48 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
The INF Treaty:
Pulling Out in Time
AlexAnder lAnoszkA
Abstract
T
he Trump administration has suspended its obligations under the
Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Critics of this
decision argue that it is strategically unwise: it hands Russia a pro-
paganda victory, widens existing divisions among its NATO allies, and risks
an arms race in Europe. Such criticisms are overstated, however. What—if
any—propaganda benets the Kremlin may enjoy will be outweighed by
the backlash to its own aggressive behavior. NATO members have so far
supported the United States’ decision. A global arms buildup is underway,
but budgetary considerations and the nature of the military environment
in Europe will inhibit any US- Russia arms race from spiraling. Rather
than being an end unto itself, the very purpose of an arms control agree-
ment like the INF Treaty was to ensure mutual vulnerability—a condition
that will still hold between Russia and the United States. Nevertheless,
withdrawing from the INF Treaty could improve the US security posture
against Russia and China in a manner that improves deterrence.
*****
On 2 February 2019 the Trump administration announced the suspen-
sion of its obligations under the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty. Ratied in 1988 by the United States and the Soviet Union, this
arms control agreement banned all ground- based missiles and launchers
of ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. e INF Treaty partly
derived its signicance from being the rst major arms control treaty
between the two superpowers that called for the elimination of weapons
that were already deployed. Previous arms control treaties only stipulated
production and deployment limitations.
1
As such, the INF Treaty helped
boost condence between two rival superpowers and contributed to the
end of the Cold War. But by the time Donald Trump became the US
president, it was moribund. e Obama administration had already accused
Russia of violating the treaty. For its part, Russia had already signaled its
Strategic Studies Quarterly
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 49
interest in renegotiating it to involve other countries like China. Russia
has even accused the United States of breaking the treaty with the deploy-
ment of a missile defense system in Europe. Nevertheless, critics of the
Trump administration’s decision to suspend its treaty obligations contend
that doing so hands the Kremlin a propaganda victory, in addition to trig-
gering an arms race and sowing discord among allies. However, such
criticisms are overstated. Indeed, arms control agreements are means to an
end rather than ends unto themselves. If the desired ends are not being
realized, then the means must change. Although the Trump administra-
tion must articulate more clearly its strategy for moving forward in the
post- INF world, the decision may prove to be the correct one, especially if
it allows the United States to put more pressure on China and Russia.
To appreciate the signicance of the INF Treaty and what implications
its demise has—or does not have—for European security today, a brief
overview of the treaty is necessary. How Russia has violated the treaty is
instructive as is the impetus for US withdrawal, the key criticisms of with-
drawal, and the current theater context.
Origins and History of the INF Treaty
e basic problem that confronted US and other Western defense plan-
ners during the Cold War pertained to the military balance. e Soviet
Union and the Warsaw Pact enjoyed numerical superiority in conventional
forces in Europe. Owing to the expense of keeping large standing armies
in peacetime and the political controversies that would attend any major
buildup of West German forces, the United States sought recourse in its
nuclear weapons arsenal to deter any signicant Soviet aggression. e
United States introduced shorter- range, so- called tactical nuclear weapons
for battleeld use in theaters of operations close to where adversaries re-
sided. Treaty allies like West Germany, Japan, and South Korea hosted
these weapons on their own territory under special arrangements that
were eventually designed to mitigate any risk of theft or unintended use.
ese weapons included artillery, ballistic missiles of various ranges, cruise
missiles, and gravity bombs that could be tted on ghter aircraft.
To cover a broad range of military contingencies and to take advantage
of recent technological advances, the United States and its NATO partners
improved the quality of their conventional forces in Europe and began to
deploy tactical nuclear weapons, especially in West Germany.
2
By the early
1960s, NATO appeared to have more options for confronting the Soviet
military threat on the battleeld, with “exible response” being the strategy
embraced by the alliance to modulate its use of conventional and nuclear
50 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
weapons in accordance with the type of aggression that the Soviet Union
might undertake. If the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact did launch an
attack against Western Europe, then short- range tactical nuclear weapons
could slow, if not stop it, with decision makers on both sides having—in
theory at least—opportunities to de- escalate the confrontation.
3
To be
sure, whether operational plans for wartime really changed with “exible
response” is debatable: according to historian Francis Gavin, the notion
that nuclear escalation could be controlled was ction.
4
Still, nuclear
weapons were the basis for deterring any major attack by Warsaw Pact
forces, even if it was exclusively conventional. is state of aairs persisted
after the Soviet Union attained strategic parity with the United States in
the mid-1960s.
In the late 1970s the Soviet Union began to replace the SS-4 and SS-5
theater ballistic missiles with the SS-20.
5
is intermediate- range missile
could strike targets in Western Europe but not those in North America,
thereby exposing a gap in NATO’s deterrence posture. At the time, Wash-
ington could either unleash nuclear weapons based in the continental
United States on Soviet cities or could authorize their battleeld use in
the heart of Europe. It lacked the ability to attack Soviet cities with nuclear
weapons forward deployed in Western Europe. West German chancellor
Helmut Schmidt famously highlighted this gap in a speech delivered at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London in October
1978.
6
US decision makers initially were reluctant to address these con-
cerns. President Jimmy Carter wanted to pursue nuclear disarmament,
whereas his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, believed that
“the Soviets would not use nuclear weapons rst and might be restrained
even if they had superiority in nuclear weapons.”
7
A State Department
brieng memo admitted that “in military terms, the SS-20 has not . . . much
undermined NATO doctrine.”
8
Yet something had to be done. Unfortu-
nately, for Western European decision makers, the solution was not as easy
as putting into place additional nuclear deployments in Europe that could
attack the supply lines and rear- guard forces of the Warsaw Pact if neces-
sary. Public opinion in West Germany was becoming antinuclear, with the
new deployments having the potential to undermine East- West détente
and West Germany’s foreign policy of Ostpolitik. ese concerns mat-
tered for Chancellor Schmidt if he wished to retain the support of the
Free Democratic Party for his ruling coalition in the late 1970s.
9
e solution that ultimately emerged was the dual- track decision. To ad-
dress credibility concerns, NATO oversaw the deployment of 464 ground -
launched cruise missiles and 108 Pershing II missiles in Western Europe.
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 51
According to historian Kristina Spohr Readman, alliance considerations—
rather than military ones—drove this particular track.
