The US has formally withdrawn from the The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark arms control treaty with Russia, claiming it undermines its security interests.

INF Treaty

* The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty or the Treaty Between the US and the USSR on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles) was an arms control treaty between the US and the Soviet Union (and its successor state, the Russian Federation).

* US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the treaty on December 8, 1987. The US Senate approved it on May 27, 1988, and the treaty was ratified on June 1, 1988.

* The INF Treaty banned all of the two nations’ land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and missile launchers with ranges of 500-1,000 km (short medium range) and 1,000-5,500 km (intermediate range). The treaty did not apply to air- or sea-launched missiles. By May 1991, the nations had eliminated 2,692 missiles, followed by 10 years of on-site verification inspections.

* U.S. President Donald Trump announced on October 20, 2018 that he was withdrawing the US from the treaty, accusing Russia of non-compliance.

* The US formally suspended the treaty on February 1, 2019, and Russia did so on the following day in response. The US formally withdrew from the treaty on August 2.

What will happen in the treaty’s absence?

* It is unclear what INF-prohibited systems the US could deploy in Europe or Asia in the near term. The US military has not advanced any land-based missiles within the prohibited ranges for decades and has only just started funding a new ground-launched cruise missile to match the Russian 9M729 missile.

* Moscow is in a very different position and could speedily expand deployment. The number of operational 9M729 missiles has been quite limited, but released from its official obligations under the treaty, Moscow could deploy more units rapidly.

* Russia could also effectively reclassify the RS-26 Rubezh, an experimental system that has been tested just above the INF Treaty’s 5,500-km limit. To avoid violating the INF, Russian officials previously described the RS-26 as an intercontinental ballistic missile.

* However, it could form the basis for a missile of a slightly shorter range if Moscow wished to boost its INF forces - without counting it under the US-Russian New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, governing longer-range systems.

* This move is also likely to undermine the 2010 New START treaty governing US and Russian long-range nuclear systems.

* The INF Treaty’s demise will undercut New START by reopening questions on the relationship between intermediate and strategic systems that have been resolved for 30 years by the elimination of ground-based, intermediate-range missiles.