Why on Earth Would Trump Withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty?

With the terrible attack in Pittsburgh dominating the news, little attention has been paid to a very, very stupid thing that Donald Trump appears set to do.  According to The Atlantic,

When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev solemnly signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at the White House, the leaders of the world’s superpowers hailed the transition from an era of “mounting risk of nuclear war” to one marked by the “demilitarization of human life.”
​
But when Donald Trump unceremoniously declared the treaty dead over the weekend, the mood was different. After taking a shot at Barack Obama for not pulling out of the agreement in response to Russian violations, the president complained about how unfair it is that Russia and China get to “do weapons” that “we’re not allowed to,” and boasted of the hundreds of billions of dollars the U.S. military could “play with” were it to build new nuclear weapons of its own. The demilitarization of human life this was not.

The Trump administration has yet to formally withdraw from the INF Treaty, but if the president makes good on his pledge, the move would be massively significant. Here’s why.

Seriously Donald, what is the point of this of this madness?

Unfortunately, as I've noted, Trump seems to shoot from the hip with a very shallow political philosophy. He also seems to have, at least partly, be co-opted by my least favorite people; the permahawks and the neocons. 

The threat from Russia is wildly overblown, despite what warmongers like Bill Kristol or John Bolton have to say. While Trump didn't run on a peace platform, he did run against full-scale war, interventionism and escalating tensions with Russia. 

Hopefully he remembers that before a Black Swan takes place in this new and mostly pointless Cold War we're in.