Clock ticks down on last Russia-US arms deal
The latest nuclear deal between Russia and the United States is expected to expire within hours, raising the risk of a new arms race in which China will play a major role.
The network of arms control agreements negotiated in the decades since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, considered the closest the world has come to intentional nuclear war, was intended to reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear exchange.
Unless Washington and Moscow reach some kind of last-minute deal, the world’s two largest nuclear powers will remain unrestricted for the first time in more than half a century with the expiration of the New START treaty.
There was confusion over exactly when the 2010 agreement would expire, although arms control experts told Reuters they believed this would happen by 9am (AEDT) on Thursday.
Matt Korda, deputy director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that without an agreement to expand the project’s key provisions, neither Russia nor the United States would be constrained from wanting to add more warheads.
“Without a deal, both sides would be free to load hundreds of additional warheads onto the missiles and heavy bombers they have deployed, which would roughly double the size of their currently deployed arsenals in the most maximalist scenario,” he said.
Korda said it’s important to recognize that the end of New START does not necessarily mean an arms race, given the cost of nuclear weapons.
US President Donald Trump gave different signals regarding arms control. He said last month he would make a better deal if the deal expired.
Russian officials said so far there has been no response from Washington to President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend the agreement beyond its expiration date.
The total nuclear warhead inventory has fallen to about 12,000 warheads in 2025 from a peak of more than 70,000 in 1986, but the United States and Russia are improving their weapons and China has more than doubled its arsenal in the past decade.
Arms control supporters in Moscow and Washington say ending the treaty would not only remove limits on warheads but also undermine trust, confidence and the ability to verify nuclear intentions.
Opponents of arms control on both sides say such benefits are uncertain at best and that such agreements hinder major power nuclear innovation, allow for cheating and essentially narrow major powers’ room for maneuver.
Last year, Trump said he wanted China to be part of arms control and questioned why the United States and Russia should produce new nuclear weapons, given that they have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over.
In February last year he said: “It will be a very sad day if we end up needing nuclear weapons like the ones we have produced and the kind Russia has and China has but will have to a lesser extent.”
“This will probably be oblivion.”
