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Can the INF agreement be saved by extension?

DISARMAMENT / With the Trump administration's cancellation of the INF deal, the world seems to be losing an important framework for arms control and nuclear disarmament. The danger of new armament is immediate. But what if the agreement is continued in a new and more ambitious edition?




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The obligations of the United States and Russia through the INF agreement (the disarmament agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1987, ed.) Formally terminated 2. February this year. At the same time, the parties have stated that they will not resign until six months. That is, the US and Russia can still negotiate a continuation of the agreement, but then the parties' disarmament policy must change.

In short, Trump's main reason for not renewing INF is that Russia has violated the deal in recent years by developing the SSC 8 rocket and 9M729 system. The evidence the United States claims to have for this claim has not been published. Nor can they be met directly by Putin, who himself claims that the development of weapons does not violate the country's INF obligations. The alleged evidence of Russia's breach of agreement has been presented internally in NATO, with the result that a united alliance supports the US accusations, and on this basis supports the US withdrawal from the INF agreement. At the same time, the Russians are accusing the United States of breaking the INF agreement by developing new medium-range weapons and deploying Tomahawk ramps in Eastern Europe. The Russians have also pointed out that the US deployment of rocket shields in Europe is contrary to the agreement. The charges have been made regularly over many years.

China

In any case, the real reason for the Trump administration taking the initiative to scrap the INF deal seems to have far more to do with China than with Russia. Both Trump himself and several key players in both the Obama and Trump administration have for a number of years indicated that developments in China make the INF agreement no longer in US security policy self-interest. This is because China has over time developed its nuclear weapons arsenal in the medium-range weapons and cruise missiles significantly, even on platforms INF does not allow the US to develop itself. 95 percent of China's missiles are currently within the range INF prohibits. In addition to China, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, South Korea and Saudi Arabia have recently acquired medium-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. If the fear of this development is the real motive for America's new INF policy, it is worth asking whether INF's rescue can actually be a extension of the agreement, where all states possessing such nuclear weapons supplies may be included. When Trump himself responded to questions about why he wants US resignation from INF 1. In February, he stated that a "new and better deal would be desirable". Trump stated that INF is an old agreement, "where first and foremost new states must be included". He further stated that “my hope is that we can get into a big, great room and create a new deal that will be much better, "writes NY Times 1. February. Among all, it is understood that China is included, perhaps even the other states mentioned above. So, to take Trump's own words seriously, expanding INF may be a possible solution.

Russia

Nor does an expansion of INF seem entirely foreign to Russia. In 2007, Putin declared that INF was no longer in their national interest. The following year, Russia submitted proposals for a new and global INF agreement, which would replace the current INF agreement. This proposal did not receive the necessary support in the UN disarmament machinery. China was a clear opponent of the proposal. After Trump announced in October that he wanted to leave the INF, the desire to negotiate a new global INF deal rather than scrap the one we have has been voiced by both NATO, Germany and the United States' own president. Unfortunately, this desire does not appear to be in the form of any concrete proposal or to be the subject of real consultations between the nine states that currently possess nuclear weapons. However, the idea should not be written off.

In 2021, the New START Agreement also expires on date. This is the only nuclear disarmament agreement between the United States and Russia that is still in force. In theory, the agreement can be extended for five new years, but in light of the current status of the INF agreement, this is unlikely. Inside the Trump administration, there are also a number of voices that oppose gun control and disarmament in principle, such as John Bolton. But even Bolton said in 2011 that he was open to "globalizing INF". Russia, for its part, is strategically inferior to Americans in conventional military power and thus feels even more dependent on its nuclear weapons than the United States. That Russia would impose restrictions on the design of its nuclear weapons policy, or enter into nuclear disarmament without reciprocity with the United States, thus seems unrealistic. If, on the other hand, it were possible to get an INF agreement in an expanded global edition, this could have far-reaching positive effects, even for the above-mentioned challenges.

Alexander Harang
Alexander Harang
Harang is the editor of "Fredsnasjonen", the magazine MODERN TIMES published in the summer of 2021.

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