US intelligence first suspected Moscow was developing a ground-based nuclear-armed cruise missile in breach of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) ten years ago.
The discovery provoked a confrontation with the Russians that endured throughout the Obama administration and generated increasing alarm in Nato. The new missile would directly threaten Europe.
It was only in 2017 that the US finally put a name to the missile in question: the land-based Novator 9M729 (designated by Nato as SSC-8), a cruise missile which Western intelligence agencies insisted had a range that breached the INF Treaty.
The 1987 unique treaty which is still the only arms control agreement signed by the US and the then Soviet Union which eliminated a whole class of nuclear missiles, set range limits of between 500 kilometres and 5,500 kilometres.
INF only covers land-based nuclear and non-nuclear cruise and ballistic missiles and involved no other nations in the nuclear club. Thirty-one years later, the nuclear picture has changed dramatically, with countries such as China and North Korea developing short-range and medium range nuclear-capable missiles unaffected by the INF restrictions.
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