 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. In today's International Roundup, we will be talking about the United States confirming its decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty and the implications this can have. And to talk about this, we are joined by Prabir Purkayasta, NewsClick's editor-in-chief. So Prabir, this INF Treaty which is the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was one of the three treaties which was drawn up between the United States and Soviet Union for nuclear disarmament. And when this is off the table, only one treaty remains as the anti-ballistic missile treaty was also, the U.S. withdrew from it back in 2001 under George Bush. So now this decision which has come yesterday, a couple of days back, how is this different from the earlier announcement Trump made, which was I think a month or so back? You know, at that point it was not clear whether it was a negotiating strategy because there was a stock that if the Russians come back to the table by taking away the offending missiles which they had identified, then there could be possibility of keeping the INF Treaty alive. Now they have said this is not a negotiating position, we are going to withdraw from it. So this makes it very much a kind of strategic vision. Bolton has always propounded this, that all these nuclear restrained regimes, let us not call them disarmament, they are really more nuclear restrained regimes which that means reducing the threat of nuclear exchange and not doing away with nuclear weapons altogether. That is why I am not calling disarmament a measure, but a nuclear restrained measure. So Bolton and the strategic lobby has been again against all of these nuclear restrained regimes. They seem to have succeeded and this 2021 is actually the final, the only treaty which will remain in place comes up for ratification. It is possible the US will not ratify it, will not extend it, in which case what happens is that we will have no, shall we say, nuclear restrained regime existing at all in the world. And I think that is a very, very significant threat that we have. It is important to reiterate that when earlier Trump had said this, he thought maybe it was a sort of diplomatic ploy to start a debate or a discussion and finally some kind of negotiations, but this doesn't seem to be going in the direction. So the 2021 treaty is the new start treaty? New start treaty which is the numbers of warheads should come down further or it should be retained at whatever the current position says. So those were real measures by which the number of warheads had come down significantly. All that will then go, be off the table again. And we do not know what the response of the containing powers then will be. We can get into a situation of again, head figure alert, more and more stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Already there is enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, but increasing of the stockpile of nuclear weapons is really in that sense, far more frightening prospect than what is there today. So can we go into the reasons why this INF treaty came into place in the first place? As we've discussed earlier, INF treaty was basically for the European theater and that too because of the threat that if both sides start putting in INF intermediate range missiles, then Europeans are at risk, Americans have to put also missiles and therefore this will be, any war will mean an exchange of intermediate missiles and therefore the destruction of Europe. So it was more Europe which intervened at a certain point. Initially they were saying Russians are doing this, you have to stop them. But then it also meant that they had also to say that both sides should not deploy such weapons in European theater. And so INF treaty was really only between the United States and Russia and all other countries were out of it. It's very simply because the amount of weapons others had was much smaller. So they didn't see a need to enter this treaty. Multilateralization of this treaty was always possible that if the United States objection was that other parties are not there, now they're also talking about China, Iran, North Korea or for instance France and UK are not a part of this or India is not a part of this. They want to talk of a multilateralization of INF treaty. That's not something the United States has ever raised. So it does seem that it's a ploy to get out of the INF treaty. But the real issue will still be Europe because obviously it means that with the expansion of NATO the US would like to advance its nuclear weapons. INF would essentially be intermediate nuclear forces which they will then put in place at the borders of Russia. Therefore the Russians are going to be far more at risk. And since the United States is quite a distance away. So of course there are strategic bombers, there are submarines, all kinds of other weapons are also there. But the simple response for the Russians might be to put in more missiles and also put in intermediate missiles which means then risk to Europe again arises. So I think in that sense it is destabilizing the European theater which the United States and NATO forces have been doing for the last 20, 25 years by which they have advanced right up to the borders of Russia. Now putting in nuclear missiles and intermediate range missiles which can reach Moscow in say three, four, five minutes. I think it's really putting the world on a hair trigger alert. And that's a very, very, as I said earlier, a frightening prospect for all of us. And what has Russia's response been to this growing US threat? Well Russia has made shall we say a measure