Russia’s violation of the 1987 INF Treaty raises a serious problem for the Treaty regime. The new administration can choose to ignore the violation, exit the Treaty, or strive to make it multilateral. I argue that the Treaty be broadened to include China. Were it included, Russia would be more likely to return to compliance with the Treaty; and China could advance strategic stability, signal it is a status quo power, and thus reduce the potential for arms racing in the Asia-Pacific.

 

Bradley Thayer, is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iceland. His research integrates a broad range of professional interests including international relations theory; grand strategy; United States national security policy generally and nuclear deterrence, cyber warfare, proliferation, and terrorism specifically; the rise of China; NATO and transatlantic relations. He has been a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and has been a consultant to the Rand Corporation, the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and served as a Senior Analyst for the National Institute for Public Policy where he supported the United States Strategic Command, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Missile Defense Agency. He has been a Fulbright Scholar Program Senior Specialist and has taught in the Czech Republic. His most recent book, co-authored with Brian Mazanec, is Deterring Cyber Warfare: Bolstering Strategic Stability in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). From 2004-2008, he was an associate editor of Politics and the Life Sciences, the scholarly journal of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, to whose Executive Council he was elected in 2005. From 2009-2013, he was the book review editor of Politics and the Life Sciences.