The man who kicked off the New Year by lauding himself as a “stable genius” is now all set to provoke a return to the US-Russia arms race of the Cold War years. For Donald Trump has said that Washington will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). This is the bilateral framework inked with Moscow back in 1987 and which bans both nukes as well as conventional weapons with a 500-5,500km-range capability. The American president accuses Russia of violating the agreement. The latter rejects the claims. Arguing that Washington is the offender in this case, it points to the US missile defence shield in Europe — particularly Romania — that can reportedly launch at any time. Be all this as it may, Putin remains committed to the INF. Meaning that once more Trump Town has turned its back on diplomacy in favour of going it alone. And while National Security Adviser John Bolton spent the beginning of the week in Moscow — this was presented as little more than an opportunity to officially inform the Kremlin as to why the US believes that tearing up a 31-year-old anti-proliferation treaty is the only deal on the table. With the American mid-term elections less than two weeks away, there has been talk of a strategic double bluff of sorts. Namely, that while seemingly playing the tough guy for audiences back at home — the president is in reality trying to persuade Putin to sign a new pact. One that includes China, which already boasts short and intermediate range land-based nuclear capability. If true, such a move may therefore have more to do with containing Beijing than rebuking Russia. At least in the near-term. Nevertheless, Trump did single out both nations in his first State of the Union address back in January as rivals to US hegemony that had to be confronted with “unmatched power”. This has led pundits to speculate that Washington may be trying to bleed the two dry in terms of chasing the latest high-tech WMDs. Whatever the case, withdrawing from the INF is a risky gamble. And it puts the US on the back-foot when it comes to negotiating on non-proliferation in the future. Indeed, the Russians have already begun ruminating over whether or not Washington is now preparing to develop weapons that were outlawed under the bilateral framework. Either way, such missteps, however calculated — including unilaterally pulling out of the Iran nuclear pact — serve to undermine American pretensions of being a sincere and effective broker of Middle East peace. Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union and the man who signed the INF with Ronald Reagan. And it is he who has perhaps summed up the latest Trump manoeuvre best: as being “not the work of a great mind”. * Published in Daily Times, October 24th 2018.