Today the last nuclear treaty between the the United States and the Russian Federation expired. It is the first time in 64 years that there will be no limits on each side’s nuclear forces.
The New START Treaty had been limiting the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and weapon carriers. Other nuclear related treaties like the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty have previously been ended by various U.S. presidents.
Russia had offered and asked for prolonging the New START Treaty but the U.S. had, until today, not responded to that request.
Most of these treaties were designed to limit the number of weapon system on both sides to roughly equal numbers. They prevented arms races where one side would produce an overwhelming amount of weapons to destroy the other side in a surprise attack. They guaranteed Mutual Assured Destruction as both sides would be destroyed in an all out nuclear war.
But the real value of these treaties were in their verification elements. Verification allowed to build trust between both sides:
To enforce the [New START] treaty, each side had to notify the other of any activity involving its strategic weapons, including missile test launches and heavy bomber movements, share data about the numbers of deployed missiles and delivery systems, and allow on-site inspections.
One example is that under the treaty all strategic bombers of each side had to be parked in the open, not in shelters, so that the other side could see them in satellite pictures. It guaranteed that there were no ‘secret forces’ hidden somewhere. (Ukraine abused this feature when it launched drone attacks against Russia’s strategic bombers.)
The U.S. has never given any good reason why it wanted the treaties to end.
The Bush administration claimed that the ABM treaty was hindering building missile defenses against ‘rogue states’. In reality it wanted to build a missile defense system that would disable a Russian nuclear attack and thereby give the U.S. the capability for a first strike which Russia would not be able to answer.
Russia, in consequence of the ending of the treaty, build new weapons like the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater vehicle as well the Sarmat missile, which can not be stopped by missile defenses.
When the first Trump administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range treaty it claimed, without providing evidence, that one specific Russian missile test had exceeded the range limits defined in the treaty. Russia responded to the end of the treaty by developing and deploying the Oreshnik system as a new intermediate range missile.
The U.S. excuse for leaving New START is that a new strategic weapon treaty is needed which will have to include limits on China’s strategic missile forces. China rejects to be part of such a treaty because it has less than 20% of the strategic nuclear weapons that Russia and the U.S. each deploy.
It is unlikely for now that the end of New START will lead to a race to acquire more and more strategic nuclear weapons even as the military-industrial complex will demand more missiles.
But the end of the treaty will lead to less knowledge of what the other side is doing and will over time erode any trust in ones own capabilities as the real capabilities of the opponent will be increasingly unknown. This insecurity and what might follow from it is the real danger.
Over the last hour news has come out of an informal prolongation of the parameters of the New START treaty:
President Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner negotiated on New START with Russian officials on the sidelines of Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi.
The treaty will still formally expire on Thursday, and the extension will not be legally formalized, a U.S. official said. “We agreed with Russia to operate in good faith and to start a discussion about ways it could be updated,” a U.S. official said.
Another source said the practical implications were that both sides would agree to observe the deal’s terms for at least six months, during which time negotiations on a potential new deal would take place.
If I were in Russia’s position I would not trust the U.S. to stick to any such informal commitment. Any such agreement will need to be verified.
Russia should test if the U.S. is willing to allow for the verification of its informal commitment to New START limits.