Donald Trump's move to leave the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia is viewed as a grave mistake for the U.S. policy in terms of the development of the new generation of nuclear weaponry. This is mentioned in the commentary that appeared on Reuters.
Trump's withdrawal 'eliminates whatever curbs may be left on the development and deployment of a whole new generation of lethal and more readily deployable nuclear arms. Gone will be any restraints on Russian President Vladimir Putin from modernizing and updating his nuclear arsenal, thereby reviving the nuclear arms race at a time when a new round of nuclear forces in North Korea and Iran threaten the world and new missile technologies are proliferating', reads the article.
'Trump’s withdrawal from the INF treaty can only send chills up the spines of the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Ukraine and Georgia, all former Soviet republics which Putin would love to reel back into some newly constituted Russian empire. Europeans who will suddenly find themselves within range of the weapons previously banned by the treaty can only be equally concerned', the story goes on.
The outlet describes the U.S. president's move as 'a terrible, potentially lethal idea'. 'Trump needs to find a way to reel in these nations to such an agreement, not just arbitrarily pull out and torpedo it. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton is currently on a visit to Moscow, where he formally told his Russian counterpart of Trump’s plans on Monday. A diplomat who has rarely seen a treaty he does not want to scuttle or a battle he is not prepared to fight, Bolton is unlikely to consider any discussion with Russia of the sort that launched the INF accord three decades ago. Yet that sort of deft and intelligent diplomacy may be the only real route to security in this increasingly unstable world we live in', the story concludes.
