US Allegations that Russia has Violated the INF Treaty

Many of you will have seen the reports that the US is alleging that Russia has violated the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. This is certainly a subject ripe for analysis here at ACL, and I would invite members of the community to engage with it in the comments.

I found today a good piece on the technical and political aspects of the case. And Duncan Hollis has a nice preliminary piece on legal aspects over at Opinio Juris.

I guess to me this seems like a fairly minor treaty violation, if it is a violation at all. And I suspect that it wouldn’t be high on the US administration’s list were it not for the politics surrounding Russia and its Ukrainian adventurism of late. And of course Russia could always simply withdraw from the INF treaty, much as the US withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2003. So its hard for me to get too worked up about this issue.