Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union (and its successor state, the Russian Federation). US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the treaty on 8 December 1987. The US Senate approved the treaty on 27 May 1988, and Reagan and Gorbachev ratified it on 1 June 1988.
| Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles | |
|---|---|
Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan sign the INF Treaty. | |
| Type | Nuclear disarmament |
| Signed | 8 December 1987, 1:45 p.m. |
| Location | White House, Washington, D.C., United States |
| Effective | 1 June 1988 |
| Condition | Ratification by the Soviet Union and United States |
| Expiration | 2 August 2019 |
| Signatories | |
| Parties | Soviet Union United States |
| Languages | English and Russian |
| Text of the INF Treaty | |
The INF Treaty banned all of the two nations' nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 mi) (short medium-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi) (intermediate-range). The treaty did not apply to air- or sea-launched missiles. By May 1991, the nations had eliminated 2,692 missiles, followed by 10 years of on-site verification inspections.
President Donald Trump announced on 20 October 2018 that he was withdrawing the US from the treaty due to Russian non-compliance, stating that Russia had breached the treaty by developing and deploying an intermediate-range cruise missile known as the SSC-8 (Novator 9M729). The Trump administration claimed another reason for the withdrawal was to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, including within the South China Sea, as China was not a signatory to the treaty. The US formally suspended the treaty on 1 February 2019, and Russia did so on the following day in response. The United States formally withdrew from the treaty on 2 August 2019.