World Naval Developments – January 2019 by Norman Friedman*
Late in January the U.S. Government announced that it was suspending the Cold War agreement to ban Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) from Europe, in response to what it saw as blatant Russian cheating. NATO backed the U.S. action; the Russian missiles had been a matter of great concern to many in the Alliance. Russian President Vladimir Putin then announced that he was withdrawing from the agreement.
