https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/n...eaty-w0pzk9tmp
Nuclear arms race looms as US quit INF missile treaty
The United States will withdraw from a nuclear treaty with Russia by tomorrow 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 (INF) 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 that it will not change course.
President Trump made clear that his concern was not only Russian cheating but US military rivalry with a China unconstrained by treaty obligations....... John Bolton, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, said that after tomorrow Washington would be free to compete with Beijing.
He said that 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........
New Start, the 2010 iteration of the Reagan-era nuclear arms reduction agreement with Moscow, was “flawed from the beginning”, Mr Bolton said. “It did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery systems. It is due to expire in 2021 and while no decision has been made it’s unlikely to be extended. Why extend a flawed system just to say you have a treaty?” The Trump administration
wants a new treaty that includes China but Beijing is not interested.
Jens Stoltenberg the secretary-general of Nato, appealed to Russia yesterday to comply with the INF treaty, even as he conceded that the pact was about to expire. Mr Stoltenberg said, “we see the demise of the INF treaty”, but he added, “we still call on Russia to come back into compliance”.