Donald Trump's withdrawal from a nuclear arms treaty with Russia was not a precedent, as it has been "a habit" exercised by the US president since taking office less than two years ago.
In what seems to be a rift from the era of his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump announced his earlier withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, as well as the Paris Climate Treaty signed by 195 countries in the same year.
But the sensitivity of Trump's nuclear treaty necessarily imposes an important question: What next?
The agreement that Trump announced his intention to withdraw from, Saturday, was concluded with Moscow during the Cold War, specifically 31 years ago.
The treaty, which eliminated an entire range of 500 to 5,000 kilometers, put an end to a crisis that erupted in the 1980s over the Soviet Union's deployment of SS-20 missiles, which were aimed at Western European capitals.
The deal was concluded by former US President Ronald Reagan, with the late Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, as the first and only treaty between the two poles.
The treaty, or so it is assumed, forced the parties to withdraw more than 2,600 conventional, short- and medium-range nuclear missiles.
The withdrawal does not necessarily mean a nuclear war between the East and the West, but Trump's decision raised fears of a frantic race to develop and produce nuclear weapons in both camps, as well as the allies of Washington and Moscow.
A withdrawal from the treaty could also have huge implications for US defense policy in Asia, particularly toward China, its main strategic rival with which Trump is fighting a trade war.
China is not a party to the treaty and has spent a lot of money on conventional missiles, while the medium-range nuclear weapons treaty bans US possession of ballistic missiles fired from the ground, or cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
The Trump decision angered Moscow, where a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry that the United States "dreams" to be the only dominant force in the world by its decision to withdraw from the Treaty.
"The main motive is to dream of a unipolar world, will it happen," the source said, quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti.
He stressed that Moscow "has publicly condemned the course of American policy towards the abolition of the nuclear agreement," and that Washington "approached this step over several years by destroying the foundations of the agreement in deliberate and deliberate steps."
He added that "this decision falls within the framework of US policy to withdraw from the international legal conventions that place equal responsibilities on them and their partners, and undermines their own concept of their exceptional status."
