# INF Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by [[Ronald Reagan]] and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, eliminated an entire class of weapons: all US and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. Nearly 2,700 missiles were destroyed, with on-site inspections. It was the first arms-control agreement to eliminate a category rather than cap it, and it resolved the Euromissile crisis — the early-1980s confrontation over Soviet SS-20s and NATO's Pershing II and cruise-missile response, which produced the largest peace demonstrations in European history. **The United States withdrew in August 2019**, citing Russian deployment of the 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the range limit. Russia denied the violation and blamed US missile-defence installations in Romania and Poland. [[John Bolton]], then National Security Advisor, was the withdrawal's principal architect — the same figure the [[International Criminal Court]] page identifies as the through-line on treaty exit. ## Why a Dead Treaty Has a Page Because the class of weapons it eliminated is being rebuilt, on both sides, and the vault's other pages keep touching the consequences. **Russia ended its unilateral moratorium on 4 August 2025**, citing US "practical implementation" of intermediate-range deployment plans. > [!warning] Date trap > This is a **2025** story. Pages datelined **4 August 2026** recycle the same Russian MFA statement verbatim. Check the year on anything about the moratorium. Russia's **Oreshnik** intermediate-range missile entered serial production in August 2025 after its first combat use against Ukraine in November 2024, and was declared **on combat duty in [[Belarus]]** around the turn of 2025–26. The American systems Russia cited: the Army's **Typhon** launcher deployed to the Philippines, exercised in Australia, and sent to **Japan** for the first time in 2025; a Navy containerized launcher on Bornholm. ## The German Deployment That Didn't Happen This is the part most likely to be got wrong, because the plan was announced loudly and its cancellation quietly. In July 2024 the US announced "episodic deployments" of long-range fires to Germany beginning in 2026 — SM-6, Tomahawk, Dark Eagle, PrSM — building toward enduring stationing under the Germany-based 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force. A battalion was activated at Fort Drum in October 2025 specifically for the mission. **On 1 May 2026 the Pentagon cancelled it.** The same order cancelled the deployment of roughly 4,000 soldiers to Poland, some already in country. Germany's defence ministry said three days later that there was "no definitive cancellation" and the weapons "may well still be" stationed there; the confusion persisted. Separately the US announced a reduction of about 5,000 troops in Germany over six to twelve months. **As of mid-August 2026 there is no confirmed US Typhon or Dark Eagle deployment in Germany.** Germany is pursuing an independent purchase of Tomahawks and Typhon launchers instead — reportedly around 400 missiles, and reportedly at risk following the troop withdrawal. ## Why It Matters Here The INF exit is the template the 2025–26 sequence follows, executed six years early, and it is worth studying for what happened *after* the withdrawal rather than for the withdrawal itself. The stated rationale was Russian non-compliance, and the evidence for it was real. What followed was not a return to compliance or a better treaty. It was the reconstitution of the weapons class on both sides, an end to the Russian moratorium, a nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile on combat duty in Belarus, and an American deployment plan to Germany that was announced, staffed, and then cancelled — leaving European allies to buy the capability themselves. That last part is the through-line to [[Coalition of the Willing]] and the [[Munich Security Conference]] report finding that European procurement remains 51% US-dependent. Withdrawal from a constraint does not automatically produce the freedom of action it promises. Here it produced a symmetrical arms race in a weapons class that had been abolished, and allies buying American systems to cover a gap American forces were withdrawn from. ## See Also - [[New START]] — the next arms-control instrument to end, by expiry rather than exit - [[Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]] — the surviving multilateral framework - [[Coalition of the Willing]] — European states buying the capability themselves - [[NATO]] — the alliance the Euromissile crisis nearly split - [[Cold War]] — the context that produced the treaty - [[US Treaty and Organization Withdrawal Timeline]]