The INF Treaty: Provisions and Precedents

The Treaty for the Elimination of Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) is a landmark in arms control. It clearly has a number of unique aspects: the elimination of entire classes of weapons, the acceptance of asymmetrical reductions, its indefinite duration, limitations on non-deployed systems, and the number and types of inspections it allows. Most particularly, to a much greater degree than is widely known, the INF Treaty involves an exacting timetable of reductions and a plethora of regulations and inspections.