Withdrawing unilaterally for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty “threatens a nuclear arms race” with Russia, the top Democrats on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees wrote in a Wednesday letter to members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
The INF Treaty, “alongside New START Treaty, forms the basis for our strategic relationship with Russia,” according to the letter from Armed Services Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and and Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.). The letter was printed on congressional stationary and addressed to Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The lawmakers said they supported the Trump administration’s previous “integrated response” to an alleged INF violation by Russia dating to at least 2014, but that they could not support the unilateral withdrawal from the 1987 treaty the president announced over the weekend and reaffirmed through this week.
“Given the precipitous and unexpected announcement in the past few days of a planned U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty, we request that you personally brief our members when we return to Washington, DC the week of November 13,” Smith and Engel wrote. “In the meantime, we request a written response to our questions no later than November 2.”
Among other things, the congressmen wanted to know which, if any, of new technology or weapons programs the United States would require to counter post-INF Russian capabilities.
The INF Treaty, from which Washington has not yet officially withdrawn, forbids the United States and Russia from testing or deploying ground-based missiles — whether conventional or nuclear — with flight ranges between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kilometers.
Trump said Saturday his administration would abandon the treaty and develop such weapons again because of the alleged Russian violation, which U.S. lawmakers generally agree happened, and because China was unconstrained by the accord in the first place.
Congress authorized the Pentagon to study a conventionally armed INF-range missile as part of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. Trump did not call immediately for a nuclear-tipped option as part of the new arms buildup he appeared to promise Saturday.