US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7937

A fierce debate is brewing inside the Trump administration over whether to withdraw from another international treaty — this one a cornerstone disarmament pact with Russia banning an entire class of nuclear missiles.

The Russian military in February was accused yet again of violating the 1987 Intermediate Range Forces Treaty, which eliminated U.S. and Soviet missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers, by deploying a battalion of banned weapons on Europe’s periphery. The Obama administration first reported in 2014 Russia had tested the banned missile.

Leading Republican hawks are pushing legislation to compel Trump to take steps to develop new missiles in response — the first steps to jettisoning what is known as the INF treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mihkail Gorbachev. Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs a key oversight panel on nuclear weapons, told POLITICO he thinks it is “irresponsible for us to continue to adhere to a treaty when the only other participant has long moved on from it.”

But there are serious questions inside the Pentagon, State Department and the White House National Security Council — and loud warnings from the architects of the pact — about the consequences of such a move, which some say could spark a full-blown arms race.