Editor's Note: Tom Fowdy is a UK-based political analyst. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Trump administration is desperate to turn the world back to the days of Cold War hostility, and worse.

It longs for confrontation. It treats all forms of international cooperation with contempt and believes that it has a right to ignore, dismiss and overturn every agreement on a whim if it does not meet America's interests, with the belief that it can simply coerce the other parties into capitulating to Washington's unilateral terms.

As a result, it has withdrawn from an unprecedented number of agreements. The terms behind these withdrawals have often been based on pure misinformation or extreme selfishness.

The newest casualty is the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed with Russia, which banned the role of ground based, short and medium range nuclear missiles, thus preventing their deployment around the world.

The treaty was part of the rapprochement between Washington and Moscow which helped bring the Cold War itself to an end. It was seen as a positive move for international security and non-proliferation efforts.

Now, however, that Donald Trump has decided to scrap this treaty out of the blue, there will be grave repercussions for global stability; it won't make the world a safer place.

Why has this happened? Complementary to Trump's already aggressive foreign policy and preference for abrasive unilateralism, his decision-making is further aggravated by domestic pressure in Washington.

In order to discredit the president, the Democrats have projected a narrative that Trump owes his victory to Russian interference and concurrently, he is soft on Moscow.

The effects of this are complicated by the way American culture politicizes allegations in a hysterical and exaggerated manner, with no libel laws to control its boundaries. This constrains the president to have no choice but to appear tough on Russia, even when truth or interest does not suffice.

But he is not an unwilling passenger in this scenario. Advised by the ultra-hawkish John Bolton, who advocates confrontation as a catch-all solution to everything, scrapping the treaty is very much a modus operandi of his foreign policy “philosophy.” He firmly believes in arms races.

In 2017, he tweeted about wanting to build up America's nuclear forces, while there has been longstanding talk of wanting to invest more in short range nuclear capabilities, it's not a coincidence.

Thus encouraged, rather than constrained, by domestic political pressure, the administration has had the opportunity to legitimately quash a longstanding nuclear arms treaty. It is something that will be no doubt praised, rather than condemned in Washington, on a bipartisan level.

This allows us to recognize that the real motive is not non-compliance from Moscow, which shouldn't be taken as a serious reason.

Instead, it is so shorter-range, ground-based nuclear capabilities can be unleashed globally to intimidate others into following America's will via coercion, as has been the primary means of diplomacy from this administration.

Make no mistake about it. As an attempt to gain leverage on China, there is a chance he will toy with placing these weapons in his so called “Indo-Pacific” to intensify the regional standoff. Riding on the wave of Neo-McCarthyist rhetoric aimed at Beijing, he will use the exaggeration of the “China threat” to justify it. It won't resolve anything.

Similarly, we should also expect nations such as Iran, DPRK, Venezuela and so on to also face the brunt of such insidious tactics.

This has consequences. Trump's nuclear chauvinism will endanger international security by provoking regional arms races and delegitimizing the non-proliferation regime.

As an example, China for one, developed nuclear weapons in accordance with internationally agreed legal frameworks, stood by a “non-first use” policy and never sought to develop capabilities beyond a basic deterrent, but if they are to face blatant nuclear intimidation by Trump, how can they stick to that?

Simultaneously, why should the DPRK even consider denuclearization if this serves to become a new arm of American blackmail? Or why should Iran stick to the nuclear deal America has torn up anyway?

If he goes ahead with this, there is a real risk cold war era nuclear saber-rattling could return, for as Washington's behavior increases the insecurity of other states, it becomes a domino effect which ultimately harms the entire international community.

The control of nuclear proliferation has been there for a very good reason. Yet, Trump's administration truly believes that it is unaccountable to nobody and nothing.

It is an attempt to create a Washington-centric order not by morality, example, ethics or vision, but brute force in the understanding of “America first,” that simply one nation's interest matters and others do not.

Thus, the world has again become a little bit less of a safer place at his hands.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)