Bloomberg Editorial: Don’t Let Putin Ignore Disarmament Treaty

Given Vladimir Putin’s record of nuclear threats and his disregard for international law, Biden can be under no illusions about Russia’s willingness to abide by negotiated limits on the size of its nuclear arsenal. To preserve the treaty, the United States must make clear what Russia stands to lose if it abandons it.

The New START treaty, signed in 2010, limits both the number of long-range nuclear warheads each country can deploy and the vehicles used to deliver them. To verify compliance, each nation agreed to conduct 18 on-site cross inspections per year.

Even amid deteriorating bilateral relations, the disarmament work quietly continued: In the treaty’s first decade, inspectors made more than 300 visits to nuclear bases and support facilities. Since 2018, the US and Russia have adhered to the limit imposed by the New START agreement of 1,550 deployable strategic nuclear warheads, a reduction of 30% compared to 2002 levels and almost 75% less than at the end of the War cold.

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That progress is now in jeopardy. According to the US, Russia refuses to undergo any on-site nuclear inspections, which were suspended at the start of the pandemic. The Kremlin also withdrew from a meeting scheduled last November to discuss the implementation of the agreement.

State Department says Russia’s intransigence is cause for concern “serious concern”, but it is still not a formal treaty violation. It should hardly surprise; Now that the US and its allies are engaged in a proxy war against Russian forces in Ukraine, Putin has little incentive to give US inspection teams access to some of his country’s most crucial military installations.

In public statements, Russia has suggested that its future compliance with New START will be conditional on the West stopping its support for Ukraine and reducing NATO expansion.

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The Biden Administration should insist that any attempt to use the nuclear deal to extract concessions on Ukraine is impossible, while pressing Russian officials to commit to a timetable for resuming mutual inspections. To do this, I would apply the carrot and stick theory.

The United States should remind the Kremlin that the New START provisions benefit Russia as much as the US by allowing Russian inspectors to verify that US efforts to modernize its nuclear arsenal are not undermining the strategic deterrence of Russia. Continuing to comply with the treaty also allows Russia to avoid investing resources in maintaining thousands of obsolete long-range nuclear weapons that have no bearing on the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

Biden should be just as clear about the costs Russia faces if it backs away from New START. Regardless of how the conflict in Ukraine ends, the US must refrain from restoring diplomatic and economic relations with Russia until Putin agrees to abide by the agreements he has previously made.

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If it persists in the nuclear game and continues to block implementation of the treaty, the US should respond in kind by continuing regular nuclear exercises, accelerating the deployment of more advanced nuclear bombs in Europe and bolstering US missile defense capabilities. NATO allies.

At the same time, Biden needs to make a stronger case for why the nuclear treaty remains vital to US security. Republican lawmakers have called on the Pentagon to “prepare for a future where Russia can deploy a large number of warheads” that exceed the New START limits.

While continuing to invest in its existing arsenal, the US must comply with the New START limit on nuclear warheads and resist building expensive new nuclear weapons systems that the Army does not need. Demonstrating the US willingness to uphold disarmament agreements should encourage Russia to resume New START cooperation, reinforce non-proliferation goals, and help persuade China to finally accept limits on its own weapons process. nuclear.

Arms control agreements have not eliminated the danger of nuclear war, but they have greatly reduced it. Failing to sustain those efforts would undermine decades of progress toward disarmament and make the world a more dangerous place.

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