An historic arms control treaty scrapped in the new-era Cold War

How desperately sad that the US feels it has to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), signed by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev. The INF treaty will formally be scrapped by the US tomorrow (Saturday February 2 2019). The US insists that the Russians are in breach of the treaty by fielding a new ground-launched cruise missile called Novator 9M729 (also known as SSC-8). Intelligence reports state that this missile can go further than the allowed INF range of 500 kilometres. The treaty bans all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. The Russians have dismissed America's accusation, saying the cruise missile can only go 480 kilometres!! So, just 20 kilometres short of the banned range. Very convenient. The US simply doesn't believe them. If Putin told you that his latest missile had a range of only 480 kilometres, would you believe him? No, I didn't think so. But the US is not just worried about Putin's missile game. After all, the INF Treaty only covers ground-launched missiles, and America has plenty of air-launched and sea-launched ones. No, the real reason for the US jumping out of the INF Treaty is that it only embraces missiles owned by the US and Russia. That's because it was a Cold War weapon when the Soviet Union and the US relied on mutual assured destruction as a deterrent to either side going to war with the other. Today the even bigger worry is China. The Chinese military have developed and deployed thousands of land-based medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles which threaten America's aircraft carrier strike forces whenever they are in the area that China wants to dominate. So now, with INF dead, the Pentagon can start developing a whole new range of ground-based missiles, ostensibly to match Putin's new missile, but also to keep pace with China. But it's still a sad day. The INF Treaty was a great coup. Russia was forced to back down, having deployed its SS-20 land-based missiles to target Europe. When the US sent cruise missiles to Britain and elsewhere and Pershing 2 missiles to Germany, the deterrent status quo was back in business. It took Ronnie and Mikhail to realise it was all rather pointless, and so all the missiles were destroyed. So February 2 2019 is a bad day. Thanks Putin.