The Washington Examiner:
The decision to withdraw from the INF is getting praise in some quarters, including from some of Trump’s harshest critics.
“Just because President Trump does something doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” writes Max Boot in the Washington Post. “Declaring that the United States is ready to walk away is a good first step toward dealing with the security challenges of today’s world, which are vastly different from those of 1987. The United States can now develop a new land-based intermediate-range ballistic missile to counter a growing Chinese threat — a successor to the Pershing II missiles destroyed under the INF Treaty — while retrofitting the Tomahawk cruise missile, already ubiquitous at sea, for launchers on land.”
“The INF Treaty is simply no longer relevant,” agreed Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “The INF Treaty is outdated and an antique valued relic of the past that does not address nor contain current Russian technological developments on missiles that are tremendously more lethal, more capable, and certainly not limited to being based on land.”
