Opinion | Does the US really need land-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific?

The United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty has raised fears of a new arms race among the world’s great powers.

The target of the deployment is China, which is outside the INF legal framework. Washington says Chinese medium- and intermediate-range missiles pose a threat to US forces in Asia. However, given US strike capabilities in the Western Pacific, it is debatable whether this concern is justified.

The INF treaty, which the US and the Soviet Union signed in 1987, prevented the two countries from manufacturing and deploying conventional and nuclear land-based missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km (805 and 8,851 miles).

The administration of US President Donald Trump pulled out of this bilateral arms control pact on August 2, citing Russia’s alleged violations. The US government says the Russians have been producing and installing the Novator 9M729 land-based cruise missile, which exceeds INF limitations, since 2016.

Moscow has denied such accusations, contending that the US breached the INF treaty by stationing Aegis Ashore anti-missile batteries in Romania. The Kremlin says this platform has a launcher that can fire both interceptors and Tomahawk missiles. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally suspended Russia’s participation in the INF agreement in early July.