After more than 30 years, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (I.N.F.) Treaty ended last week, with an American withdrawal on Friday and a Russian withdrawal on Saturday. Although the United States abided by the terms of the treaty, Russia violated it by fielding more than 100 banned intermediate-range missiles, and China, which was never bound by it, fielded thousands. The United States has none.

To fix this gap, it is time for the Department of Defense to develop and field conventionally armed, ground-launched, intermediate-range missiles. The I.N.F. was a good treaty that reduced tensions and contributed to the peaceful end of the Cold War. After signing it in 1987, the Soviet Union and the United States eliminated ground-launched missiles with ranges of approximately 310 to 3,417 miles. Those missiles were problematic because, if they were armed with nuclear warheads, they could, given their short flight time, be used for devastating surprise attacks against allies in Europe and against the Soviet Union. The elimination of those missiles provided a greater sense of stability between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies.

Unfortunately, for more than a decade Russia has been violating the treaty. In 2008, Russia breached it by testing an intermediate-range, ground-launched cruise missile known as the 9M729. Equipped with modern guidance systems, the 9M729 and other new Russian missiles can fly precisely to their targets. This precision enables Russia to use warheads with conventional explosives that have a much smaller destructive area than nuclear warheads, which in turn increases the likelihood that Russian forces will use these weapons in a conflict.

For six years, American diplomats patiently tried to persuade the Russians to honor the agreement, but Russia ignored the United States and NATO allies while building and deploying more than 100 of the banned missiles. Even more worrisome, China, which was never part of the bilateral treaty and repeatedly declined to join it, started in the 1990s to assemble a huge missile force explicitly designed to counter American strengths. China now has thousands of missiles armed with conventional and nuclear warheads. These precise and deadly missiles are capable of attacking ships at sea and bases ashore, not only throughout the territory of America’s allies in Asia, but also far out at sea and on American territory in Alaska, Guam and the Northern Marianas.