photo: The Official CTBTO Photostream, CC BY 2.0, Flickr.com
European security and defence
The end of America’s commitment to protect Europe Withdrawal from the INF Treaty – the new geostrategic thinking by the USA
by Harald Kujat, General (ret.), former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Berlin
T
he signing of the INF Treaty by US President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev on 8 December 1987, brought an end to a decade in which the nuclear threat to Europe had grown steadily larger. The Western countries in which American deterrence nuclear systems were to be stationed as a consequence of the so-called “double-track” decision had experienced vigorous political opposition. The peace movement had staged mass demonstrations. In terms of arms control, the INF Treaty broke new ground: the contracting parties undertook to destroy their ground based short- and medium-range nuclear systems with a range between 500km and 5500km and to no longer develop, build, test or deploy such systems in the future.
The struggle for European security The Soviet SS-20 missiles with three nuclear warheads threatened the whole of Europe but not the American continent. This superior euro-strategic potential in Europe could have led to an uncoupling from the strategic nuclear potential of the USA, entailing the risk of a nuclear conflict confined to Europe. The German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, therefore demanded that Soviet medium-range nuclear weapons be included in the SALT arms control negotiations between the two nuclear superpowers or, alternatively, dealt with in a separate treaty. In 1979 he finally succeeded in persuading NATO to adopt the double-track decision, according to which the deployment of American Pershing II and cruise missile in Europe would go hand in
hand with the willingness to start talks about their removal and that of the corresponding Soviet systems. On 1 June 1988, the INF Treaty entered into force. By May 1991, the United States had destroyed 846 missiles and the Soviet Union 1846. The verification regime ended on 31 May 2001. On 20 October 2018, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty, despite the fact that only on 12 July 2018, he had approved a joint statement of NATO Heads of State and Government which said that “The Intermediate Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security and we remain fully committed to the preservation of this landmark arms control treaty.”
Russia’s quest for geostrategic advantage If Russia were to attempt once again to use medium-range nuclear missiles to gain a strategic advantage in Europe, Europe’s position would be very similar to that of 1979. Will Russia try once again to foil America’s nuclear deterrence capability? For some years now, the USA has been accusing Russia of violating the treaty, in particular because of its production of land-based SSC-8 cruise missiles. For its part, Russia is concerned that the United States is taking advantage of NATO’s ballistic missile defence system, the Aegis Ashore Missile Defence System (AAMDS) in Romania with a vertical launching system possibly capable of launching cruise missiles. If Russia continues deploying SSC-8 cruise missiles against Europe, NATO’s nuclear deterrent, including US strategic nuclear systems – the decisive security guarantee for all allies – would no longer be effective. NATO’s Strategic Concept could no longer be pursued and Europe’s autonomy and security would no longer be guaranteed. The USA’s withdrawal would make little difference if Russia is indeed intending to pursue such a policy by violating the
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