Where is nuclear arms control—negotiated restraints on the deadliest weapons of mass destruction—headed? This 50-year tool of US national security policy is currently under attack. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining nuclear arms agreement with the Russian Federation, will go out of force in February 2021 unless it is extended for an additional five years as the treaty permits. At this moment, nothing is on the horizon to replace it.

Read the rest at The Washington Quarterly

Since regaining its independence in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse nearly 30 years ago, Ukraine has sought to build links with the West. This includes ties with institutions such as NATO, with which Ukraine has established a distinctive partnership. Kyiv has been keen on deepening those ties. Its interest in becoming a NATO member has continued to grow since 2014, as it views NATO as a means to protect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity from its aggressive neighbor, Russia.

Although NATO-Ukraine cooperation has intensified, and the Alliance maintains its “open door” policy, NATO members appear reluctant to put Ukraine on a membership track. Despite the fact that Russia continues a low-intensity conflict against Ukraine—and occupies Ukrainian territory—Kyiv can expand its practical cooperation with NATO. However, in the near term, Kyiv will have to keep its expectations about membership modest.

Read the rest at Turkish Policy Quarterly

From 2001 to 2004, I was the senior American official to visit Belarus. The United States and European Union were thoroughly dissatisfied with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s authoritarianism, and US policy mandated that no official higher than a deputy assistant secretary travel to Minsk. EU officials and EU member states observed comparable restrictions.

Washington had no particular geopolitical interest in Belarus, and trade was minimal. During my first visit in February 2002, the primary objective was to persuade the Belarusian government to ease up on repression, respect human rights, and allow a bit more political space. We presented Belarusian officials two lists. List A enumerated actions the US government wanted Belarus to take; List B laid out steps that Washington could take to improve bilateral relations. We told our counterparts that if they indicated what things from List A they would do to improve human rights and the political atmosphere, we would tell them what actions from List B the United States would take in response.

The Belarusians gave us nothing.

My second visit to Minsk came in March 2004 on a joint US-EU mission to encourage the Belarusian government to improve its human rights record. My EU colleagues and I presented a coordinated position. We noted our readiness to improve relations, including taking steps sought by Belarusian officials, provided that the government ease domestic repression. Once again, the Belarusians gave us nothing to work with.

I then traveled on from Minsk to Moscow for consultations and raised Belarus with a Russian deputy foreign minister. I noted that the United States and Russia had competing geopolitical interests regarding Ukraine, but that this was not the case with regard to Belarus. There was no push in Minsk to join the European Union, and zero Belarusian interest in NATO. Neither Washington nor the European Union clamored to pull Belarus closer. The primary Western aim was to get Lukashenka to ease up on the repression. Was this an issue on which the United States, Europe, and Russia could work together?

My Russian interlocutor listened politely, but his body language answered all too clearly. The domestic political situation in Belarus did not trouble him. And, in any case, if something needed to be done there, Russia would handle it on its own.

That Moscow meeting has come to mind once again in recent weeks as Belarusians have protested against a sham election. They are protesting in a way they have not protested in the nearly three decades since Belarus became an independent state. While Lukashenka, who has held power for 26 years, rails against Western interference, Western criticism focuses on democratic norms and a stolen election. There is no burning desire to pull Belarus into the West. Both the European Union and NATO have more than enough on their plates.

Likewise, the protests in Belarus are about democracy, not about a Westward geopolitical course. Presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who according to credible exit polls won the August 9 presidential ballot, has said: “[The protest movement] is neither a pro-Russian nor an anti-Russian revolution. It is neither an anti-European Union nor a pro-European Union revolution. It is a democratic revolution.”

The absence of a geopolitical component to the current protests is perhaps not surprising. Indeed, it is worth underlining that of all the states to emerge from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus seemed the least certain about what to do with independence and the most interested in maintaining close relations with Russia.

As in 2004, Moscow presumably has no desire to coordinate with the West on how to handle the crisis that Lukashenka’s inept leadership and stolen election have caused. In going it alone, the Kremlin faces a choice. Does it choose to back Lukashenka or an increasingly restive population?

The Russian government could choose to side with the Belarusian people. They could help ease the authoritarian president out of office and into a pleasant retirement in a dacha near Moscow, perhaps with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych living next door. In that case, Russia would likely gain a stable Belarus as a neighbor, with a population still – or perhaps even more – favorably disposed toward Russia and Russians.

There is an obvious drawback to this approach. The emergence of another pluralistic political system on Russia’s western border could give rise to greater questions from the Russian public as to why they cannot enjoy similar rights.

Backing Lukashenka would enable Russia to avoid such questions, but it could entail something significantly worse. A violent and prolonged crackdown supported by the Kremlin would lead to an increasingly radicalized Belarusian population that views Russia as thwarting its desire for a greater political voice. To Moscow’s disadvantage, this might bring geopolitical factors into play that are currently absent from the debate in Belarusian society. It could also fuel interest in “joining” the West.