10
e second track
pertained to arms control. Rising antinuclear and pro-disarmament senti-
ments in Western Europe could not be ignored, and so the compromise
was to link the new deployment to calls for the United States and the
Soviet Union to work together toward reducing intermediate- range nu-
clear forces from Europe.
ese developments paved the way for what would become the INF
Treaty. Of course, other factors pushed the two superpowers toward greater
security cooperation. Not least among them were US president Ronald
Reagan’s antipathy for nuclear deterrence and Soviet general secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev’s desire to recalibrate Soviet foreign policy by re-
trenching strategically and pursuing rapprochement with the West. Still,
the INF Treaty had both symbolic and military value once their two coun-
tries signed it in 1987 and ratied it the following year. Symbolically, the
INF Treaty deepened trust between two rival superpowers and helped
bring the Cold War to an end.
11
Militarily, the treaty eliminated all land-
based ballistic and cruise missiles and launchers with ranges between 500
and 5,500 kilometers, regardless if they were nuclear- armed or conven-
tional. It also provided for a robust inspections regime that would last 12
years, ensuring that both sides would comply in destroying the banned
weapons. It did allow air- or sea- launched missiles, however.
Two items are worth highlighting. e rst is that the large numbers of
nuclear weapons in Europe—of intermediate ranges or otherwise—reected
both military and alliance considerations. US defense planners understood
that Warsaw Pact forces enjoyed numerical superiority with respect to
conventional military power. ey also came to appreciate that threaten-
ing a nuclear response to Soviet aggression by unleashing weapons from
the continental United States would not assure those allies that could be
isolated and picked o. Nuclear weapons at various rungs of the escalation
ladder appeared necessary for deterrence. Second, the INF Treaty itself
was partly the product of alliance politics. e buildup of Pershing II mis-
siles in the early 1980s was a response to the SS-20 deployments. e
United States initially did not want to pursue this buildup. But from the
perspective of Western European allies like West Germany, the United
States could only appear as a credible security guarantor if it at least
matched Soviet capabilities. Ultimately, the INF Treaty beneted Euro-
pean security because it removed about 2,600 prohibited ground- based
missiles and launchers, which the Soviet Union had prioritized over air-
and sea- launched missiles. War in Europe would still be devastating, but
52 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
at least decoupling would not be as severe a problem for the United States
as before.
The Twilight Years of the INF Treaty
e 1990s passed without incident for the INF Treaty. Russia (and
other post- Soviet states like Ukraine) inherited the Soviet Union’s com-
mitment to the arms control initiative and continued to destroy nuclear
weapons as part of a much larger eort to lighten its force posture. Al-
though Russia came to depend more on its nuclear arsenal to deter large-
scale conventional aggression, which in turn involved moving away from
Soviet- era declarations not to be the rst to use nuclear weapons in a
militarized conict, no violations of the INF Treaty occurred.
12
Unfortunately, the INF Treaty weakened over time. Although the INF
Treaty was to last indenitely, Article XI provided for regular or challenge
(i.e., short- notice) on- site inspections to be operative for the rst 13 years.
Both the United States and Russia allowed this verication mechanism to
expire without devising anything to replace it. Accordingly, national tech-
nical means of inspection such as satellite observation became the default
tool for the signatories to monitor treaty compliance. Darya Dolzikova
writes that the verication gap created by Article XI expiring “precluded
the possibility of identifying and investigating [any] violation in a timely,
rigorous and impartial manner.”
13
As early as 1988 a US Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence anticipated this concern. It determined that
“in particular an illegal force of GLCMs [ground-launched cruise mis-
siles] could probably not be detected nearly as promptly nor with the same
degree of condence [as a ballistic system]. is is due to their much
smaller size and to the fact that they are in almost all respects identical
with and virtually indistinguishable from sea- launched versions of the
same missile.”
14
To be sure, a Special Verication Committee remains in place, thus
providing a forum for discussing potential instances of noncompliance.
However, it does not conduct regular investigations or articulate the pro-
tocols for performing them.
15
Geopolitics also strained the INF Treaty. In
2007 the Russian secretary of defense at the time—Sergei Ivanov—
purportedly told his US counterpart Robert Gates that Russia’s withdrawal
from the treaty was desirable because it would then have the means “to
counter Iran, Pakistan, and China”—countries that sit either on or near its
borders.
16
Whether this exchange took place or not, Russia did try in 2007
to multilateralize the treaty so other states could sign. It won US support at
the UN General Assembly, but the eort languished.
17
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 53
Russian INF Violation
Rumblings about a possible Russian treaty violation began in the latter
half of the 2000s. Diplomatic exchanges between the two countries in
2013 touched on US concerns about Russia’s INF compliance, but the
matter remained mostly rumor. Nevertheless, the controversy intensied
in July 2014 with the State Department’s publication of the 2014 Com-
pliance Report and with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State
John Kerry agging the violation directly with their Russian counterparts,
Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov, respectively. A meeting convened in
September 2014 specically for addressing this issue failed to alleviate US
concerns, with the Russian delegation denying that any violations took
place at all and making counter- accusations that Washington itself was in
noncompliance. Eorts to address the matter persisted throughout 2015
and 2016 but saw little success. e 2016 edition of the State Department’s
Compliance Report found that a “cruise missile developed by Russia meets
the INF Treaty denition of a ground- launched cruise missile with a
range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km, and as such, all missiles of that
type, and all launchers of the type used or tested to launch such a missile,
are prohibited under the provisions of the INF Treaty.”
18
e US House of
Representatives and the Senate demanded more information about Rus-
sia’s compliance record and beseeched President Obama to explain how
he planned to address concerns about Russian treaty violation.
19
e im-
passe persisted even after Donald Trump became US president. ough
his administration initially signaled that the United States would remain
in the INF Treaty, President Trump declared his intent for the United
States to withdraw on 20 October 2018. Russia’s violation was not the
only reason Trump gave to explain this decision. He noted that other
countries like China were not party to the agreement. About six weeks
later Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States
“has found Russia in material breach of the treaty and will suspend our
obligations as a remedy eective in 60 days unless Russia returns to full
and veriable compliance.”
20
Unsatised with how Russia responded to
this announcement, the United States began the six- month withdrawal
period for exiting the treaty on 2 February 2019.
What exactly has been the purported violation? e Obama adminis-
tration was reluctant to disclose its evidence, encouraging experts to oer
many conjectures as to which Russian missile contravened the INF Treaty.
21
Some alleged that the Obama administration sat on the information to
avoid criticisms of its Russia reset policy and to shepherd the New Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) through Congress.
