“…Russian misbehavior aside, this ostensibly bilateral treaty is obsolete in a multilateral world, giving a strategic advantage to other adversaries. China has aggressively expanded its intermediate-range missiles to assert its influence in the Pacific while the U.S. is constrained by the INF, threatening both our posture in that theater and the security of our Pacific allies.
Advocates of the deal insist that leaving the treaty removes any chance that Russia would return to compliance, but Moscow has had ample opportunity to do that already. They insist, too, that leaving confers no advantages. But there are significant costs to remaining in the treaty, which complicates the testing of American missile-defense systems and sends a signal that the U.S. is not serious about enforcing the terms of its agreements with other countries.
The INF set up an enforcement regime that was reasonably effective in the first decades of its signing. It no longer works, and it hamstrings us in other key domains. Barack Obama forgot Reagan’s doctrine that “to be serious about arms control is to be serious about compliance.” Trump remembered it, and not a moment too soon…”