- The US has formally withdrawn from a Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty(INF) with Russia.
- Russia had also officially suspended it’s participation in the INF treaty after the US had announced to withdraw from the treaty claiming that Russia had secretly developed a missile that violated the INF.
- Further,the US military also plans to test a land-based cruise missile and ballistic missile previously banned under the INF treaty between August and November of 2019.
- The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces(INF) Treaty came into force in 1988. It banned both the Soviet Union(Russia) and the US from developing and deploying land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km.However,treaty did not apply to air-or sea-launched missiles.
- The agreement was signed to de-escalate tensions as both countries had dozens of such missiles deployed, posing a risk of an accidental nuclear exchange.
- Cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided vehicle that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path and whose primary mission is to place an ordnance or special payload on a target.
- Ballistic missile follows a ballistic trajectory to deliver one or more warheads to a predetermined target. These weapons are only guided during the relatively brief periods of flight—most of their trajectory is unpowered,being governed by gravity and air resistance if in the atmosphere.
