Landmark US-Russia arms control treaty is dead

WASHINGTON (AP) — A landmark arms control treaty that President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed three decades ago is dead.

The United States and Russia both walked away from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty on Friday.

And if they choose not to extend or replace the larger New START treaty when it expires in early 2021, there will be no legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time in nearly a half-century.

The U.S. says Russia has been violating the treaty for years by developing and fielding weapons that threaten the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Europe.

President Donald Trump says he wants a new arms control treaty signed by China as well as the U.S. and Russia.