Aaaargh.  Here we go again.  According to NBC "Trump is pulling the U.S. out of a Reagan-era nuclear arms deal.  Experts are stunned."  Just like the Reagan years.

Not because the United States again has a moronic warmonger as president.  Rather, because after nearly a century of failed arms control the "debate" is still going in stupid circles.  Trump is pulling out of the "Intermediate Nuclear Force" or INF treaty forbidding American or Russian ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres because the Russians are cheating.  And the usual suspects are mad at him not them.

Even the NBC email teaser, let alone the full story, admits that "Many experts agree that Moscow continues to break the rules and flout the pact".  But, it says "some, including [former Communist Party chair and treaty co-signatory Mikhail] Gorbachev himself, say ripping up the agreement is a bad idea."

Why?  It's a simple question and it demands an answer.  (Unlike "Who cares what Gorbachev thinks?")  Why is it a bad idea to pull out of a treaty that only binds you?

From the Soviet/Russian point of view, it's pretty simple.  They get all the benefits of the treaty and none of the costs, as the United States unilaterally disarms on intermediate missiles.  But what about from the American and Western view?

For the "experts" and journalists it's apparently also pretty simple.  They get all the benefits and none of the costs, because… the United States is the problem.  Tension and war are caused not by hostile foreign tyrannies but by us.  "It's not them. It's us!" as Tom Hanks wails in The Burbs.

This peculiar view has been the impetus behind the peace movement all along.  They never cared what the Soviets were up to, no matter how blatant.  They kept saying we had to make all the concessions.  But it didn't work then and it didn't work now.  (If you've seen The Burbs, and if not you should, shortly after Hanks' agonized cry the ugly truth is revealed: It's them.)

Indeed, the INF itself was only signed by Reagan and Gorbachev at Rejkavik in 1987 after Reagan refused to give in and abandon ballistic missile defence, precisely the stance all the fashionable "experts" back then were saying would doom arms control.

It's in this sense that the whole argument is excruciatingly familiar.  American foreign policy is not perfect, of course.  Nothing is in human affairs.  But the "blame America first" crowd at home and abroad, including in Canada, are as wrong today as they were then.  If the United States were not the hyper power, and Britain before it, the world would not be a safer, calmer or more decent place.  It would be overrun with tyranny, war and genocide.

At the dawn of the nuclear arms control age, in 1961, Fred Iklé posed the key question no one has ever answered: "After detection, what?"  It's one thing to figure out what ideal arms control treaty would do most to reduce the possibility of disastrous war given that force posture matters regardless of intentions.  You don't want either side obliged to "launch on warning" because it knows it can't survive a first strike and retaliate.

It's another thing to get an adversary to sign a treaty you think helps make the world a safer place, in terms of the weapons and behaviours it bans or limits.  Throughout the Cold War the Soviets explicitly rejected Mutual Assured Destruction, the core of western deterrence theory and hence negotiating posture.  It's far worse if you're facing someone who thinks after Armageddon you go to hell while they bed 72 virgins.  But regardless, treaties are pointless if you have no plan once you catch the other side cheating.  And going "never mind, we're the bad guys anyway" is not what I mean when I speak of a "plan".

Former American security official Elbridge Colby just argued in the National Post that it should be disarmers not hawks calling for U.S. INF withdrawal, since they're the ones urging us to put our faith in treaties.  Except they're not.  They're using treaties to bind their own warmongering governments so peace love and trust can flourish at the hands of Vladimir Putin.

Well, him and Xi Jinping.  As Colby also wrote, the INF withdrawal is less about Russia than China, which is more dangerous in its capacity and its intentions in a region where geography makes "survivable land-based ballistic and cruise missile systems" important to resilient defence capability.  Especially with China investing heavily in "carrier-busting" cruise missiles.

The case for withdrawal depends, of course, on the notion that strong democracies are good for peace which you'd think would be obvious.  Since it's not, one thing does emerge clearly from this story.

"Experts" are indeed stunned.

Photo Credit: Money Inc.