The international community is concerned about the future of arms control, particularly the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) – issues that featured prominently on the first day of the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, D.C.
The INF Treaty prohibits Russia and the United States from fielding ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles with flight ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. U.S. officials determined earlier this year that Russia has deployed this type of nuclear-capable cruise missile and are planning potential responses in the Trump administration’s upcoming Nuclear Posture Review.
New START requires that the two countries by next February each cap their deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 and long-range delivery systems at 700. The Trump administration will be responsible for either negotiating a follow-on to New START, which expires in 2021, extending the existing treaty for five years, or abandoning it entirely.
“The right path is the one marked by the New START treaty and its implementation. This is the kind of cooperation between Russia and the United States that we Europeans like to see,” Federica Mogherini, European Union high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said Monday in the opening keynote to the conference. “Any violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, on the contrary, would endanger the security architecture that since the end of the Cold War has made Europe a safer place.”
To restore U.S.-Russian relations, the first priority must be to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, save the INF Treaty, and start negotiating a follow-on to New START, according to Alexey Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, said. Only then, if that succeeds, “we would be able to coordinate our fight against terrorism much better than before,” he said.
Arbatov said the major problem with the INF Treaty is that “neither side is trying to resolve existing controversies,” instead “using these controversies for political campaign” and accusing the other of violating the accord.
