INF Treaty Compliance
| Working Paper
There has been no change in the official public positions of Russia and the United States regarding the other party’s noncompliance with elements of the INF Treaty. However, the technical developments that prompted the original complaints and political changes (including the U.S. presidential election) that frame options for resolving the dispute have continued to evolve.
Abstract
There is significant skepticism amongst Western intelligence officials and in the U.S. Congress on Russian compliance with INF treaty limits. This strongly constrains the opitons of the Trump administration. On the other side, there are also many in Russia who wish to have INF Treaty limits lifted. In Moscow, critics see the treaty imposing a heavier burden on Russia, which, unlike the United States, can be targeted by other countries with nuclear-tipped INF-range missiles. There is residual resentment in the Russian military over President Gorbachev’s willingness in 1987 to include the SS-23 Oka short-range ballistic missile in the treaty’s list of systems to be banned, even though it had an operational range below the 500-5,500 km-range floor established by the treaty. Without movement toward resolution of INF Treaty compliance issues, the prognosis for this treaty is poor, and the prospects for any future nuclear arms reduction treaty will recede beyond the horizon.
Policy recommendations
To ensure stability, movement along this vector requires that strategic offensive forces remain invulnerable to surprise attack and can continue to reliably penetrate any strategic missile defenses they may encounter. As long as strategic missile defenses remain relatively ineffective and confidence-building measures remove first-strike fears, there is room for significant additional reductions in nuclear arsenals.
- To enhance confidence in the abilities of the sides to be able to accurately assess and monitor an opposing arsenal and to achieve timely warning of its use in an attack.
- To agree on an approach to the sides’ strategic and theater missile defense capabilities so that they are not perceived to threaten second-strike capabilities of strategic forces.
- As NATO and the Soviet Union discovered in the 1980s, effective constraints on INF are an essential component of strategic arms control. The extensive transparency measures of the INF Treaty then – including data exchanges, on-site monitoring, and challenge inspections – and the decision to create a ban rather than a limit on the most destabilizing systems were critical milestones in the path to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. INF arms control led the way then; it can do so again.
