Citing Russia breach, U.S. to exit nuke pact; 1987 missile treaty violated, Pompeo says

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's administration said Friday that it was suspending one of the last major nuclear arms control treaties with Russia, after five years of heated conversations between the two powers that failed to resolve the U.S. accusation that Moscow is violating the Cold War-era agreement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the decision, declaring that "countries must be held accountable when they break the rules." He said the United States would terminate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in six months unless Russia destroyed its growing arsenal of intermediate-range missiles and launchers.

"We can no longer be restricted by the treaty while Russia shamelessly violates it," he told reporters in Washington.

The U.S. did not announce plans for any new weapons or shifts in missile deployments, but Trump administration officials did not rule it out down the road.

In a statement, Trump said the onus is on Russia.

"The United States has fully adhered to the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty for more than 30 years, but we will not remain constrained by its terms while Russia misrepresents its actions," Trump said. "We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other. We will move forward with developing our own military response options and will work with NATO and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct."

The treaty bans ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 310 miles and 3,400 miles. Russia has said it is not violating the treaty and that its 9M729 missile has a range of less than 310 miles. NATO declared in December that the missile system does violate the treaty and poses a risk to Europe.

Russia has warned that it would respond in kind if the United States were to deploy new intermediate-range missiles, potentially leading to a new nuclear buildup in Europe reminiscent of the Cold War.

"I 'congratulate' the whole world; the United States has taken another step toward its destruction today," said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's upper house of parliament.

Speaking at the State Department, Pompeo said the United States would continue diplomatic efforts.

"We'll continue to have conversations with them. We hope they'll come back into compliance," Pompeo said. "We've had conversations at every level, at senior levels, at technical levels. We've had conversations about the nature of these systems. There's no mistaking that the Russians have chosen not to comply with this treaty."

The Russian government accused the Trump administration of looking for any excuse to get out of the treaty. Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said the United States failed to negotiate in good faith.

"On the whole, the reluctance of the Americans to listen to reason and to hold any kind of substantive talks with us shows that Washington decided to crush the treaty a long time ago," Peskov told reporters.

Pompeo said it was Russia that determined, years ago, that the treaty was no longer in its interests.

1980s FEAR, DISTRUST

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was the first arms-control measure to ban an entire class of weapons. At the time, in the late stages of the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies were mainly concerned by the perceived threat of Russian medium-range nuclear missiles that were targeted at Europe. The U.S. deployed similar missiles in response, in the 1980s, leading to negotiations that produced the treaty. Arms-control specialists said that without the treaty, the United States could move to position missile systems in Europe or Asia, while Russia could use the opportunity to base missile systems elsewhere.

The Trump decision reflects his administration's view that the arms treaty was an unacceptable obstacle to more forcefully confronting not only Russia but also China. China's military has grown mightily since the treaty was signed, and the pact has prevented the U.S. from deploying weapons to counter some of those being developed in China.

Leaving the treaty would allow the Trump administration to counter the Chinese. U.S. security concerns are complicated by what U.S. intelligence officials earlier this week called efforts by China and Russia to expand their global influence, particularly in Asia and the Middle East.

"China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s, and the relationship is likely to strengthen in the coming years as some of their interests and threat perceptions converge," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in testimony Tuesday to Congress.

In Asia, the United States could deploy conventional midrange missiles near Chinese ships and militarized artificial islands during a conflict to defend parts of the East China Sea or South China Sea.

The rationale for deploying conventional midrange missiles in Europe theoretically would be to blunt any Russian attempt to prevent the U.S. military from resupplying European allies in a future conflict.

Both such moves would risk a response from Beijing and Moscow, risking a conventional arms race with missiles in Asia and Europe that has already shown signs of emerging with the development of hypersonic weapons that can move far faster than the speed of sound.

The senior Trump administration official said that the United States is so far looking only at non-nuclear missiles in terms of possible deployments and that any move to deploy them would likely be years away.

SUPPORT, CAUTION

Lawmakers in Washington broke along party lines over the withdrawal announcement, although both parties called the pact flawed.

Republicans had effectively asked for the move in last year's defense authorization, stating that the United States would be "legally entitled to suspend the operation of the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty in whole or in part for so long as the Russian Federation continues to be in material breach of the [treaty]."

"I completely support the Trump Administration's decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty due to Russian noncompliance," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "Russia has been in violation of the treaty for years and the Obama Administration refused to do anything about it. It's a bad deal for America when Russia cheats and the United States complies."

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also supported the U.S. withdrawal.

"Russia has violated the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty for years, while China has stockpiled thousands of missiles that threaten American and allied forces in the Pacific. Withdrawing from the [treaty] is a good start; now this action must be backed by American firepower. The United States must regain the strategic advantage by expediting the development and deployment of a new generation of ground-launched missiles," Cotton said in a statement Friday.

Democrats, however, warned that ripping up the treaty was the wrong way to steer Russia -- or China -- back into a treaty order more responsive to modern weapons and threats.

"The Trump Administration is risking an arms race and undermining international security and stability," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. "Russia's brazen noncompliance with this treaty is deeply concerning, but discarding a key pillar of our nonproliferation security framework creates unacceptable risks. The Administration should exhaust every diplomatic effort and work closely with NATO allies over the next six months to avoid thrusting the United States into a dangerous arms competition."

NATO, a military alliance that was created to counter the Soviet threat 70 years ago, endorsed the announcement hours after Pompeo spoke.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of NATO, said Russia was "fully responsible" for the breach of the treaty and "the United States is taking this action in response to the significant risks to Euro-Atlantic security."

"All NATO allies support the U.S. decision today to start the withdrawal process, but it will take six months before that process is completed," Stoltenberg said. "We continue, therefore, to call on Russia to come back into compliance and fully respect the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty."

Stoltenberg said the Russian missile system at the center of the current dispute "can reach most of Europe, and that's exactly why European allies are so extremely concerned."

The Europeans are keen to avoid a repeat of a crisis in 1983, when NATO allies decided to deploy U.S. cruise and Pershing 2 ballistic missiles as negotiations with Moscow faltered over Russia's stationing of SS-20 missiles in eastern Europe.

Before word of the U.S. withdrawal came from Washington, European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini called on both countries to stick to the treaty.

"What we definitely don't want to see is our continent going back to being a battlefield or a place where other superpowers confront themselves," Mogherini said.

With the treaty on its last legs, the question is whether Pompeo's announcement will result in a flurry of last-minute negotiations with Moscow -- which seems unlikely -- or whether it will accelerate the Cold War-like behavior among the United States, Russia and China.

The announcement by Pompeo came just before the expiration, today, of a 60-day deadline he gave Moscow to come into compliance with the treaty. He had no expectation that the Russians would heed his warning.

"We hope they'll come back into compliance," he said.

Information for this article was contributed by David E. Sanger of The New York Times; by Anne Gearan, Carol Morello, Paul Sonne, Anton Troianovsky, Michael Birnbaum and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post; and by Deb Riechmann, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Lynn Berry, Jim Heintz, Alison Mutler, Lorne Cook, Raf Casert, David Rising and Danica Kirka of The Associated Press.

A Section on 02/02/2019