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who reaffirmed
Russian commitment to the Treaty (U.S. Mission to International Organizations
in Geneva 2019).
In July 2014, the American government confirmed the violation through the
“Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control” report (U.S. Bureau of Arms
Control, Verification, and Compliance 2014 , 5), although providing few details.
Media outlets reported that Obama and Putin talked directly about the issue,
agreeing to organize high-level meetings to find a solution. However, Russian
authorities categorically denied American accusations, starting years of mutual
recriminations.
In September 2014, the first high-level meeting occurred in Moscow. Soon
after, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf reported both parties were
unable to reach common ground (Barnes 2014). Then, in December, a joint
session of the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs congressional committees
summoned White House officials to discuss the violations. Gottemoeller stated
the administration’s willingness to resolve the impasse and possible responses
were to be released. Among them, military alternatives caught up the attention
because they allowed the U.S. to respond to the violation also transgressing the
INF treaty. However, the Obama administration seemed determined to bring
Russia back to compliance. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policies, Brian
McKeon, certified this idea in “the U.S. wants to avoid an escalatory cycle of
action and reaction” (quoted in Collina 2015, para. 7).
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During 2015 and 2016, Russian-American accusations and counter-accusations
pattern reached a stalemate. The alleged INF violation became part of an increasing
tension involving Crimea annexation, sanctions rounds, and Russia beginning
an air campaign in Syria. As a consequence, the Obama administration adopted
a broader response strategy towards Russia. Gottemoeller and McKeon testified
in committees that “Russia is not violating the INF in isolation from its overall
aggressive behaviour” (quoted Fieldhouse 2016, para. 23). Several bilateral and
multilateral meetings took place, and NATO members were briefed about the
Russian violation. In July 2016, during the Warsaw NATO Summit, members
expressed their assessment, stating, “Allies therefore continue to call on Russia
to preserve the viability of the INF Treaty through ensuring full and verifiable
compliance” (NATO 2016, para. 62).
After 2014, the Republican party gained control of the Senate, becoming the
majority party in both legislative houses. Republicans lawmakers escalated the
dispute, organizing more than 60 briefings, hearings, and meetings about the
alleged INF violation. The more hard-line approach was felt in both the 2015
and 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and reveal the increasing
domestic political pressure over the administration to adopt tougher responses.
The NDAA gathers all the provisions related to the annual budget and total
expenditures of the Department of Defense, which allow, in practice, Congress
to influence and directly impact agencies’ structures, personnel and even set
the policies to be pursued. Notwithstanding, the American Congress exerts a
formidable influence over foreign policy through its capacity to withhold or
release necessary funds for diverse goals. In the 2015 NDAA, the Russian violation
is acknowledged in Section 1244 (2), and in subsection (3) is quoted General
Martin Dempsey’s assessment, stating “these violations are a serious challenge
to the security of the United States and our allies. These actions, particularly
when placed in the broader context of Russian regional aggression, must be met
with a strategic response”. Section 1651 outlined Congress expectations about
American responses. The lawmakers demanded a “detailed description of any
steps being taken or planned […] to reduce the negative impact of such actions on
the national security.” However, no drastic and specific military countermeasures
were demanded (U.S. Congress 2015, 238, 274).
On the other hand, the 2016 NDAA represented a qualitative and quantitative
change. Not only the Russian violation had gained much more consideration,
as it also called for a tougher and hawkish stance. Congress praised Obama for
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“efforts taken to compel Russia to return to compliance” using military and non-
military options, however criticizing his open-ended approach. In line with the
official administration posture, Russian violation was seen as part of its overall
aggressive and cheating behaviour. It was stated:
“not only should the Russian Federation end its cheating with respect to
the INF Treaty, but also its illegal occupation of the sovereign territory of
another nation, its plans for stationing nuclear weapons on that nation’s
territory, and its cheating and violation of as many as eight of its 12 arms
control obligations and agreements” (U.S. Congress 2016, 1061).
This time, the hawkish approach usually associated with the Republican
party is very explicit in the Congress requirements. It was requested an Executive
plan for developing the military capabilities, divided into counterforce and
countervailing strike capabilities, outlining “whether or not such capabilities are
in compliance with the INF Treaty” (U.S. Congress 2016, 1063). Doing so, the
Republican-majority Congress not only allowed as also demanded an American
response that ultimately would violate the INF treaty, opposing Obama’s diplomatic
approach.