22
A more
54 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
persuasive explanation is that because the United States has had to rely
mostly on satellite observation to monitor Russian compliance, it needed
more information before it could condently raise the issue. Over time the
United States became more forthcoming. In late 2017, Christopher Ford
of the National Security Council revealed at the Wilson Center in Wash-
ington, DC, that the noncompliant GLCM was the Novator 9M729 (or
to use the NATO designation, SSC-8 “Screwdriver”). It appeared that the
9M729 missile might have been using the Iskander- M launcher, which
had been deployed in the Kaliningrad exclave in November 2017 after
having already been elded in the area for military exercises since at least
2014.
23
is specic launcher can carry short- range ballistic missiles that
can themselves carry dierent warheads, including nuclear ones. It has
provoked much consternation in Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania because
many of their urban and industrial centers fall within its 400–500 kilometer
(250–310 mile) range. To return to compliance, Russia would have to
agree to eliminate this launcher if it were ever used to test the oending
missile.
24
is would likely not happen.
25
In November 2018, Director of
National Intelligence Daniel Coats disclosed that “Russia began testing
the missile in the late 2000’s and by 2015 had completed a comprehensive
ight test program consisting of multiple tests of the 9M729 missile from
both xed and mobile launchers.” Specically, he asserted that “Russia
initially ight tested the 9M729—a ground based missile—to distances
well over 500 [km] from a xed launcher.”
26
He did not oer further
specications about the actual missile. ese tests presumably took place
at facilities located in Kapustin Yar, a Russian launch and development
site near the city of Volgograd. Slightly predating Coats’s remarks were
statements by the Dutch and the German governments that supported
the US position.
27
Russia predictably responded that it had not tested the 9M729 to INF
ranges. A war of words and presentations ensued. e United States ac-
cused Russia of trying to “obfuscate the nature of the program.”
28
e most
serious eort at rebutting US accusations occurred in a brieng given
jointly by the Russian Ministries of Defense and Foreign Aairs. is
brieng showcased the 9M729 missile container and launcher (but not the
missile itself ) while emphasizing that it had a range of 480 km as opposed
to the older, slightly shorter 9M728, which has a range of 490 km. No
tests—at least those conducted between 2008 and 2014—exceeded the
INF limit. e United States was unsatised with the Russian statement.
Invitations to inspect the missile went unaccepted amid US doubts that
they would reveal any information about its maximum range. As the State
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 55
Department website avers, “Russia has attempted to conceal the nature of the
SSC-8 program by obfuscating and lying about the missile’s test history.”
29
Russia has also sought to deect blame by making counter- accusations
that the United States has itself been in violation.
30
e main counter-
accusation pertains to the US- NATO missile defense program in Europe—
that is, the European Phased Adaptive Approach that has its main sites in
Poland, Romania, and Spain with the full shield having its command and
control in Ramstein, Germany. e Polish and Romanian sites are note-
worthy because they involve ground- based AEGIS- Ashore systems that
have SM-3 Block IIA and Block IIB interceptors designed to defend
against medium- and intermediate- range missile threats. Russia alleges
that the Aegis ashore system can be reprogrammed to launch cruise mis-
siles like the sea- based Tomahawk and that the canisters used can t
nuclear- tipped cruise missiles.
31
According to the Russian view, these
systems could be used to launch attacks against Russia, thereby undermining
its own deterrent capabilities. As Alexey Arbatov writes, however, this pro-
gram “will have very little impact on the Russian nuclear deterrence
potential—both in terms of the planned number of missile interceptors
and their technical characteristics.”
32
Some US analysts side with the Ar-
batov position. ey argue that the limited range of the Aegis radar is
useless for detecting and tracking long- range missiles.
33
Moreover, the
system depends on more than just the Aegis radar since it can draw on
external sources (e.g., new X- band radar in Turkey).
34
Finally, Russia
charges that the target missiles (using Minuteman II motors) designed to
test US missile defense interceptors run afoul of the INF Treaty. is alle-
gation has little foundation since the treaty “explicitly permits the use of
older booster stages for research and development purposes, subject to
specic Treaty rules. is includes their use as targets for missile defense
tests.”
35
Impetus for US Withdrawal
In some ways Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty gave the legal pretext
for the Trump administration to withdraw from the treaty to pursue a
more competitive strategy vis- à- vis China.
36
As indicated, Trump partly
justied withdrawing the United States from the INF Treaty by invoking
China. In his 2019 State of the Union address, he suggested that “perhaps
we can negotiate a dierent agreement, adding China and others.”
37
e
geopolitical logic is straightforward. In the past 10 years, because it was
not a signatory to the INF Treaty, China has been investing in ground-
based intermediate- range missile systems that serve in part to create an
56 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) bubble that will complicate eorts by the
United States to operate within a theater of operations, let alone enter it, to
defend an ally.
38
According to a 2013 US National Air and Space Intelli-
gence Center report, “China has the most active and diverse ballistic
missile program in the world,” with the most controversial missile being
the ground- launched, nuclear- capable DH-10 missile.
39
is cruise missile
has a range of 1,500 kilometers. Moreover, China and Russia appear to be
“on the verge of an alliance” as evinced by greater military-technological
cooperation and personnel exchange, increased use of regular consulta-
tions, and the greater frequency of joint military exercises.
40
From the
perspective of the Trump administration, withdrawing from the INF
Treaty accomplishes two objectives. First, it frees the United States to
develop and to deploy land- based systems that can counter Chinese sys-
tems, thereby improving deterrence and strengthening alliances. Second,
Russian defense planners have voiced concerns about the rise of China in
the past decade. Now Russia would be free to eld intermediate- range
conventional and nuclear forces to shore up its deterrence measures re-
garding China.
41
Doing so could create a security dilemma whereby Beijing
may feel the need to develop further capabilities so as to strengthen deter-
rence against Russia. By sowing distrust in Sino- Russian relations, the
added pressure on Beijing in turn can relieve pressure on US allies and
partners in the Western Pacic.
Some critics argue against such a strategy. ey contend that US de-
ployments of land- based intermediate- range missile systems would desta-
bilize East Asia, encounter budgetary and technical challenges, and pro-
vide a costlier and superuous alternative to existing systems.
42
ese
arguments can be contradictory. Budgetary and technical considera-
tions will blunt any destabilizing eect that a supposedly dangerous and
expensive system might have. For instance, if Guam is the most feasible
option for deploying land- based intermediate- range missiles systems,
then this vulnerability should make these weapons less dangerous to
China. Indeed, Beijing might even prefer that Washington spend money
on more expensive systems—assuming that they are superuous—that
may have dubious strategic value. Still, critics leave unclear as to why
China’s missile superiority in the Asia- Pacic region itself is not destabi-
lizing but US eorts to address this imbalance would be. Moves toward
parity should be welcomed because they promote stability by enhancing
mutual vulnerability. Moreover, air- and sea- launched systems could just
as well be seen as destabilizing, especially if they are more survivable and
delivered by platforms with stealth capabilities.
