Editor's Note: The article is based on an interview with Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute. The article reflects the expert's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the US will leave the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia. Dating from the Cold War, the agreement has kept nuclear missiles out of Europe for three decades.
It's not the first time Trump withdrew his country from international treaties – the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the Universal Postal Union, to name but a few.
Since coming to office, Trump has been pursuing absolute military and strategic advantages over other countries. The dream of permanent hegemony and a unipolar world is what motivated Trump to quit the deal.
However, the president is only shooting himself in the foot. Apart from striking a blow to Washington's global influences and reputation, capriciously pulling out of the INF treaty would be a severe crisis in nuclear arms control.
The decades-old pact prohibits the US and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 480 and 5,400 kilometers.
Then President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signing the arms control agreement banning the use of intermediate-range nuclear missiles, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Reduction Treaty./ VCG Photo
Although Washington and Moscow have been repeatedly accusing each other of breaching the INF, the historic treaty has offered a blanket of protection to European countries for the past 30 years.
If the INF collapses, the US would be able to develop intermediate-range nuclear forces without limit. This would inevitably provoke an arms race across Europe akin to the one in the 1980s.
To safeguard national security from US threats, Russia and other regional countries would accelerate the pace of developing and upgrading their armament.
In his speech last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia is ready to develop new weapons systems in response to other countries doing the same, and if Washington pulls out of the INF treaty, Moscow would do likewise.
Trump's INF withdrawal has, in essence, lowered the threshold of deploying nuclear weapons, and eventually the world could be left without any limit on the nuclear arsenals of nuclear states.
Following a campaign rally, US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Elko Regional Airport in Elko, Nevada, on October 20, 2018./ VCG Photo
Trump's capriciousness is a crackdown on the mechanism of arms control and the system of strategic stability in the world. While the president has been holding high the banner of "Make America Great Again," his policies have only brought catastrophic consequences to the US and the whole world.
Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital triggered a slew of violent attacks in the Middle East; his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal pushed the US to the verge of a war with Iran; his trade war against China is launched at the cost of American consumers' interests. The president is dragging the world into a total mess.
As a response, China should accelerate its military development. China firmly opposes any challenge to the mechanism of arms control. China is committed to the principle of non-first-use of nuclear weapons, and under no circumstances, will China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.
But in the meantime, China will spare no effort in upgrading its armament so as to deter any nuclear provocation from the US.
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