response. They say that if this is what you do, we'll wait for you to see what is it that you do on our borders. If we introduce intermediate missiles on our borders or in Europe then our countermeasure will also be there. And obvious countermeasures are say the strategic missiles that they have which could also apart from intermediate nuclear missiles, they have also built a whole new range of missiles which they haven't deployed. Deployment of these missiles could mean for instance hypersonic cruise missile. So if all of these new missiles are deployed then again we are back to nuclear arms race. So of course the arms race by definition is not a good thing to have strategic nuclear forces itself not a good thing. But a nuclear race that too for intermediate missiles means that the world becomes far more on the hair trigger alert. And a small mistake can lead to a nuclear exchange. So I think we are entering into very dangerous times. If this shall we say this gets converted to actual nuclear missile escalation. Right now it's a withdrawal from the treaty. But if the treaty withdrawal leads to escalation of missile threats by actual installation of missiles then we are really entering into far more dangerous territory. And obviously Russia's threat is if US does A then I will do B. And this is the tit for tat shall we say nuclear postures which was thought to be controlled by the three treaty measures that you talked about all of which were really nuclear restrained regimes. And going into the reasons the United States has given for coming out of the INF one of the arguments they are making is that China is expanding its reach into the South China Sea. So that is one of the reasons why they want to pull out the treaty since China is not a part of the INF. So do you think this reason is a strong reason for the United States to pull out. You see the US has been speaking with many voices on this. One of it is that there are a number of intermediate range missiles with China. But here the issue is not intermediate range missiles it's actually intermediate range nuclear missiles. They have not produced any evidence and in fact the kind of reports that we have from the strategic intelligence forces seem to indicate they do not think China really has intermediate range nuclear missiles. Of course both India China other countries have intermediate range missiles. That's very different from having intermediate range nuclear missiles. So this is one shall we say slate of hand the US is always doing talk about intermediate range missiles but actually then linking it to the intermediate range nuclear missiles which is a different kettle of fish shall we say. So that is one. The second part of it they are also looking at the kind of control the China will have because of its intermediate range missiles of whatever its military forces are and obviously China is going to assert some shall we say control over its seas. So if you look at the map and the map is there in front of you you will see that China has along its borders its coastline it actually is able to control the coast by 2030 that also not immediately but 2030 they'll have enough naval power as well as shall we say air force and other supporting arms to be able to control its coastline. Now no country should consider that to be a threat in itself but the US seems to argue that if China can control its coastline then it can assert influence over others in its periphery and that somehow is a threat to American security or US security which is a very strange argument. Even if you take the area they will have some influence none of it concerns actually American interest deeply. Yes of course Japan is there but I don't think China and Japan are going to get into a nuclear war so I don't think that's also a possibility but anyway US has strategic forces globally and Japan is under strategic umbrella so I don't think that's an issue but here is that they have obviously Chinese naval forces are building up most of them are really very light vessels they're not big you know aircraft carriers of the time that we have seen Russia to deploy but sorry United States to deploy but if you take all of that into account even then the area of naval influence project is not that high so the argument that China is the threat seems a very untenable one and also when you talk about Iran and North Korea let's face it if United States is claiming that Iran is a risk because of its intermediate missile capability without nuclear weapons I think that's quite a spacious argument and the real issues these are all excuses being given to walk out of the INF treaty and then possibly out of the Dewstart treaty by 2021 and we are going to see the projection of American nuclear power in the world in the belief that the big stake is what will give them more shall be say military influence in the world and reverse what has been the strategic decline over the years by which it's slowly losing control of its ability to actually dictate terms to countries in West Asia countries countries in Central Asia talk about pull out in Afghanistan pull out in Syria so I think it's sitting seeking to reverse all of this with a claim of greater nuclear capability and that's why the walkout of all these treaties because at the end of it nuclear missiles are much cheaper than trying to build other arms and maybe that what was considered by countries like North Korea there's a cheap equalizer to the United States United States is now saying but it can be a cheap dominator also and that will be the argument with which Bolton and others and of course Trump are moving in thank you for joining us today and thank you for watching news