43
Why one system is less
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 57
stabilizing than the other is not necessarily obvious, especially if Chinese
military and political leaders seem to have retained their faith in mini-
mal deterrence despite opting for greater ambiguity in their country’s
nuclear posture.
44
Propaganda, Arms Races, and Discord?
Critics have voiced concerns about what the INF Treaty’s demise means
for international security. First, by electing to withdraw from the agree-
ment, the Trump administration handed Moscow a major propaganda
victory. Second, with the INF Treaty gone, an unfettered nuclear arms race
would ensue whereby both sides would try to deploy as many of the once-
banned missiles as they can in Europe. ird, terminating the treaty would
undermine cohesion within US alliances. ese concerns are overstated.
A Propaganda Victory?
Arms control advocates charge that withdrawing from the INF Treaty
rewards Russian noncompliance with a propaganda victory. Moscow can
now blame Washington for the demise of the INF Treaty.
45
e reasoning
here is specious. For one, the identity of the audience impressed by this
supposed propaganda victory is never clear. US citizens tend to have stylized
views on foreign policy and so in general would not appreciate the technical
details surrounding the improper use of the 9M729 missile. e same
could be said for most publics abroad. e Kremlin would have created a
favorable narrative for Russian citizens regardless of US actions. Allied
decision makers in Europe might be the audience, but they also have their
own intelligence services to assess competing claims about INF Treaty
violations in their own right. Indeed, NATO has unanimously expressed
its support for the US position. For another, this argument implicitly as-
sumes that the propaganda victory borne by the US withdrawal outweighs
the record of Russian noncompliance that triggered the withdrawal in the
rst place. In the days after the United States submitted its ocial notice
for withdrawal, Russian minister of defense Sergei Shoigu signaled his
country’s intent to create new land- based missiles in the next two years.
e short timeline suggests that it has already been developing what would
have been noncompliant missiles.
46
International audiences observe not
only the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty but also Russian behavior
more generally.
58 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
Alliance Fragmentation?
Another critique is that the INF Treaty would intensify the ongoing
crisis in transatlantic relations at a time when Trump has called into ques-
tion the contemporary relevance of NATO and sharply rebuked some of
its members for not doing enough to contribute to the common defense
burden.
47
is fear has not yet been borne out. Although some arms
control advocates might not nd the case made by the United States for
pulling out persuasive, the fact remains that NATO has so far shown
unanimity on this issue. e reason is simple: Russia is guilty of violating
the treaty while trying to undermine European security through various
activities like disinformation campaigns, political meddling, nuclear sig-
naling, and the war in Ukraine.
48
A deeper version of this critique raises the possibility that Russia may
be trying to decouple some European allies not from the United States
but from other European allies.
49
By facing the prospects of nuclear re-
taliation, they might be less inclined to abide by Article 5 commitments
and to support allies located on Russia’s borders. is danger is real. How-
ever, one must not overstate the newness of this problem. Precisely because
they were already geographically removed from the Baltic region, some
European allies do not share the threat assessments of Poland and the
Baltic countries with respect to Russia. Indeed, France and Great Britain
failed to respond meaningfully to Nazi (and Soviet) aggression against
Poland—a treaty ally for each of them—when nuclear weapons did not
yet exist. e intramural debates over European Union sanctions typify
the major dierences of opinion that abound among member states over
how to confront Russia. Disagreements exist even over the desirability
and eectiveness of nuclear deterrence in Europe.
50
One reason why, for
example, Polish leaders prefer to work with the United States is because
they somewhat distrust their Western European counterparts.
51
Intra -
European decoupling might widen with Russian INF forces, but the
problem has long existed.
e alliance- centered critique of the INF withdrawal thus assumes that
fragmentation will be less intense if the Trump administration chooses to
stick with the agreement. Yet, as Michael Kofman notes, “if only one party
is complying with the deal, then it ceases to be an instrument of arms
control and becomes a unilateral act of self- restraint.”
52
Even more than
disrupting the ction of arms control, maintaining appearances might
rattle those allies most worried about the Russian threat. ey might be-
lieve that the United States will allow Russia to covertly build up its
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 59
capabilities and to act with impunity simply to uphold a US commit-
ment to agreements.
An Arms Race?
e most signicant criticism of the withdrawal decision warns that
this move would lead to an unfettered arms race between the United
States and Russia.
53
Some observers even add that Russia has a head start
thanks again to its record of noncompliance—a fear that Russia seems to
have already validated by proclaiming its intent to introduce new land -
based missiles in the near term.
How likely is it that a nuclear arms race might break out? Certainly,
nuclear-weapon states have begun making adjustments to their arsenals in
the last decade. China has upgraded its nuclear forces to make them more
mobile and thus more survivable as a retaliatory force.
54
Great Britain and
France have each embarked upon replacing their current eet of nuclear -
powered ballistic submarines.
55
In the context of the US- Russian relation-
ship, Austin Long observes that “Russia is also expanding its arsenal to
include new systems [such as the SS-8],” whereas “US nuclear moderni-
zation concentrates on replacement, rather than expansion.”
56
Indeed, as
some have observed, Russia “has continued or stepped up a number of
worrisome nuclear policies already in place before the [2013–14] Euro-
maidan protests in Ukraine.”
57
e real question is whether the end of the
INF Treaty represents an inection point in how nuclear- weapon states
like Russia and the United States will go about their nuclear acquisition
eorts moving forward. e review of Cold War history earlier suggests
that it would not be.
Recall that US and NATO defense planners leaned on nuclear deter-
rence to prevent even conventional military aggression by numerically su-
perior Warsaw Pact forces in Central Europe. e United States built up
impressive stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons to survive a massive
bolt- out- of- the- blue Soviet strike—a fear encouraged by talk of bomber
and missile gaps.
58
In Europe, the United States introduced a suite of
tactical nuclear weapons that would help disrupt, if not defeat, any large -
scale Soviet military assault and thus dispel allies’ concerns. In other words,
theories of war precipitated the massive Cold War development and de-
ployment of nuclear forces. However, they do not have much relevance for
the contemporary environment.