The Trump Administration:
Hawkish, unilateralist and isolationist foreign policy
While the INF treaty demise represents a very important development in
contemporary international relations and international security, it was relatively
overshadowed by Trump’s administration bursting foreign policy agenda. In the
last four years, scholars and specialists have been trying to grasp what such
an erratic and unpredictable Trumpist foreign policy signifies for America’s
great strategy, hegemonic role, and liberal international order. Trump has been
acknowledged as an “isolationist” or “neo-isolationist,” and Gonçalves and
Teixeira (2019) argue that despite his unpredictable nature, Trump followed his
isolationist agenda, represented in the America First and Make America Great Again
(MAGA) approaches. His political approach is based on “jacksonian populism,
nationalism, and individualism” (Gonçalves and Teixeira 2019, 194). Pecequilo
(2017, 347) argues that Trumpism represents the apex of “guilty outsourcing,”
i.e., the former president inclination to attribute guilty to everybody else, which
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supported his foreign policy. However, the author sustains that Trump continued
the “internationalism unilateralist,” normally associated with the neoconservative
movement and the Republican party. Overall, it seems to exist a common consent
that Trump represents both a symptom and a booster for the current extremely
divided American political landscape (Cruz 2019).
When Trump took office in 2017, the INF Russian violation remained in a
deadlock. Despite its overall hard-line rhetoric, his administration kept a similar
Obama’s stance towards the subject, avoiding aggressive confrontation and
prioritizing a diplomatic approach. The new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson,
and Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, kept direct negotiations with their
Russian counterparts, however unsuccessfully. Further, Trump decided by another
Obama’s diplomatic approach using the Special Verification Commission (SVC),
the Treaty’s dispute resolution body founded in 1987 to follow the IRBM and
GLCM destruction and on-spot verification.
The SVC gathered on November
16, 2016, and on December 12-14, 2017, with no positive results. For the first
time, the National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director Christopher Ford
announced which Russian missile model was in violation: known as SSC-8 by
NATO members and 9M729 in Russia. The Kremlin recognized the existence of
the 9M729 model but objected to its capacity to reach INF ranges (U.S. Mission
in Geneva 2019). Since the first accusation in 2014, the U.S. government kept
this piece of information hidden, which can be presumed to prevent Russian
officials from understanding how current American intelligence information is
gathered (U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Geneva 2019).
The hawkish and unilateralist approach, largely associated with Trump’s
foreign policy, would be felt in December 2017 after the administration released
its INF Treaty Integrated Strategy, which stated:
“The Administration firmly believes, however, that the United States cannot
stand still while the Russian Federation continues to develop military systems
in violation of the Treaty. While the United States will continue to pursue a
diplomatic solution, we are now pursuing economic and military measures
intended to induce the Russian Federation to return to compliance. This
includes a review of military concepts and options, including options for
conventional, ground-launched, intermediate-range missile systems, which
would enable the United States to defend ourselves and our allies, should
the Russian Federation not return to compliance. This step will not violate
our INF Treaty obligations. We are also prepared to cease such research
and development activities if the Russian Federation returns to full and
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verifiable compliance with its INF Treaty obligations.” (U.S. Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense, 2017, para. 3)
The Integrated Strategy signals an important change: diplomacy would
not exert the main role in inducing Russian return to compliance. In line with
Republican lawmakers in Congress, the White House set a new approach to
tackle the Russian violation, substantiating more economic sanctions and military
pressures. A few weeks later, the U.S. Federal Register published a final rule
adding Novator and Titan, two companies involved in developing Russian 9M729
missile, to the Department of Commerce Entity List (U.S. Mission to International
Organizations in Geneva 2019). Doing so, both companies became subject to
special license requirements to export or transfer specified items, pressuring
them to abnegate their ties with the Kremlin. More importantly, the White House
seized the opportunity given by Republican-majority Congress to reinstate IRBM
research and possible development to sway Russian authorities into compliance.
However, the new economic and strategic pressures proved unsuccessful. In
2018, the American INF treaty withdrawal began. In June, by U.S. initiative, a
third expert meeting took place, evincing Trump’s final effort towards a diplomatic
resolution. However, after the meeting, Russian authorities refused any further
discussion about the violating missile topic, seemingly shutting down a diplomatic
solution. As Reif (2018, para. 4) suggests, after the Russian stance, Trump’s
decision has “come together quickly”. In July, following American leading,
the Brussels NATO Summit Declaration stated harshly, “Allies believe that, in
the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, the most
plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the Treaty” (NATO
2018, para. 46).
