The conflicts between Washington and Moscow keep on growing: Ukraine and Syria, rival war games, "hybrid" wars and "cyber-wars." Talk of a new Cold War doesn't do justice to the stakes.

"My bottom line is that the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War," declares former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry.

If a new Trump administration wants to peacefully reset relations with Russia, there's no better way to start than by canceling the deployment of costly new ballistic missile defense systems in Eastern Europe. One such system went live in Romania this May; another is slated to go live in Poland in 2018. Few U.S. actions have riled President Putin as much as this threat to erode Russia's nuclear deterrent.

Only last month, at a meeting in Sochi with Russian military leaders, to discuss advanced new weapons technology, Putin vowed, "We will continue to do all we need to ensure the strategic balance of forces. We view any attempts to change or dismantle it, as extremely dangerous. Our task is to effectively neutralize any military threats to Russia's security, including those posed by the newly-deployed strategic missile defense systems."

Putin accused unnamed countries — obviously led by the United States — of "nullifying" international agreements on missile defense "in an effort to gain unilateral advantages."

Moscow has reacted to this perceived threat with more than mere words. It is developing new and deadlier nuclear missiles, including the SS-30, to counter U.S. defenses. It has rebuffed new arms control negotiations. And it has provocatively stationed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to "target . . . the facilities that . . . start posing a threat to us," as Putin put it last month.

If a new arms race is underway, it's not for lack of warning. The Russians have voiced their concerns about missile defenses for years and years, without any serious acknowledgment from Washington. From their vantage point, the apparent bad faith of successive U.S. administrations, Democratic as well as Republican, is a flashing red light to which they had to respond.

Russia's Nightmare

From the earliest days of President Reagan's Strategic Defense ("Star Wars") Initiative to make ballistic missiles "impotent and obsolete," an alarmed Moscow has viewed U.S. efforts to build a missile shield as a long-term threat to their nuclear deterrent.

In 2002, President Bush one-upped Reagan and unilaterally canceled the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. He did so after Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov publicly pleaded with Washington not to terminate this landmark arms control agreement.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Ivanov warned that such a move would set back recent progress in Russian-U.S. relations and destroy "30 years of efforts by the world community" to reduce the danger of nuclear war. Russia would be forced, against its desire for international cooperation, to build up its own forces in response. The arms race would be back in full force — leaving the United States less secure, not more.