With a 16-year U.S.-Russia nuclear agreement expiring Feb. 5, former national security officials testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday to advise on next steps, but “would not recommend” extending the treaty.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction (New START) Treaty, signed in 2010 by then U.S. and Russian Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, expires Thursday Feb. 5. The treaty limits each country to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and 800 non-deployed launchers and bombers.
Timothy Morrison, one witness and former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from the first Donald Trump administration, said New START was a “bad deal,” and another witness Admiral Charles Richard, former Commander of the Strategic Command from 2019 to 2022 in both the Trump and Joe Biden administrations, said he “would not recommend a one year extension to the New START Treaty, absent verification procedures being reinstated.”
Richard added that to conduct a future arms control treaty “correctly,” it “has to include all weapons,” it “has to have verification mechanisms built in with consequences for non compliance,” and it must be multilateral and “at minimum,” include Russia, China and the United States.
Current Russian president Vladimir Putin said in September Moscow would respect the treaty for one year past its expiration, and Trump said in July he would like to still maintain the limits set by New START after it expires. While the treaty limits can be respected past its expiration date, New START cannot be extended on paper, since the agreement had one extension used in 2021 by Putin and then-President Joe Biden.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked the panel if there were any downsides to extending the treaty for a year. Ambassador Rose Gottemoeller, former Deputy Secretary General of NATO during the first Donald Trump administration and former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, where she was the chief negotiator for New START, said there was “no downside.”