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Source (last paragraph)

*Here’s another fact few Americans know: ever since 1918, the Russians have never once broken any treaty they’ve signed with the U.S., though the U.S. has broken a number of the treaties it’s signed with the USSR/Russia.

Is this actually true? I can't think of any examples. I know there were some US-USSR/Russia treaties such as Open Skies and the INF treaty that the US withdrew from, but withdrawing from a treaty should be different from breaking the treaty, since I would expect these treaties to have an exit clause.

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  • 2
    The story is specifically in the "opinion" thread on the site, just saying.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 3:28
  • 1
    I'm not saying it's off-topic, just putting the claim in-context.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 3:29
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    Breaking a treaty is hard to evaluate objectively. Often one side argues that they didn't, the other side argues that they did, and there is no judge or court to settle it. For example, the US claimed Russia violated the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty several times from 2008 onward. Russia denies it. In at least one case, it would hinge on the range that the missile in question was capable of.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 3:59
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    I don't think either country followed the timeline required by the 1990 chemical weapons stockpile destruction agreement.
    – DavePhD
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 13:31
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    Not that it matters for fact checking but it would help if they could actually list one (or more) of the treaties that they claim the US broke. Reading the article it sounds like an anti NATO and anti west piece and judging from the source I would question if the claim is widely believed or not.
    – Joe W
    Commented Feb 21, 2022 at 13:40

1 Answer 1

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As explained in Train Wreck: The U.S. Violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (Georgetown Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 12-128):

The United States is violating a multilateral arms control treaty. Russia is, too. It’s not just some minor accord at stake; it’s the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)...it’s a blatant transgression of one of the treaty’s most fundamental provisions, requiring the timely destruction of the massive inventories of chemical weapons (CW) ... each country will fall years beyond complying with the treaty’s April 29, 2012 final deadline for accomplishing the total dismantling of this noxious ordnance -- the United States now figures to eclipse that mandatory mark by at least 11 years.

The specific treaty is The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction as ratified by the US Senate 24 April 1997.

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