On August 27, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has already organized a reserve police force to assist Lukashenka if necessary. He should reconsider this. Over the past six years, Kremlin policies of intervention have been instrumental in pushing Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West. Does Moscow want to repeat this mistake with Belarus?

Much like Donald Trump’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic, Putin almost certainly hopes the protests in Belarus will just fade away. If they do not and the standoff deepens, Putin faces a hard choice. At present, he appears inclined to make the wrong decision, with potentially costly implications for Russia.

Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Originally for UkraineAlert

Failing to renew the New START arms control treaty with Russia “is not a wise direction of travel,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a former Deputy Secretary General of NATO who ranked as one of President Barack Obama’s top nuclear security experts. 

She knows better than most. Gottemoeller was the chief US negotiator at the Moscow and Geneva talks where details of the treaty were hammered out between 2009 and 2010. Officially ratified a year later, New START limited both the United States and Russia to seven hundred delivery vehicles and just over double that count in total warheads, and was reinforced with a stringent verification process to closely monitor each country’s compliance. 

Read the rest at National Interest

In 2018, Russian scientist Vladimir Shmakov walked past the doors of the library for the Physics and Mathematics department at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center for Technical Physics (VNIITF). A display of new books caught his attention. It included a two-volume set of Doomed to Cooperate, and on the cover was a photograph he took in 1992.

Read the rest at Los Alamos Daily Post

Watch the video on World Affairs

President Donald Trump’s chief arms control envoy last week acknowledged the possibility that the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) could be extended, but he added, “only under select circumstances.”  He then put down conditions that, if adhered to, will ensure the Trump administration does not extend the treaty.

New START and Extension

New START limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers and no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.  It expires by its terms on February 5, 2021 but can be extended for up to five years.  The Trump administration has adamantly refused to do that.

From the perspective of U.S. national security interests, extending New START is a no-brainer.  As confirmed by the State Department’s annual report, Russia is complying with the treaty’s limits.  Extension would keep Russian strategic forces constrained until 2026.  It would also ensure the continued flow of information about those forces produced by the treaty’s data exchanges, notifications, on-site inspections and other verification measures.

And extension would not force a single change in U.S. plans to modernize its strategic forces, as those plans were designed to fit within New START’s limits.

Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, have raised New START extension since the first days of the Trump administration.  In 2017, Trump administration officials deferred on the issue, saying they would consider extension after (1) completion of a nuclear posture review and (2) seeing whether Russia met the treaty’s limits, which took full effect in February 2018.

Russia fully met the limits in February 2018.  At about the same time, the administration issued its nuclear posture review.  Yet, more than two years later, New START extension remains an open question.

On June 24, Amb. Marshall Billingslea, the president arms control envoy, briefed the press on his meeting with his Russian counterpart two days before in Vienna.  Asked about extending New START, Amb. Billingslea—never a fan of the treaty or, it seems, any arms control treaty—left the option open.  However, he described three conditions that will block extension.

China

Amb. Billingslea’s first condition focused on China, which he claimed had “an obligation to negotiate with [the United States] and Russia.”  Beijing certainly does not see it that way—saying no, no and again no—citing the huge disparity between the size of the Chinese nuclear arsenal and those of the United States and Russia.  China has less than one-tenth the number of nuclear warheads of each of the two nuclear superpowers.

To be sure, including China in the nuclear arms control process is desirable.  But Beijing will not join a negotiation aimed at a trilateral agreement.  What would such an agreement look like?  Neither Washington nor Moscow would agree to reduce to China’s level (about 300 nuclear warheads).  Nothing suggests either would agree to legitimize a Chinese build-up to match their levels (about 4,000 each).  Beijing presumably would not be interested in unequal limits.

This perhaps explains why, well more than one year after it began calling for China’s inclusion, the Trump administration appears to have no proposal or outline or even principles for a trilateral agreement.

For its part, Moscow would welcome China limiting its nuclear arms.  The Russians, however, choose not press the question, raising instead Britain and France.  Amb. Billingslea pooh-poohed the notion, but France has as many nuclear weapons as China, and Britain has two-thirds the Chinese number.  The logic for bringing in one but not the other two is unclear.  The question raises yet another hinderance to including China.

A more nuanced approach might prove more successful.  It would entail a new U.S.-Russian agreement providing for reductions beyond those mandated by New START.  Washington and Moscow could then ask the Chinese (and British and French) to provide transparency on their nuclear weapons numbers and agree not to increase their total weapons or exceed a specified number.  Much like his president, however, the arms control envoy does not appear to be into nuance.

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

Amb. Billingslea’s second condition dealt with including in a new negotiation nuclear arms not constrained by New START, especially Russia’s large number of non-strategic nuclear weapons.  Again, this is laudable goal, but getting there will require much time and unpalatable decisions that the Trump administration will not want to face.