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Alexander Lanoszka
Current Theater Context
Such theories of war do not make sense in the context of the current
European theater. To begin with, NATO’s frontier shifted further east
with the incorporation of the Baltic States and former Warsaw Pact coun-
tries like Poland. Russia has a robust military presence in Kaliningrad,
which many analysts argue could be exploited to isolate in- theater NATO
forces or to cut o additional NATO forces from providing assistance to
the Baltic States in the highly unlikely event of a large- scale invasion.
59
Moreover, Belarus and Ukraine add a new geographical buer. Although
Belarus has a formal military alliance with Russia, its leaders have pushed
back against the Kremlin’s eorts to strengthen Moscow’s defense ties.
e Russian military presence on Belarusian territory is limited mostly to
facilities and airelds that can hardly be called bases. Moscow cannot assert
its own preferences on Minsk without imposing costs, not least because
the latter may fear being dragged into the former’s disputes with NATO
countries. Any signicant, unforeseen buildup of Russian forces would
likely be detectable, thus giving early warning to potential Russian belli-
cosity.
60
Ukraine is already ghting an armed conict with Russia, albeit
through proxy forces that likely would have been defeated if they had not
received major transfers of heavy equipment and other forms of support.
Notwithstanding recent are- ups in the Sea of Azov area, the “frozen
conict” that persists in the Donbas suggests that Russia is either unwill-
ing or unable to escalate to annex that territory as it did with Crimea in
early 2014. In fact, with the demise of the INF Treaty, Ukraine will also be
free to invest in its missile capabilities. Doing so would also add pressure
on Russia and enhance US leverage against it.
61
e Baltic countries, and Poland to a lesser extent, are the most vulner-
able to Russian military aggression. A 2016 RAND report drew on war
games to determine that Russian armed forces could take Riga and Tallinn
within 72 hours. is assessment overstates the ease with which Russia
could conquer Baltic territory through kinetic operations. For example,
the modernization of its military has been uneven, its logistical supply
networks remain underdeveloped, and any advanced preparatory buildup
would lack the element of surprise. Closing the so- called Suwałki Gap—
the singular land bridge between Poland and Lithuania connecting the
Baltic countries with the rest of European NATO—would invite an esca-
latory response from NATO whereby any military forces staged in
Kaliningrad and Belarus could be at risk. Such a large- scale assault on
these NATO countries is highly unlikely even by admission of many local
defense planners.
62
e most likely threat is subconventional, especially in
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 61
Estonia and Latvia where about a quarter of their national populations are
Russian speaking. Finally, as Ulrich Kühn and Anna Péczeli observe, “even
if Russia were to deploy a limited number of INF systems . . . such a de-
ployment would not immediately alter the overall military balance between
NATO and Russia.”
63
NATO will retain its conventional military superi-
ority, whereas Russia’s basic hold on local escalation dominance will persist.
More bluntly, Poland and the Baltic countries have already been living
within range of nuclear- capable missiles.
e northeastern ank hardly resembles the Cold War’s Central Front.
Does that mean nuclear weapons have no role whatsoever? No. One reason
why Russia may be resorting to subconventional or so- called hybrid
actions against the Baltic countries is concern about the consequences of
any large- scale military aggression against them.
64
An overt attack would
trigger Article 5, which could set in motion escalatory dynamics that may
be hard for any one side to contain. Some allege that Russia has a war -winning
nuclear doctrine envisioning the use of nuclear weapons to de- escalate even
those conicts that it has started.
65
If true, this strategic problem exists re-
gardless of whether the INF Treaty remains in force. Some observers are
skeptical of such assessments: “escalate to de- escalate” is either far too
risky to be true or much more defensive than typically portrayed.
66
At
minimum, not unlike NATO’s exible response in the Cold War, Russia’s
nuclear doctrine does not foresee unilateral disarmament and the volun-
tary surrender to another great power in a major war. In sum, nuclear
weapons will be useful largely for deterring a major military action rather
than for compelling favorable results should deterrence fail.
67
Finally, any prospective arms race in Europe would have to overcome
budgetary barriers. According to the 2017 Congressional Budget Oce
report, “the plans for nuclear forces delineated in the Department of
Defense’s (DoD’s) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) budget
requests for scal year 2017 would cost a total of $400 billion over the
2017–2026 period.”
68
Considering that the Republican Party has lost con-
trol of the House in the 2018 midterms and that Democrats wish to curb
the defense budget in light of the growing decit spending, the Trump
administration may be hard- pressed to nd money for new INF systems.
is constraint will also exist for Russia despite it having a head start in
developing and deploying such systems. As Pavel Podvig observes, not-
withstanding the availability of internal funds for ight tests and advanced
demonstrations, “the State Armament Program for 2018–2027, which
was approved at the end of 2017 after a more than 2-year delay caused by
the uncertain economic situation, did not include a number of projects
62 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
that were initiated by the industry and supported by the military.”
69
To be
sure, as Kofman counsels, the Russian defense budget—substantial as it
is—has seen only modest cuts.
70
Nevertheless, building up ground- based
cruise missiles and launchers in East Central Europe when Russia already
has an A2/AD bubble in Kaliningrad will have to compete with other
defense priorities, which include the war against Ukraine, the intervention
in Syria, military infrastructure, and even domestic security services.
Conclusion: Arms Control Is Not an End but a Means
e arguments put forward against withdrawing from the INF Treaty
are thus unconvincing. And indeed, it is worth recalling how, just before
the INF Treaty was negotiated, omas Schelling penned an essay entitled
“What Went Wrong with Arms Control?” in which he argued that advocates
lost sight of the key features of weapons that could make them destabilizing.
Specically, he warned against the preoccupation with numbers “categories
[that] relate to things like land, sea and air [rather than] strategic charac-
teristics like susceptibility to preemption or capability for preemption, [or]
even relevant ingredients like warheads per target point, readiness, speed
of delivery, accuracy or recallability after launch.”
71
Schelling believed that
one key feature important for strategic stability concerned mutual vulnera-
bility: that is, no one side should have an ability to carry out a disarming
rst strike. To be sure, this notion of strategic stability is problematic. Pen-
tagon decision makers have typically been uncomfortable with the vulnera-
bility it entailed, whereas the Kremlin generally does not understand strategic
stability as a function of capabilities. Nevertheless, mutual vulnerability will
likely persist despite the INF Treaty and global nuclear modernization
eorts. Despite investments in counterforce capabilities and missile de-
fense, the United States will not be able to launch a disarming rst strike
against improved Russian nuclear capabilities. For its part, Russia appears
more interested in “ensuring guaranteed retaliation” than gathering the
capabilities necessary for “a successful counterforce attack” or “a damage
limitation strategy.”
