Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was an arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, signed at a summit in Washington by President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. It required both sides to eliminate all of their ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres, a category that included the Soviet SS-20 and the American Pershing II, whose deployment in Europe had caused a political crisis in the early 1980s. It was the first treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons and included on-site inspections. In 2019 the United States withdrew, accusing Russia of violating it with a new cruise missile, which Russia denied, and the treaty ended.

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