Stratfor:
Russia is feeling increasingly limited by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as the United States continues to modernize its nuclear arsenal and develop its ballistic missile defenses. The United States also finds the treaty constraining, but neither Moscow nor Washington wants to be the first to withdraw from the pact.
Russia on Sept. 23 criticized the United States’ planned deployment of upgraded B61-12 guided nuclear bombs to Germany, once again raising the threat of withdrawing from the 1987 INF treaty as a response to U.S. moves. The INF bans ground-based nuclear or conventional intermediate-range missiles (500 to 5,500 kilometers, or 300 to 3,400 miles). Though the U.S. deployment of B61-12 nuclear weapons to Germany does not violate the INF treaty, Moscow is increasingly viewing the pact as a limitation.
The INF pact is a cornerstone arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that halted a destabilizing buildup of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe during the 1980s. However, the treaty also constrained both U.S. and Russian options. Even as influential camps in the United States and Russia fear the treaty’s dissolution and a return to a dangerous arms race in Europe, other voices in both countries desiring to abandon or revise it are growing louder.
The INF treaty has especially restricted U.S. policy in East Asia, forcing the United States to rely on air- and sea-launched missiles to counter China’s vast and growing land-based missile arsenal. The Russians are even more concerned with the INF, because the treaty places them at a disadvantage relative to the United States in missile defense and modernized scalable nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, the INF, as a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia, does not stop countries around Russia such as China, India and North Korea from developing intermediate-range nuclear weapons. Unlike the continental United States, which is beyond the range of these missiles,Russia has to factor in these potential threats even as the New START Treaty limits its strategic nuclear arsenal (in any case largely aimed at the United States)….