72
Even if the United States were to close capability
gaps vis- à- vis Russia’s nuclear posture, as some suggest, mutual vulnera-
bility will remain.
73
Arms control advocates have neglected this enduring
feature of the military balance.
By suspending its obligations under the INF Treaty, the Trump admin-
istration signaled that it would not engage in arms control initiatives for
their own sake and that sometimes those initiatives are misaligned with
the ends they purport to seek. Consider the 2018 National Defense Strategy
(NDS). Recognizing Russia (and China) as strategic competitors, the
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 63
2018 NDS emphasizes deterrence but acknowledges that it does not
emerge automatically. A competitive strategy must be vigorously pursued
over the long term to shape the choices of adversaries in a favorable direc-
tion. As such, the NDS avers that “we [the United States] will challenge
competitors by maneuvering them into unfavorable positions, frustrating
their eorts, precluding their options while expanding our own, and forc-
ing them to confront conict under adverse conditions.”
74
is strategy
might still accept a degree of mutual vulnerability, but it may seek to tip
the balance further against Russia and China in a manner that improves
the military balance in favor of the United States and its partners. ese
benets may not materialize, thereby obliging the Trump administration
to work in concert with allies in Europe and Asia to hold Russia account-
able for its violation of the arms control agreement and to contain the
missile threats posed by Russia and China.
Although the United States has no plans for deploying previously
banned missiles and launchers in Europe, as the Trump administration
has maintained to date, withdrawing from the INF Treaty may pay impor-
tant dividends for US national security interests. First, it signals to Russia
that treaties will not be upheld unilaterally if it violates them and that
noncompliance creates reputation costs. Sending this signal can possibly
foster alliance solidarity, as evinced by NATO’s response to the withdrawal
thus far. Second, suspending its treaty obligations allows the United States
and its allies greater exibility toward Russia and China if in the future
they feel that ground- based systems do oer an advantage that they wish
to exploit. at interest may not exist now, but the threat of such deploy-
ments could deter revisionism against US or allied interests.
75
ird, if
Russia decides to continue with developing intermediate- range forces,
then that could provoke a response from its neighbors. Specically, China
might be wary of Russian intentions and could put the brakes on their
growing strategic alignment. Ukraine could also develop cruise missiles
that hold Moscow at risk, thereby strengthening deterrence and dampen-
ing any incentive Russia might have for escalating in the Donbas region.
Any propaganda benets the Kremlin may enjoy will be outweighed by
the backlash to its own aggressive behavior. As for discord, NATO has so
far been united behind the US decision to abrogate. While an arms buildup
is underway, international, budgetary, and other constraints will keep it
from intensifying. ese benets outweigh the costs associated with pull-
ing out of the INF Treaty.
64 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
Notes
1. Alexei Arbatov, “Saving Nuclear Arms Control,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 72, no. 3
(2016): 167, https://thebulletin.org/.
2. Philip A. Karber and Jerald A. Combs, “e United States, NATO, and the Soviet reat to
Western Europe: Military Estimates and Policy Options, 1945–1963,” Diplomatic History 22, no. 3
(Summer 1998): 399–429, https://www.jstor.org/.
3. omas C. Schelling, Controlled Response and Strategic Welfare, Adelphi Paper 5 (London:
International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1965), 3–11.
4. Francis J. Gavin, “e Myth of Flexible Response: United States in Europe during the 1960s,”
International History Review 23, no. 4 (2001): 847–75, 10.1080/07075332.2001.9640953; and Scott
D. Sagan, “SIOP-62: e Nuclear War Plan Brieng to President Kennedy,” International Security 12,
no. 1 (Summer 1987): 22–51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538916.
5. Raymond L. Gartho, “e Soviet SS-20 Decision,” Survival 25, no. 3 (1983): 110–19, https://
doi.org/10.1080/00396338308442097.
6. Helmut Schmidt, “e 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture,” Survival 20, no. 1 (1978):
2–10, doi: 10.1080/00396337808441722.
7. See Kristina Spohr Readman, “Germany and the Politics of the Neutron Bomb, 1975–1979,”
Diplomacy and Statecra 21, no. 2 (2010): 259–85, doi: 10.1080/09592296.2010.482473; and “Sum-
mary of Interview [John G. Hines interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski],” 20 November 1991, in
National Security Archive, George Washington University, posted 11 September 2009, http://
www2.gwu.edu/.
8. “Brieng Memo [SCC (Special Coordinating Committee) Meeting on PRM-38, August 23],”
16 August 1978, in National Security Archive, George Washington University, posted 10 December
2009, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/.
9. Kristina Spohr Readman, “Conict and Cooperation in Intra- Alliance Nuclear Politics:
Western Europe, the United States, and the Genesis of NATO’s Dual- Track Decision, 1977–1979,”
Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 69–71, https://doi.org/10.1162
/JCWS_a_00137.
10. Readman, “Conict and Cooperation,” 88.
11. Arbatov, “Saving Nuclear Arms Control,” 167.
12. Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, “Russian Strategic Deterrence,” Survival 58, no. 4 (2016): 9, https://
doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2016.1207945.
13. Darya Dolzikova, “e Role of Verication in the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty Dispute,” RUSI Commentary, 15 January 2019, https://rusi.org/.
14. Quoted in Douglas Barrie, “Allegation, Counter- Allegation, and the INF Treaty,” Survival
59, no. 4 (2017): 39, https://www.tandfonline.com/.
15. Dolzikova, “Role of Verication.”
16. Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 154.
17. US Department of State, “Joint U.S.-Russian Statement on the Treaty on the Elimination of
Intermediate- Range and Shorter- Range Missiles at the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly,”
media note, 25 October 2007, http://2001-2009.state.gov/.
18. US Department of State, 2016 Report on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control,
Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, DC: US Depart-
ment of State, 11 April 2016), https://www.state.gov/.
19. See, for example, the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 4435, §1225,
113th Cong., 2d sess., 5 June 2014, https://www.govinfo.gov/, and its nal version, the National
Defense Authorization Act for FY 2015, Public Law 113-291, 113th Cong., 2d sess., December
2014, https://www.govinfo.gov/.
20. Morgan Chalfant, “Pompeo: US to Leave Nuclear Treaty in 60 Days Unless Russia Complies
with Terms,” e Hill, 4 December 2018, https://thehill.com/.