Trump’s change of heart can be evidence of the great influence of his new
national security adviser, John Bolton. Bolton had been a vocal critic of the INF
treaty and was fundamental in the 2002 Bush ABM treaty withdrawal. In his 2020
memoir, he states, “Since my days in George W. Bush’s Administration, I had
wanted to extricate the United States from the INF”. His arguments synthesize very
well the widespread criticism from hard-liners in the U.S.: i) persistent Russian
breaches vitiated INF’s purpose; ii) The Treaty bounded no other countries,
including the biggest threat facing the U.S., China; iii) the INF was outdated
technologically, given sea- and air-launched missiles could hit the same targets
(Bolton 2020, Cp.6). Bolton’s narrative must be apprehended cautiously due to his
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role as an observer-participant in the policy-making. However, important insights
can be observed and critically analyzed. Three aspects deserve detailed analysis:
i) His personal opinions about Trump role and actions; ii) the neoconservative
stance regarding American allies, especially European countries and NATO; iii)
the Russian responses to the Trump administration.
As Gonçalves and Teixeira (2019) argue, Trump exhibited erratic behavior,
which was quite pronounced in his foreign policy agenda. The INF withdrawal
and Bolton’s accounts seem to demonstrate such behaviour. For instance, Bolton
recounts that a mutual agreement between the NSC, the Department of Defense
and the Department of State conformed to an exit schedule starting on December
4, 2018, when the U.S. would officially notify and begin the departure process.
However, just three days after being briefed on all the negotiation steps and
planning, Trump announced the exit during a rally in Nevada, disregarding
his staff completely and not considering any diplomatic and legal provision.
Trump expressed: “Russia has violated the agreement; they have been violating
it for many years. And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement
and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to” (quoted Reif 2018, para.
5). After Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ great insistence, Trump would agree
to return to the original schedule. Still, after a few days, he once more made
inflammable statements about the U.S.’s departure, claiming that he would not
accept “playing games” with the Russians and the Chinese. It is interesting
to note that Bolton brings up such erratic behaviour, further claiming that he
suspected the president did not fully understand what was going on. Implicitly,
the former adviser argues that Trump was unable to understand the Treaty’s
technical and legal aspects, having an almost childlike desire to leave as soon
as possible to demonstrate a position of strength. While such a stance seems
to have deeply bothered Jim Mattis, Bolton did not care at all because Trump’s
posture was perfectly in line with his own goals.
Bolton’s neglect of Trump’s behaviour indicates another significant feature of
Trumpism: its close association with the neoconservative movement, ideologically
and pragmatically. As Pecequilo and Lopes (2018) affirm, Trump can be framed
in the internationalism unilateralist approach in American foreign policy, which
is largely associated with neoconservatives. The way the Trump administration
managed European concerns during the withdrawal ground and deepened this
instance. Bolton lampoons Europeans because they supposedly believe in living
in a falsely peaceful world, while their enemies only grow stronger and threaten
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them more and more. He is troubled by European leaders’ reluctance to affirm
the Russian violation, fearing that they would be pressured to accept U.S. nuclear
weapons in their territories in the future. Furthermore, his distress covers NATO,
and Bolton is uncomfortable with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg because
even after he was presented with substantive evidence of the Russian material
breach, he still questions the U.S. stance. Despite this, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel managed to convince Trump to postpone the exit process by
60 days, committing herself to effectively supporting the exit decision if a
diplomatic solution was not found. Interestingly, Bolton reports that Trump
only accepted German request by privately indicating to his staff that the U.S.
would withdraw from the Treaty, one way or another. Thus, it is possible to
substantiate Pecequilo and Lopes’ claim, showing that Trump had no real intention
to accommodate European concerns, focusing on his unilateralist and America
First views.
The Trump White House disregard for its allies benefited Russian political
efforts to vilify the U.S. among European countries. There is some consensus
among experts that the INF end had greater advantages for the Russians than
the Americans. The Kremlin was very effective in publicly pinpointing the U.S.
at fault for the demise. For instance, during a press conference in Moscow in
October 2018, Putin harshly accused American, but in private, Bolton tells the
Russian leader seemed very little concerned about the Treaty’s demise and
much more focused on what the United States intended after. Putin questioned
whether the U.S. had any intention to deploy new IRBM in Europe, which would
resume the same tensions from the 1980’s Euromissile crisis. More importantly,
however, Putin has publicly and privately declared that Russia would respond
with its own IRBM deployment against any European country that eventually
could accept American former prohibited missiles. Hence, while the vertical
proliferation had Asia as its main stage in recent years, the INF demise and the
U.S. future development, production, and deployment have enormous potential
to escalate tensions in the European theatre in the short and medium-term.
European diplomatic efforts and Russia threats had been no significant in
Trump’s conviction. On February 2, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally
declared the U.S. to withdraw within the 6-months deadline and the suspension
of obligations. Russia reciprocated immediately, also informing its withdrawal.
