Every day, Didier François deals with an international topic.

Didier François returns this Monday on the abandonment of the treaty of disarmament of the intermediate range Nuclear Forces this weekend by the United States and Russia. This is the illustration of this new race for military power that marks international relations since the appearance of new players like China with very strong strategic ambitions.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was, in its time, an extremely strong gesture. The oldest will remember, it was December 8, 1987. Two huge figures are found around the negotiating table, President Ronald Reagan (leader of the free world) and in front of him Mikhail Gorbachev (the new First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) which has just launched in its country incredible reforms: glasnost and perestroika. And there, against all odds, the two men will sign an agreement that prohibits and dismantles nuclear missiles of medium range. That is to say all rockets with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

America is withdrawing from the Federal Republic of Germany its Pershing missiles, which had been deployed in response to the Soviets putting the SS-20s into the Democratic Republic of Germany. This is the end of 10 years of an intense military standoff between East and West, called the Euromissile crisis. This treaty actually symbolized the end of the cold war.

Its abandonment today is therefore a diplomatic sign both strong and very disturbing. Especially since neither Washington nor Moscow intend to return to the cold war.

Why, then, did they not simply renew the validity of the treaty?

Because they do exactly the same thing. This disarmament treaty binds only Russia and the United States since they are the only signatories to it. New players are seeking to acquire ballistic and nuclear capabilities in intermediate ranges. And an emerging power particularly has strongly muscled its arsenal in this range of weapons, it is about China which did not exist as world power at the time of the signature of this agreement of disarmament but which became a competitor particularly ambitious and therefore dangerous for Russia as for the United States. Hence the tacit agreement of Washington and Moscow to come out of a treaty that handicaps them against the rise of Beijing.

Donald Trump has also warned that he would consider a return to a treaty to limit intermediate nuclear weapons if China is involved in this hypothetical new agreement.

On the other hand, the arms race has indeed resumed and without waiting. Moscow has already begun the modernization of its ballistic arsenal with the implementation of 9M729, vector of a range estimated at 2,500 kilometers, which can be armed with conventional or nuclear charges. Washington has also announced plans to quickly test a new medium-range missile to catch up in the field.