FP: The suspension of Russia's participation in the START III treaty does not mark the beginning of an arms racePutin announced that Russia is suspending its participation in the START III treaty, writes Foreign Policy.
However, Moscow has not withdrawn from the agreement and may return to it in the future. It is too early to talk about the beginning of a new arms race.
Russia and the United States own about 90% of all nuclear weapons. What happens if they stop talking?On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country was suspending participation in the START III treaty concluded with the United States.
Thus, the future of the latest arms control agreement between the two leading nuclear Powers was in question.
In accordance with this treaty, which entered into force in 2011, restrictions are imposed on the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles each of the parties has. In 2021, it was extended for another five years. Arms control has long been considered the last bastion of constructive cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
Putin, in his annual address to the country, did not demonstrate any willingness to make concessions. Moreover, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian military operation, he condemned the United States and accused Ukraine and the West of provoking an armed conflict. "They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and at the same time climb our nuclear facilities," Putin said during his speech, which lasted almost a hundred minutes and was greeted with applause from members of parliament and high–ranking leaders in the hall. "In this regard, I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty."
In response to Putin's words, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: "Today's decision on START III dismantled the entire architecture of arms control."
According to experts, it is too early to say that Putin's statement marks the beginning of a new arms race. However, since the treaty expires in 2026, the announcement of the Russian leader will complicate further diplomatic efforts to extend it or to sign a new agreement between Russia and the United States, which owns about 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world.
"If they do not agree on new restrictions on their strategic arsenals before the expiration of START III, for the first time since 1972, we will have no deterrents for the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "This will allow both sides to start building up their strategic nuclear arsenals."
What could Putin's statement mean for the prospects of arms control?
What did Putin actually say?
In fact, Putin did not say anything on Tuesday about withdrawing from the arms control mechanism. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty, but did not withdraw from it, which means that this document continues to operate, and theoretically Russia can return to it in the future. "Suspension is better than withdrawal," said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament. "It could have been much worse."
According to Kimball, it is not known what should happen for Russia to return to participation in the treaty. "I would not pay special attention to the pretexts and excuses that Putin used to explain the reasons for the suspension of Russian participation," he added.
Putin outlined the conditions under which Russia will resume its participation in START III. Among them is taking into account the nuclear capabilities of other NATO members, such as Britain and France, which are not involved in the agreement.
"This is not a serious moment," said Andrey Baklitsky, senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament. – Britain and France did not participate in the treaty when Russia signed it. They did not participate in 2021, when Putin extended it for five years."
Putin also said that Russia will not carry out new explosions as part of nuclear weapons tests if the United States does not do it first. This seems to be a responsible, but mostly inappropriate statement. "There are no noticeable changes in Russia's position here," Kimball said. He noted that Moscow and Washington signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Test Ban Treaty in 1996, which prohibits any nuclear tests. Since the United States has no desire to violate the treaty and test its nuclear potential for the first time in a quarter of a century, Russia will have no reason to conduct its own tests.
Why did Putin say this now?
Warnings about Russia's participation in the treaty have been heard for a long time. "Everything was very clear," Baklitsky said.
Mutual inspections at strategic nuclear weapons sites were suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the pandemic began to wane, and in August 2022 Russia announced that it forbids American inspectors to resume inspections of its facilities, explaining that Western sanctions deprived Russian representatives of the opportunity to pay return visits to the United States. Last November, the State Department announced that Moscow had postponed a planned meeting in Egypt, where the parties intended to develop a roadmap for the resumption of inspections.
The State Department last month accused Moscow of violating its obligations under the treaty, as it did not allow American representatives to inspect Russian arsenals.
What can Washington do?
Speaking in a statement on Tuesday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States will closely monitor Russia's actions after Putin's announcement, and reiterated that Washington is still ready for negotiations on arms control.
"The question is as follows. Will the Biden administration be able to convince Vladimir Putin, who in this case is an obstacle, that it is in Russia's national interests to resume the full implementation of the treaty," said Rose Gottemoeller, who led the START III negotiations on the American side.
Shortly after Putin's speech, the Russian Foreign Ministry made a statement that Moscow would continue to comply with the limits on the number of nuclear warheads it could have under the treaty. Thus, the resumption of the arms race was postponed for some time.
Since mutual checks have not been resumed after the pandemic, the immediate result of Putin's announcement may be that Russia will no longer notify Washington whenever it moves, maintains, repairs, writes off or puts into conservation mode missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. The exchange of this information was an important measure to ensure transparency, since the parties had the opportunity to monitor the state of each other's nuclear forces, even without conducting inspections with visits to facilities. (After the treaty entered into force in 2011, the parties, according to the State Department, exchanged notifications more than 25 thousand times.)
"In my opinion, suspending the notification mode is a very serious problem," Gottemoeller said. – This will have serious consequences for the United States in terms of predictability, but it is equally serious for Russia, which puzzles me a lot. How do they intend to plan the actions of their nuclear forces in the future without knowing what is happening in the US strategic nuclear forces?"
Now Washington faces the question of whether it will continue to inform Moscow about the state of its nuclear forces. So far, experts are confident that the Biden administration will not close the doors. "I'm sure this administration is not going to withdraw from the agreement," Kimball said. However, Republicans may increase pressure on her, calling for a tougher stance. In light of Putin's statement, Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Armed Forces Affairs, said that now "no options can be ruled out," including the deployment of additional nuclear forces.
Author of the article: Amy Mackinnon