The questions facing President Trump if we leave Russian missile treaty

In October 1983, more than a million Germans took to the streets to protest the deployment of American nuclear-armed Pershing missiles on German soil. Large protests were also staged in Britain.

The Pershings and accompanying ground-launched cruise missiles were a reaction to the deployment of the intermediate-range SS-20 missiles by the then-Soviet Union.

The U.S. announced it would pursue a "dual-track" strategy - deploying its own intermediate range missiles while negotiating first curbs and then the elimination of all ground-based intermediate range missiles.

The protests included peace activists who were opposed to any weapons system, but the numbers swelled because of the fears that intermediate-range missiles engendered - first because they raised the possibility that a nuclear conflict could be fought on European soil while leaving America untouched and, second, because the flight times of the intermediate-range missiles were so short (10 minutes or less) that it would compel leaders to make hair trigger decisions.

In 1987, the dual track strategy worked and President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) eliminating the entire class of weapons, and over the next several years the SS-20s, Pershings and GLCMs were verifiably destroyed.

In the last two weeks, President Donald Trump signaled that the U.S. will either suspend participation in the INF, terminate that participation or withdraw. Each path has a different consequence under international law, but the president's imprecise use of language makes it unclear which path he will choose.

The president's decision was anticipated. There is strong consensus that Russia has been in violation of the INF Treaty for several years as it has deployed some 100 GLCMs, the 9M729. Russia has tried to deflect accusations that it has cheated by denial and charging that an American anti-missile system deployed in Romania also violates the INF, an accusation that does not hold water.

There have been other pressures to leave the treaty. Other nations - China, Iran, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have been building intermediate range missiles because the treaty only restricted the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia. The Chinese missiles pose a particular threat to the U.S. should it be compelled to defend Taiwan.

So, what now? As many have argued, when someone breaks the law, you don't just tear up the law. How will leaving the treaty make America safer? That is a question the Administration will have to answer.

Would it be possible to expand the treaty to include these other countries? China has already signaled that it is not interested, but a sustained campaign of diplomatic and public pressure could compel China to reconsider that position.

More than 35 years ago the U.S. deployed missiles, which were essentially bargaining chips, to achieve a desired outcome - the removal of the SS-20s. Might such a strategy work again?

Here we see an example of the changing face of warfare. Russia's President Vladimir Putin has used various means to try to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies. Every dispute between America and NATO countries furthers that goal.

The same applies in Asia. We have seen China use economic pressure to punish South Korea when an American missile defense system was deployed on its soil. Thirty-five years ago there was no social media to gin up opposition to American missile deployments. Today, the full arsenal would be unleashed by Russia or China to drive protesters to the streets with all the political consequences that would follow.

The Trump Administration needs to explain how ending American participation in the INF Treaty makes the U.S. more secure. Does it "punish" Russia, as the president has suggested, or does it make the U.S. appear to be an unreliable international partner that does not live up to its treaty commitments, shifting the focus away from Russian cheating?

Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.