Tension between Europe and America has gone nuclear.
Just when it looked like the U.S. and EU had run out of things to fight about, a fresh rift has emerged over how to forestall a new arms race with Russia in the wake of the collapse of a Cold War-era treaty designed to keep mid-range nuclear weapons out of Europe.
The Trump administration withdrew from the so-called INF Treaty (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty) earlier this month after accusing Moscow of years of non-compliance. Signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, the treaty is regarded as one of the crucial steps toward ending the Cold War.
While the U.S.’s NATO allies acknowledged the legal basis for Washington’s move to withdraw, concern over what will happen next was palpable at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. The Europeans were hoping for some indication of what the U.S.’s next move would be, but went home none the wiser from the annual gathering of leaders, ministers and policymakers from around the world.
“We cannot start another nuclear arms race,” Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said in an interview with POLITICO, urging an immediate effort to build a new treaty that would also include China. “We need a comprehensive agreement on nuclear weapons with all stakeholders. What does Mr. Trump want? No agreement at all? This is not our view.”
Security analysts say the real reason Donald Trump pulled out of the treaty was over concern that China, which is not bound by the INF, could deploy precisely the type of weapons Washington was banned from producing.
Most observers are skeptical that the administration has any plans to send such weapons, which the U.S. has yet to even make, to Europe. Such deliberations would only antagonize the Russians and worry the Europeans, said Sam Nunn, a former U.S. senator who worked closely on nuclear disarmament policy in the 1980s and 1990s.
“Where would you deploy them?” he asked. “It’s a lose-lose situation.”
Nunn was part of a group that came to Munich to urge leaders to try to preserve and modernize the INF. But given the unpredictability of the Trump administration’s foreign policy and the Continent’s deep distrust of the U.S. president, reaching transatlantic consensus on a new approach won’t be easy.
“On the most important threats we’ve been discussing — climate change, multilateralism, the rise of China, terrorism, the war in Syria, trade — wherever you look there’s complete disagreement between the States and Europe,” Borrell said. “It’s a divorce in values.”
European officials warned that the vacuum created by the treaty’s lapse could put their security at risk by reigniting the nuclear competition between the U.S and Russia with the Continent caught in the middle. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other leaders took pains in Munich to reassure the public that the U.S. has no intention of stationing mid-range nuclear weapons in Europe in response to the treaty’s collapse.
In Germany, where the stationing of mid-range nuclear missiles at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s created deep political divisions and sparked violent mass protests, the issue is stirring old ghosts. Some Social Democrats have even suggested it is time to rethink the country’s nuclear alliance with the U.S.
Even Angela Merkel, a leader not known to sow fear, made little effort to hide her deep concern over the issue.
“To be perfectly honest, for us Europeans the really bad news of this year is the cancelation of the INF Treaty,” the German chancellor told the conference in a keynote address, voicing frustration over Europe’s powerlessness to do anything about it. “The answer can’t lie in a blind race to build more weapons.”
The U.S. and Russia have six months to resurrect the treaty, but most observers say that’s unlikely. Given Russia’s investment in new missile technology, it would take a “miracle” to preserve the INF, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said in an interview.
“Frankly, Russia possesses those missiles, they are deployed and they’re violating the INF Treaty,” he told POLITICO, arguing that European concerns are more about symbolism than strategic reality.
“It looks bad because one of the iconic treaties of the beginning of the end of the Cold War is over, but why do we need a treaty that’s not enforced?” he said. “If someone violates it, it’s dead anyway.”