Officials from the State Department and Pentagon briefed international partners last month on the potential U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, with the U.S. delegation citing support from NATO and ally officials on the decision.
Andrea Thompson, the State Department under secretary for arms control and international security, told reporters Thursday officials are working on finalizing a path for withdrawing from the treaty and plan to continue sharing intelligence with partners on Russia’s continued violations to back up the decision.
“We had the opportunity to call out Russia’s continued violation of the treaty,” Thompson said, speaking of her October trip to Iceland, Estonia and Poland to meet with allies and NATO partners. “I think sometimes it takes reminding that Russia’s been in violation for over five years now across two administrations. We’ve called them out since 2013. We continue to show intelligence and information in our experts meetings with them, with key leader meetings with them, and there’s just no recognition back from the Russian Federation side that they’re in violation.”
President Trump in October announced his intent to withdraw from the INF treaty (Defense Daily, Oct. 22).
The deal currently prohibits the U.S. and Russia from developing ground-based conventional or nuclear missiles capable of reaching ranges beyond 500 kilometers.
Thompson said during her bilateral meetings she reiterated the withdrawal is based on Russia’s decision to continue building weapons, such as the SSC-8 cruise missile, in violation of the treaty.
“This isn’t about the U.S. This isn’t about NATO. This is about Russia’s violation of the treaty. They know that arms control only works when parties that have adhered to the treaty adhere to it, and right now the United States has adhered to the treaty and Russia hasn’t for years,” Thompson told reporters. She added that the U.S. has tolerated this situation for years, putting itself at a disadvantage as it does not “have the systems that others are already up and building.”
Discussions abroad included officials from the State Department and DoD, and included a focus on new ideas to get Russia to comply with the current INF treaty standards.
“This administration is all ears, if there’s something that hasn’t been done that will get Russia back into compliance. And no one was able to give me an idea that hasn’t been tried,” Thompson said, who added that her department’s position remains that Russia has no interest in attempting to comply with the current deal.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the likely next chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said during a recent conference the U.S. should consider working with Russia and China on putting together a new INF-like treaty (Defense Daily, Nov. 14).
Mark Esper, secretary of the Army, at a recent discussion said the likely withdrawal from the treaty could set the service up to go after missile technology that exceed the 500 kilometer range to meet future multi-domain operations goals (Defense Daily, Nov. 8).