11. Nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation

Chapter:

11. Nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2020

Author(s):

Tytti Erästö, Shannon N. Kile, Petr Topychkanov

In 2019 the prospects for sustaining the achievements made in Russian–United States nuclear arms control appeared to be increasingly remote. During the year, the long-running dispute between the USA and Russia over a seminal cold war-era arms control treaty, the 1987 Soviet–US Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), culminated with the collapse of the treaty (see section I). The USA alleged that Russia had developed and deployed a mobile ground-launched cruise missile that had a flight range prohibited under the treaty—an allegation that Russia consistently dismissed as baseless. In August the USA confirmed its withdrawal from the INF Treaty in light of Russia’s failure to address US compliance concerns. The decision marked the effective demise of the treaty, which raised concern among European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) about the risk of new nuclear weapons in Europe.