President Donald Trump vowed last night that the United States would outspend Russia on missiles without a fresh international accord after he ditched a landmark Cold War treaty.
Trump's warning during his annual State of the Union address cemented fears of an emerging arms race, with Russia hours earlier pledging to design new missiles over the next two years.
The United States last week started the process of exiting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, saying that Russia has been violating the pact through a new missile system and ignored repeated complaints.
"Under my administration, we will never apologize for advancing America's interests," Trump told US lawmakers assembled in the House chamber.
"Perhaps we can negotiate a different agreement, adding China and others. Or perhaps we can't –- in which case, we will outspend and out-innovate all others by far," Trump said.
While pointing the finger at Russia, US officials have voiced concern that the 1987 treaty does not constrain China, whose rapidly growing military relies on medium-range missiles as a core part of its defence strategy.
The INF treaty banned all missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (310 to 3,400 miles), a legacy of the end of the Cold War as last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan sought to ease European fears of an arms race that would destroy their cities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin -- who has sought a warm relationship with Trump but is widely reviled by the US establishment -- responded Saturday by saying Moscow would also leave the INF treaty.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier Tuesday that Putin had approved plans for new missiles.
Trump calls for unity
In his state of the union address Trump urged Americans to come together, seeking to turn the page on two years of divisive turmoil and transform him into a bipartisan national leader.
But opposition Democrats almost instantly rejected the overture, while Trump's steadfast insistence on building US-Mexico border walls promised new political strife in the near future.
At times joking, at times impassioned, Trump told Congress and a huge television audience that "we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution -- and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good."
On foreign policy, Trump reaffirmed his determination to get US troops out of Afghanistan and Syria as quickly as possible. And he announced he would extend his trailblazing personal diplomacy with North Korea by meeting reclusive leader Kim Jong Un on February 27-28 in Vietnam.
Trump touted what he hopes will remain his strongest card with voters -- "the hottest economy anywhere in the world." He also called for a bipartisan push to eradicate the AIDS epidemic in the United States in a decade.
But the key aim in the speech, littered with soaring rhetoric and interrupted continuously by applause from the Republicans, was to announce a new, more inclusive presidential tone ahead of Trump's 2020 reelection bid.
The problem is that in two years of his administration Trump has driven an already polarized country into bitter, even violent debate over almost every aspect of politics.
The divide was stark from the moment Trump entered the House of Representatives chamber, with Republicans scrumming to shake his hands, but most Democrats keeping out of the way.
And the moment Trump swung onto his favourite topic of building a wall on the Mexican border to stop an "onslaught" of illegal immigrants, Democrats angrily shook their heads. A decision by Democrat women to wear white, in honour of the early 20th century suffragette movement, was seen as a visual rebuke of Trump.
After the speech, Senior House Democrat Steny Hoyer declared that Trump "leaned on falsehoods and fear to obscure the reality of a presidency lacking in leadership and harmful to America's future."