On 20 October 2018, US president Donald Trump announced that the United States intended to abrogate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Treaty, which excludes the development and deployment of missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Now, 30 years later, the Trump administration is prepared to withdraw from this historic but outdated accord. The INF Treaty was drafted towards the end of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union possessed more advanced intermediate-range missiles than any other country.

However, since then, dozens of states, including some potential US adversaries, have deployed INF-range missiles. More generally, world affairs have progressed in the last 30 years and the INF treaty does not hold the same significance it once did. Repeated violations by the Russian Federation, the proliferation of missile capabilities to other countries—some hostile to the US and its allies—and advances in defence technology have made the INF treaty less important. National Security Advisor John Bolton correctly noted that the agreement did not really accord with “a new strategic reality” and was a “bilateral treaty in a multipolar ballistic missile world”.

http://icds.ee/en/life-after-inf/