21. For an excellent review of these conjectures, see Amy F. Woolf, Russian Compliance with the
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress, CRS R43832
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 65
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 18 January 2019), 18–25, https://crsreports
.congress.gov/
22. Whereas the INF Treaty prohibits the development and deployment of ground- based missiles
and launchers of ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, New START caps the allowable number
of strategic nuclear missile launchers at 1,550.
23. Pavel Podvig, “e INF Treaty Culprit Identied. Now What?,” Russian Strategic Nuclear
Forces (blog), 5 December 2017, http://russianforces.org/; and “Iskander- M in Kaliningrad,”Russian
Defense Policy (blog), 27 November 2017, https://russiandefpolicy.blog/. e 9M729 missile may
also be similar to the Kalibr sea- launched cruise missile, which is not banned by the INF Treaty. See
Pavel Podvig, “Russia’s Current Nuclear Modernization and Arms Control,” Journal for Peace and
Nuclear Disarmament 1, no. 2 (2018): 263, doi: 10.1080/25751654.2018.1526629.
24. Colocation at sites that have Iskander missiles will also complicate NATO eorts to discern
the 9M729. Barrie, “Allegation,” 37.
25. Moreover, the Trump administration has asserted that Russia already has “as of late 2018 . . .
lled multiple battalions of the SSC-8 missiles.” US Department of State, “Press Availability at
NATO Headquarters,” Remarks by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo,” Brussels, Belgium, 4
December 2018, https://www.state.gov/.
26. Oce of the Director of National Intelligence, “Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats
on Russia’s INF Treaty Violation,” press brieng, 30 November 2018, https://www.dni.gov/.
27. Janene Pieters, “Netherlands Has Proof Russia Developed Prohibited Cruise Missile,” NL
Times, 28 November 2018, https://nltimes.nl/; and “USA legen Nato- Partnern Beweise gegen Russland
v o r,” Der Spiegel, 30 November 2018, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/.
28. Quoted in Woolf, Russian Compliance, 34.
29. US Department of State, “Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty,” accessed 15
March 2019, https://www.state.gov/.
30. See also Ulrich Kühn and Anna Péczeli, “Russia, NATO, and the INF Treaty,” Strategic Stud-
ies Quarterly 11, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 70–71.
31. eodore A. Postol, “Russia May Have Violated the INF Treaty. Here’s How the United States
Appears to Have Done the Same,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 14 February 2019, https://thebulletin
.org/2019/02/russia- may- have- violated- the- inf- treaty- heres- how- the- united- states- appears- to- have
- done- the- same/.
32. Arbatov, “Saving Nuclear Arms Control,” 168.
33. Reprogramming issues notwithstanding, the United States may not be in violation of the
treaty per se. As Amy Woolf explains, the INF Treaty “species that the launcher must launch an
intermediate- range GLCM, not any intermediate- range cruise missile, to qualify as a system banned
by the treaty.” Legally speaking, the Tomahawk is strictly not “a ground- launched cruise missile that
is a weapon- delivery vehicle.” Woolf, Russian Compliance, 29. Moreover, Pavel Podvig avers that “it is
highly unlikely that the missile defense system developed by the US could pose a realistic threat to
Russian strategic forces.” Podvig, “Russia’s Current Nuclear Modernization,” 259.
34. e cancelled Phase 4 of EPAA would have relied more on space- based cueing so as to in-
tercept missiles of intermediate and long ranges.
35. Brian McKeon, then the principal deputy under secretary of defense, quoted in Woolf, Rus-
sian Compliance, 28. Another counter- accusation concerns the US operation of unmanned aerial
vehicles. Aer all, drones share some characteristics with cruise missiles and can y between 500
and 5,500 kilometers, but these similarities should not be overstated. Drones are piloted remotely,
do not necessarily constitute weapons themselves, and can take o and land like airplanes. Woolf,
Russian Compliance, 28–29.
36. Before becoming national security advisor, John Bolton (and coauthor John Yoo) publicly
criticized the Obama administration for upholding “the obsolete, Cold War–era limits on its own
arsenal.” See also John Bolton and John Yoo, “An Obsolete Nuclear Treaty Even before Russia
Cheated,” Wall Street Journal, 9 September 2014, https://www.wsj.com/; and Matthew Kroenig,
“Withdrawal from Russia Nuclear Treaty Is Right Move for America,” e Hill, 24 October 2018,
https://thehill.com/.
66 STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019
Alexander Lanoszka
37. “Remarks by President Trump in State of the Union Address,” transcript, e White
House, released 6 February 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/. Ocials in the Trump adminis-
tration have downplayed the China factor.
38. Evan Braden Montgomery, “Contested Primacy in the Western Pacic: China’s Rise and the
Future of U.S. Power Projection,” International Security 38, no. 4 (Spring 2014): 132–34, https://
www.mitpressjournals.org/.
39. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), Ballistic and Cruise Missile reat
(Wright- Patterson AFB, OH: NASIC, 2013), 3, https://apps.dtic.mil/.
40. Alexander Korolev, “On the Verge of an Alliance: Contemporary China- Russia Military
Cooperation,” Asian Security, 30 April 2018, doi: 10.1080/14799855.2018.1463991.
41. Stephen Blank, “e Chinese and Asian Impact on Russian Nuclear Policy,” Defense and Se-
curity Analysis 28, no. 1 (25 April 2012): 39, 45–46, doi: 10.1080/14751798.2012.651377.
42. Pranay Vaddi, “Leaving the INF Treaty Won’t Help Trump Counter China,” Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 31 January 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/.
43. Stephen Stashwick, “US Navy to Re- Fit Tomahawk Cruise Missiles to Attack Ships,” Diplomat,
14 September 2017, https://thediplomat.com/; and Kyle Mizokami, “America Is Building a New, Stealthy
Nuclear Cruise Missile,” Popular Mechanics, 24 August 2017, https://www.popularmechanics.com/. To be
sure, because of local geography, any new US deployment of GBIRs would be largely limited to Guam,
Taiwan, or Okinawa—any of these sites would present its own set of technical or political challenges.
No issue with host nation authorization would arise with Guam.
44. Fiona S. Cunningham and M. Taylor Fravel, “Assuring Assured Retaliation: China’s Nuclear
Posture and U.S–China Strategic Stability,” International Security 40, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 13, https://www
.mitpressjournals.org/.
45. Julian Borger, “John Bolton Pushing Trump Withdraw from Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty,”
19 October 2018, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/; and Fred Kaplan, “Trump’s Missile Mis-
re,” Slate, 22 October 2018, https://slate.com/.
