President Trump’s withdrawal v nullifies a historic precedent. Stephen Cohen elaborates on the following points regarding Trump’s decision to withdraw. – For whatever reasons, both leaders at the time, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, had developed a deep personal fear of nuclear weapons. After agreeing in principle, though informally, in February 1986 that all nuclear weapons should be eliminated, the following year they abolished an entire category of those instruments… It was a major step in a diplomatic process of grand détente that both Reagan and Gorbachev thought would end the Cold War and nuclear arms races forever. – RT Photo: US President Donald Trump with senior military commanders, October 23, 2018/ White House.