The six-month period was extremely bustling. On February 12, NATO Secretary
Jens Stoltenberg reported that the alliance was “planning for a world without
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the INF treaty.” In March, officials told that formerly banned missiles tests were
scheduled for August, few days after the official withdrawal. The Pentagon was
adapting the Navy’s Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) to turn it into
a GLCM and expressed the possibility of deployment within 18 months (Taheran
2019). For the first time, the administration requested a boost of $100 million
in IRBM and GLCM research and development, which was denied by Congress,
now with the Democratic majority. Finally, on August 2, the U.S. formalized its
complete withdrawal.
Final Remarks
It is undeniable that the INF Treaty has played an important role in
international relations over the past 30 years. Its existence became possible after
a significant increase in tensions between the U.S. and the USSR during the 1980s
when the superpowers clashed over the presence of intermediate-ballistic missiles
in Europe. Among nuclear delivery systems, IRBM is very destabilizing, as they
present geostrategic controversies much more complex than their alternatives,
such as ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles), SLBM (sea-launched ballistic
missiles) and ALBM (air-launched ballistic missiles). Furthermore, the INF
became a milestone in the last years of the Cold War. It demonstrated the anti-
communist American president, Ronald Reagan, to negotiate pragmatically with
the new Soviet leadership, represented by reformer Mikhail Gorbachev. The INF
Treaty was the first time that the superpowers effectively managed to eliminate
an entire class of nuclear weapons, which improved bilateral relations, fostered
more security in Europe.
In the next two decades, INF and other bilateral and multilateral initiatives
played a key role in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The creation of the MTCR
and the PSI fostered self-restrictions on the commercialization of equipment that
could be used to produce offensive missiles. There seems to exist a consensus that
the regime successfully prevented horizontal proliferation, hampering ballistic
missiles arsenals from stretching globally. However, in recent years, a vertical
proliferation has been observed in countries that already had their own technology,
such as China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. Especially in this decade,
this proliferation has accelerated while, at the same time, these countries have
become important contesting centres of U.S. hegemony.
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In parallel, Russian-American rivalry has rekindled recently, and the alleged
2014 Russian violation fatally wounded the INF treaty. To be true, policy-makers
and analysts in the United States believe that Russia has a general disregard
for its commitments to arms control treaties and, most likely, its INF violation
dwells far longer. During the Obama administration, a diplomatic approach
was exerted to compel Russians to return to compliance. When Obama took
office, he promised to reset the bilateral relations, but diverse geopolitical events
heightened tensions and put the US-Russia rivalry back on the international stage.
Simultaneously, the challenging and aggressive behavior of Iran and North Korea
and the Chinese arsenal rapid growth have forced the United States to rethink its
strategic position. Despite the new conflictive international system, no evidence
suggests Obama’s intention to leave the Treaty, which his top officials considered
effective and relevant to the United States’ long-term security.
Nonetheless, Donald Trump’s arrival in power significantly changed American
foreign policy. Despite his aggressive rhetoric, Trump initially maintained a similar
attitude to Obama, seeking a diplomatic resolution. However, with the arrival of
a well-known hawkish to the post of NSC adviser (John Bolton) and constant
failures in the diplomatic talks, Trump took a more unilateralist, isolationist
and hawkish position. Moreover, with a Republican-majority Congress, the
administration approved budgets that ultimately weakened the INF’s objectives
and put the United States on a path of non-compliance. In late 2017, Trump’s
change-of-mind was swift. The INF Integrated Strategy assumed the more hawkish
content since the beginning of the conflict, pledging more economic sanctions
and military responses. Diplomatic encounters during 2018 were to no avail,
and despite requests from European allies, the administration followed its way
out. On August 2, 2019, the INF treaty effectively ended.
Since the INF demise, the Department of Defense has conducted at least two
IRBM and GLCM tests previously prohibited. However, after the 2018 midterm
elections, the Democratic party regained control of Congress and has systematically
refused and downplayed budgetary provisions for research and testing new IRBM.
With Biden’s victory in 2020, arms control talks between the U.S. and Russia
seem well-balanced for the moment, evinced by the Russian-American extension
of the New START, an Obama era treaty and the last functioning nuclear deal in
place. On the other hand, although the Russian-American and Chinese-American
tensions have escalated further, the coronavirus pandemic has shrouded diverse
geopolitical disputes while countries manage the domestic difficulties raised by
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this unexpected scenario. Nonetheless, for the medium-term, it is expected that
new disputes regarding missile proliferation resume and further investigations
will be vital to better understand the INF Treaty outcomes and consequences
for international security.
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