Reagan and Gorbachev Sign INF Treaty: Nukes Vanish

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on December 8, 1987, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons for the first time in the atomic age. The agreement required both superpowers to destroy all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, along with their launchers and support equipment. By the treaty's deadline in 1991, 2,692 missiles had been destroyed under unprecedented mutual verification. The crisis that produced the INF Treaty began in the late 1970s when the Soviet Union deployed SS-20 missiles targeting Western Europe. NATO responded with a "dual track" decision: negotiate their removal while simultaneously deploying American Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe as a counterweight. Massive anti-nuclear protests swept Western European capitals, and the deployment nearly fractured the NATO alliance. Soviet leaders walked out of arms control talks in 1983 after the first American missiles arrived in West Germany. Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 changed the dynamic. The new Soviet leader needed to reduce military spending to fund domestic reforms and was willing to make asymmetric concessions. Reagan, despite his hardline rhetoric, genuinely wanted nuclear arms reductions and saw an opportunity in Gorbachev's flexibility. Their personal rapport, built through summits at Geneva and Reykjavik, created diplomatic space that career bureaucrats on both sides had considered impossible. The INF Treaty established the most intrusive verification regime in arms control history. Inspectors from each side were stationed at the other's missile production facilities for 13 years. The agreement proved that nuclear arsenals could be reduced through negotiation, building momentum for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties that followed. Russia suspended its participation in 2019, and the United States formally withdrew, ending the treaty after 32 years. The missiles it eliminated have not been rebuilt.