Russian officials have regularly tied their readiness to discuss non-strategic nuclear arms to issues of concern to them, particularly missile defense.  The Trump administration,  however, has made clear that it has zero interest in negotiating missile defense.

Even if Moscow severed that linkage, negotiating limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons would take time.  New START limits deployed strategic warheads by virtue of their association with deployed strategic missiles and bombers.  The only warheads directly counted are those on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

By contrast, most if not all non-strategic warheads are not mounted on their delivery systems.  Monitoring any agreed limits would require new procedures, including for conducting on-site inspections within storage facilities.  This does not pose an insoluble challenge, but it represents new territory for both Washington and Moscow.  Working out limits, counting rules and verification measures will prove neither quick nor easy.

Verification

Amb. Billingslea earlier suggested some dissatisfaction with New START’s verification measures, though he did not articulate any particular flaw, and, as noted, the State Department’s annual compliance report says Russia is meeting the treaty’s terms.  Last week, he made verification measures for his desired U.S.-Russia-China agreement the third condition for New START extension. 

Verification measures are critical.  Treaty parties have to have confidence that all sides are observing the agreement’s limits or, at a minimum, that any militarily significant violation would be detected in time to take countervailing measures.  Working out agreement on those measures will prove a long process, even in just a bilateral negotiation, especially if it addresses issues such as stored nuclear weapons.  That is not just because of Russian reluctance to accept intrusive verification measures such as on-site inspection; the U.S. military also wants verification measures that do not greatly impact its normal operations.

Russian officials have reiterated their readiness to extend New START now.  Amb. Billingslea’s conditions will thwart extension for the foreseeable future.  That’s unfortunate.  By not extending New START, the Trump administration forgoes a simple action that would strengthen U.S. national security and make Americans safer.

The New START Treaty has come under fire in recent weeks. Marshall Billingslea, President Trump’s new special envoy for arms control, said the Obama administration negotiated a very weak verification regime, which is odd because Trump administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged the security benefits of New START.

Read full article at Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Ending the moratorium would not advance U.S. security interests.  The United States has conducted about as many nuclear weapons tests as the rest of the world combined (and 30 percent more than the number conducted by the Soviet Union/Russia).  U.S. weapons scientists learned more from testing.  When I served as a diplomat at the American Embassy in Moscow in 1988, I accompanied a U.S. team to the Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk (in what is now Kazakhstan).  Our Soviet hosts showed us a vertical shaft for an upcoming underground test; it was about three feet in diameter.  A U.S. team member from the test site in Nevada, which the Soviets would visit the following month, commented that U.S.-drilled vertical shafts for nuclear tests typically were nine to eleven feet in diameter.  That maximized the area above the weapon for instruments that would gather a burst of data in the nanosecond before they vaporized.

The testing moratorium and the CTBT, if ratified and entered into force, would seem to lock in an area of U.S. advantage regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear effects.  Why would we want others to test and erode that advantage?

Up until the idea of gaining leverage with Beijing and Moscow arose, the primary possible reason for a return to testing was if it became necessary to confirm the reliability of a weapons type in the stockpile.  However, the National Nuclear Security Administration has overseen for 25 years the Stockpile Stewardship Program, intended to confirm that U.S. nuclear weapons are safe, secure and reliable without having to test them in a manner that produces a nuclear yield. To do so, the program uses supercomputers, modeling and tools such as the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (think of the world’s most powerful X-ray device).

Each year, the commander of Strategic Command and the directors of the national nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore certify the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile.  When I visited Los Alamos several years ago, the director told me that, as long as the Stockpile Stewardship Program was funded, he was confident that nuclear testing was not needed.  He added that, as a result of the program, weapons scientists had learned things about how nuclear weapons work that they did not and could not learn from testing nuclear weapons underground.

The smart thing for U.S. national interests is to continue the moratorium, ratify the CTBT, and press others to ratify so that the treaty can be brought into force.  The Senate failed to give consent to ratification in 1999, due to concerns about how to maintain the stockpile’s reliability without nuclear testing and about monitoring the treaty.  The Stockpile Stewardship Program, just in its beginning stage then, can now answer the first concern and has been doing so.

As for monitoring a test ban, U.S. national technical means have improved over the past two decades, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization has established the International Monitoring System with some 300 stations around the world.  It can detect underground nuclear explosions down to below one kiloton (the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons) as well as detecting tests in the atmosphere or ocean, both of which are banned by the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.  Once in force, the CTBT also provides for an inspection mechanism.

As former Secretary of State George Shultz said in 2013, senators might have been correct not to consent to ratification in 1999, but given the Stockpile Stewardship Program’s development and enhanced monitoring systems, they would be right to vote for ratification now.

Conducting a nuclear test to bring China and Russia to the negotiating table will not work.  It will instead open the door for others to resume testing and close a nuclear weapons knowledge gap that favors the United States.  That will not make us safer or more secure.  It is an unwise idea that hopefully will continue to meet resistance within the U.S. government.