WASHINGTON — The day the United States said it could leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by early February, hawkish think-tankers and former government officials shared weapons shopping lists for the post-treaty world — which in one case included in-theater nuclear missiles.
The defense hawks spoke on a panel hosted by the Air Force Association at the Capitol Hill Club just down the street from Congress. One, Rick Fisher, called for deploying nuclear-armed missiles in Asia to quell possible Chinese aggression.
The Trump administration in October cited China’s lack of participation in the INF Treaty as one reason the U.S. should abandon the bilateral arms deal struck with the Soviet Union in 1987. The accord forbids Russia and the United States from developing and deploying missiles with a range of 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers, or roughly 330 miles to 3,300 miles.
“There is a real requirement that the United States build up the inter-range ballistic and cruise missiles, perhaps with nuclear warheads,” said Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Alexandria, Va.
If the U.S. ceases complying with the INF Treaty, it should develop ground-launched missiles in the range prohibited by the pact and “be offering them to all of our major defense treaty allies … South Korea, Japan, Australia,” Fisher said. “I will even include the Philippines in that.”
However, another panelist scoffed at the idea that any country would ever permit U.S. ground-based missiles on its territory. “Ain’t gonna happen,” said consultant Frank Miller, a government veteran who served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and as a senior arms-control staffer on his National Security Council.
Frank Rose, a former arms-control hand in the Obama administration State Department, said even deploying U.S.-designed missile defense systems on foreign soil is “politically challenging.”
Rose, who outed himself as the panel’s sole Democrat, said the United States could better check China by developing a conventional version of the nuclear-capable Long-Range Standoff Weapon that defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are designing. Washington should also sell its allies Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles, or the extended-range variant of the Joint Air-To-Surface Standoff Missile,he said.
The panelists in Washington spoke the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would cease complying with the INF Treaty in 60 days, unless Moscow ditches an INF-violating missile the U.S. says it developed and deployed over the last 10 years.
Russia is “in material breach of the treaty,” Pompeo said during a press conference after Tuesday’s meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. The Trump administration “will suspend our obligations [under INF] as a remedy effective in 60 days, unless Russia returns to full and verifiable compliance.”
The U.S. says Russia tested the same missile from a fixed and mobile launcher, flying it further than 500 kilometers from the fixed launcher and fewer than 500 kilometers from the mobile firing system. Russia denies the missile fired from the fixed launcher was the same missile fired from the mobile launcher.
In a statement on Tuesday, NATO foreign ministers said “Russia is in material breach of its obligations under the INF Treaty” and “that the situation whereby the United States and other parties fully abide by the Treaty and Russia does not, is not sustainable.” The alliance called on Russia to return to compliance.
In Washington, even Rose said that more “engagement” with Moscow was unlikely to convince the Kremlin to give up the INF-range missile it allegedly developed and deployed over U.S. and international objections.
Russia denies its missile, which the U.S. calls 9M729, violates the accord. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the country is in full compliance with INF, according to a Tuesday tweet by Moscow-based analyst Andrey Baklitskiy.
In perhaps an ironic way, Pompeo’s announcement in Brussels may ultimately provide three Democratic senators with something they asked for on Monday: that the Trump administration take time to confer with Congress before formally withdrawing from the INF.
Sens. Bob Menendez (N.J), Jack Reed (R.I.)m and Mark Warner (Va.) communicated their concerns in a letter to Trump.
“Moving forward, before taking steps to withdraw or suspend participation in the INF treaty, we urge you and your administration to engage with Congress on the implications of this step for strategic stability and our relations with European and Asian allies,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Barack Obama administration in 2014 accused Russia of violating the INF treaty earlier in the decade. The Trump administration eventually expounded on the claim, citing classified evidence of noncompliant behavior dating to at least 2008. The Trump White House last week offered its lengthiest explanation yet of Russia’s alleged INF violations.