46. “INF Nuclear Treaty: Russia Plans New Missile Systems after Pullout,” British Broadcast-
ing Corporation, 5 February 2019, https://www.bbc.com/.
47. See, for example, Tom Nichols, “Mourning the INF Treaty,” Foreign Aairs, 4 March 2019,
https://www.foreignaairs.com/. For pushback against the view that Trump has fundamentally
undermined US alliances, see Alexander Lanoszka, “Alliances and Nuclear Proliferation in the
Trump Era,” Washington Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2019): 85–101, https://www.tandfonline.com/.
48. See Keir Giles, Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in
Moscow’s Exercise of Power (London: Chatham House, March 2016), https://www.chathamhouse.
org/; and Jacek Durkalec, Nuclear- Backed “Little Green Men”: Nuclear Messaging in the Ukraine Crisis
(Warsaw: Polish Institute of International Aairs, July 2015), https://www.stratcomcoe.org/.
49. Jerey Lewis, “An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by Any Other Name,” Foreign Policy,
25 April 2014, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/; and Jacek Durkalec, “Russia’s Violation of the INF
Treaty: Consequences for NATO,” PISM [Polish Institute of International Aairs] Bulletin no. 107,
13 August 2014, https://www.les.ethz.ch/.
50. See Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, Tara Varma, and Nick Witney, Eyes Tight Shut: European
Attitudes towards Nuclear Deterrence (Berlin: European Council on Foreign Relations [ECFR],
December 2018), https://www.ecfr.eu/.
51. Marcin Zaborowski and Kerry Longhurst, “America’s Protégé in the East? e Emergence
of Poland as a Regional Leader,” International Aairs 79, no. 5 (October 2003): 1009–28.
52. Michael Kofman, “Under the Missile’s Shadow: What Does the Passing of the INF Treaty
Mean?” War on the Rocks, 26 October 2018, https://warontherocks.com/.
53. Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Trump Is Igniting a Perilous New Nuclear Arms Race,” Washing-
ton Post, 5 February 2019, https://wapo.st/.
54. omas J. Christensen, “e Meaning of the Nuclear Evolution: China’s Strategic Mod-
ernization and US- China Security Relations,” Journal of Strategic Studies 35, no. 4 (2012): 448,
http://www.andrewerickson.com/.
55. Benjamin Zala, “How the Next Nuclear Arms Race Will Be Dierent from the Last One,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 75, no. 1 (2 January 2019): 39, https://thebulletin.org/.
e INF Treaty: Pulling Out in Time
STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY SUMMER 2019 67
56. Austin Long, Russian Nuclear Forces and Prospects for Arms Control (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 21 June 2018), 3, https://www.rand.org/.
57. Ulrich Kühn, Shatabhisha Shetty, and Polina Sinovets, “Europe’s Nuclear Woes: Mitigating
the Challenges of the Next Years,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 73, no. 4 (2017): 245, https://
thebulletin.org/.
58. Lawrence Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic reat (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1986), 77–79.
59. Sergey Sukhankin, “From ‘Bridge of Cooperation’ to A2/AD ‘Bubble’: e Dangerous
Transformation of Kaliningrad Oblast,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 31, no. 1 (2018): 15–36,
doi: 10.1080/13518046.2018.1416732; and Alexander Lanoszka and Michael A. Hunzeker, “Con-
fronting the Anti- Access/Area Denial and Precision Strike Challenge in the Baltic Region,” RUSI
Journal 161, no. 5 (2016): 12–18, doi: 10.1080/03071847.2016.1253367.
60. Alexander Lanoszka, “e Belarus Factor in European Security,” Parameters 47, no. 4
(Winter 2017–18): 75–84, https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/.
61. Mariana Budjeryn, “Without the INF Treaty, Europe Could See a New Missile Power.
(Spoiler: It’s Not Russia.),” Washington Post, 26 February 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/.
62. Alexander Lanoszka and Michael A. Hunzeker, Conventional Deterrence and Landpower in
Northeastern Europe (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2019), https://ssi.armywarcollege.
63. Kühn and Péczeli, “Russia,” 87.
64. Alexander Lanoszka, “Russian Hybrid Warfare and Extended Deterrence in Eastern Europe,”
International Aairs 92, no. 1 (2016): 175–95, doi: 10.1111/1468-2346.12509.
65. See Katarzyna Zysk, “Escalation and Nuclear Weapons in Russia’s Military Strategy,”
RUSI Journal 163, no. 2 (2018): 4–15, doi: 10.1080/03071847.2018.1469267.
66. Olga Oliker and Andrey Baklitsky, “e Nuclear Posture Review and Russian ‘De- escalation’:
A Dangerous Solution to a Non- Existent Problem,” War on the Rocks, 20 February 2018, https://
warontherocks.com/; and Nikolai Sokov, “Why Russia Calls a Limited Nuclear Strike ‘De
- Escalation,’ ” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 13 March 2014, https://thebulletin.org/.
67. Alexander Lanoszka, “Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Coercion in the Baltic Region,”
Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies (forthcoming, 2019).
68. Congressional Budget Oce, Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2026 (Washington,
DC: Congressional Budget Oce, February 2017), https://www.cbo.gov/.
69. Podvig, “Russia’s Current Nuclear Modernization,” 260–61.
70. Michael Kofman, “e Collapsing Russian Defense Budget and Other Fairy Tales,” Russia
Matters, 22 May 2018, https://www.russiamatters.org/.
71. omas C. Schelling, “What Went Wrong with Arms Control?” Foreign Aairs 64, no. 2
(Winter 1985/1986): 227, https://www.foreignaairs.com/.
72. Podvig, “Russia’s Current Nuclear Modernization,” 258.
73. Jacek Durkalec and Matthew Kroenig, “NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence: Closing Credibility
Gaps,” Polish Quarterly of International Aairs 12, no. 1 (2016): 37–50, http://matthewkroenig.com/.
74. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States
of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: Department of
Defense, 2018), 5, https://dod.defense.gov/.
75. Kroenig, “Withdrawal from Russia Nuclear Treaty.”
Alexander Lanoszka
Dr. Lanoszka is an assistant professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science
at the University of Waterloo and honorary fellow in the Department of International Politics at City,
University of London. He may be reached at alexander.lanoszka@uwaterloo.ca. He thanks Andrea
Gilli, Luis Simón, and W. Michael Guillot for comments on previous drafts.
Disclaimer
e views and opinions expressed or implied in SSQ are those of the authors and are not ocially
sanctioned by any agency or department of the US government. We encourage you to send comments
to: [email protected].
