A More Dangerous World: The Nuclear Arms Race, the INF Treaty and Canada

Details: Published on Wednesday, 06 March 2019 23:48; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1780 ... March 7, 2019
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A More Dangerous World:
The Nuclear Arms Race, the INF Treaty and Canada

Socialist Project Steering Committee

On October 20, 2018, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia. The INF was signed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987. The treaty eliminated 2,692 land-based missiles with ranges of 500 km to 5,500 km. On February 1, 2019, the United States suspended its participation in the treaty, and Russia responded by withdrawing from the treaty the following day.

This comes at a time of heightening belligerence by the United States and its allies against countries beyond the ongoing military operations in the Middle East.... Particularly since the Ukraine/Russia crisis of 2014/15, current targets include Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and now Venezuela. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes until midnight: military strategy from the U.S., its NATO partners, and Israel, appallingly includes the first-strike deployment of nuclear weapons based on a belief that a nuclear war is winnable and that nuclear weapons can be used like conventional weapons. The abrogation of the INF Treaty follows the massive $1.1-trillion investment in nuclear weapons by former President Barack Obama, and it comes as the Trump administration opens the possibility of Saudi Arabia’s development of its own nuclear weapons arsenal.