The recent announcement1 President Trump's withdrawal from the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Force Treaty) of mutual limitation of missile material opens a further element of uncertainty in the already tense relations between the US and Russia.
The treaty dates back to the 1987, signed by the then president Ronald Reagan and the head of the Soviet Union Michail Gorbachev, and is counted as one of the most significant moments that led to the end of the Cold War. It limits the number of intermediate missile carriers (those with a range between 500 km to 5400 km) also known as "euro missiles", which so much concern had aroused among the European allies, worried about being easy targets.
The deal was a success, and about 2.700 between missiles Pershing Americans and SS-20 Soviets were destroyed as a result of his signature.
Trump's latest latest statements have not, however, surprised the attentive observers.
In fact, it was long ago - Obama had begun in 2014 - that the US accused Russia of systematically violating the treaty with the development of "prohibited" missiles.
He therefore did not surprise Trump's statement of the 20 last October that "Russia has been violating the agreement for many years" and that "only we have honored the treaty, and now it is time to say enough and to withdraw from agreement".
The American administration is not alone in denouncing Moscow's activities. The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, also said at the beginning of this month that he was worried about "the lack of respect that Russia continues to have towards the commitments it has signed, such as the IMF treaty". A treaty that regulates, according to him, a category of armaments "crucial" for the security of the European continent, which is now in danger "because of the Moscow initiatives".
Stoltenberg also referred to the new missile system called 9M7292, which Moscow has never denied having in its arsenal.
If the NATO allies, especially the Nordic ones, fear is linked to the possibility to become easy again target, the renewed concern of the US, rather than to the European chessboard is due to the Pacific quadrant in which there has long been an acrimonious competition with Beijing, and where a dog dissolved as the Pyongyang nuclear regime, although recently collaborative, introduces a major factor of insecurity.
With this in mind, the withdrawal from the IMF agreement announced by Trump offers Washington the possibility of deploying missile systems in Asia (in Japan and South Korea) capable of balancing Chinese (and North Korean) proliferation, rebalancing the level of deterrence between the parties.
On the other hand, compensating the forces in the Indo-Pacific region is a primary requirement for Washington. The existence of a treaty between the US and Russia has not prevented Beijing, in all these years, to develop an important program to acquire strategic carriers.
This is the case of the DF-41 intercontinental missile3 (photo), able to hit every corner of the US territory, or the bomber stealth subsonic H204 that can undock 16 nuclear bombs from 2400 libre to 8.500 km away (according to some to 12.000 km).
But it's not just about carriers. In the field of non-conventional armaments, Beijing has in recent years been equipped with a highly respectable arsenal, and continues to pursue a policy of research that is of great concern in the United States.
From September 2014 to December 2017, China has concluded about 200 nuclear experiments, according to reports from the South China Morning Post5 which in turn cites a document from the Chinese Academy of Physics Engineering, against the 50 tests conducted by the USA during the 2012-2017 period (data from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).
In other words, while in all this time Beijing, free from treaty lanes, continued to develop and incorporate conventional and non-conventional weapon systems, Washington would rigidly abide by the IMF restrictions that bound it to Russia, allowing create an imbalance which he now wants to remedy.
The withdrawal from the IMF treaty should therefore be framed in this light, and is closely linked to the recent Trump offensive that led to the imposition of duties on Chinese goods for more than 200 billion dollars, with which, exploiting the huge surplus of Beijing , the technology development program called "Made in China 2025" was hit, strongly limiting its production and collaboration with the outside world in all the high-tech fields.
The Trump initiative is finally to be placed in the system with the US naval operations in the East and South China Sea formally tended to affirm the freedom of navigation in its international waters, but above all to oppose the military expansionism of Beijing in its "inland sea" ".
1https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/20/politics/donald-trump-us-arms-agreeme...
2https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/novator-9m729-the-russian-mis...
3https://www.janes.com/article/80877/china-moves-closer-to-commissioning-...
4https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2169472/why-new-h-20-su...
5https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2147304/china-steps-pace...
(photo: Kremlin / Nato / Twitter)
