Progress in US, Russia arms control talks, but verification hurdle remains
Surprise Russian offer to freeze warheads for one year boosts negotiations on extending New START pact
The United States and Russia moved closer to a possible deal to extend a nuclear arms control pact due to expire early next year after a surprise offer by Russia on Tuesday to agree to a one-year freeze on nuclear warheads. But arms control experts in both countries said there were still gaps in the two sides’ positions, specifically over the issue of the verification of any such freeze.
“Russia offers to extend the New START Treaty for one year and meanwhile is ready to jointly with the U.S. undertake a political commitment to ‘freeze’ for the above-mentioned period the number of nuclear warheads that each side possesses,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday. “This position of ours may be implemented only and exclusively on the premise that ‘freezing’ of warheads will not be accompanied by any additional demands on the part of the United States.”
“Were this approach be acceptable for Washington, then the time gained by the extension of the New START Treaty could be used to conduct comprehensive bilateral negotiations on the future nuclear and missile arms control that must address all factors affecting strategic stability,” the statement continued.
The State Department welcomed progress in the negotiations, and said US negotiators were prepared to meet immediately to “finalize a verifiable agreement.”
“We appreciate the Russian Federation’s willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control,” State Department spokesperson Megan Ortagus said in a statement Tuesday. “The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same.”
Russia’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov in turn welcomed the State Department response, but said it left the issue of verification to be clarified.
“Good news. Sounds as if US accepted the Russian proposal to extend #START agreement without preconditions,” Ulyanov tweeted
in a comment above Ortagus’ tweeted statement. “Just 1 point needs to be clarified - what is the meaning of the word ‘verifiable’? Does it apply to the current verification regime under the Treaty?”
The elements of a potential verification agreement still to be worked out are not simple matters, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“The two sides are closer than they were a week ago, but there are still important differences,” Kimball told Diplomatic. “The two sides have to agree on counting rules, it has to have a stockpile declaration, and some sort of monitoring and verification process. Those are not simple matters.”
“The current U.S. proposal calls for a verifiable one year cap on the total number of U.S. and Russian strategic and nonstrategic warheads, and a one year extension of the new START treaty,” Kimball continued. “The Russian statement this morning...said a freeze can be implemented on the understanding that it will not be accompanied by any additional demands by the U.S. That to me implies that they don’t want to, or don’t think there is time, to work out details on verification. It is not a complete capitulation to the U.S. position.”
Russian arms control expert Andrey Baklitskiy said he thinks the Russian proposal could prompt the Trump administration to seek more concessions than Moscow is willing to consider, and thus was a mistake.
“If the Russian proposal is an attempt to find a compromise, it looks like a miscalculation on the part of Moscow,” Baklitskiy, senior research fellow at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the MGIMO University of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Diplomatic. “The US administration will clearly see this as a success of their pressure campaign and will ask for more concessions till the point Russia is not willing to pay and the whole deal will collapse.”
“The US wants numbers on Russian non-strategic weapons (something that Moscow was reluctant to give for the last 30 years) & intrusive verification (which Russian top leaders despise),” Baklitskiy wrote in a subsequent series of tweets. “So either there's a change here (which I don't see) or there will be no deal after all.”
An official involved with arms control matters, speaking not for attribution, also expressed caution.
“It looks like we are still far from an agreement,” the official said. “If ‘verifiable’ relates…to absolutely new intrusive arrangements,...this task can’t be settled within days or weeks. It would require much longer and very difficult negotiations.”
The Russian nuclear freeze proposal originated in the Kremlin and not from the Russian foreign ministry, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper also reported Tuesday.
James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he sees three potential scenarios for how the negotiations proceed. One, “they can’t reach a deal,” Acton told Diplomatic. “Second, the U.S. backs down, agrees to no verification. In this scenario, Trump is desperate (for a foreign policy win) before the election, and backs down.”
“The third option: the two sides agree to an extremely vague statement that doesn’t really commit the Russians to do anything, but they agree to discuss the feasibility to verify....and will just work out the details,” he said.
Acton said the Trump administration has miscalculated how much Russia wants a new START extension, and thought it had more leverage than it did.
“The U.S. thinking was that Russia wants an extension of New START much more than we do,” Acton said, characterizing the U.S. administration approach to the negotiations, “‘If we leave to the last minute, we can drive an extremely hard bargain with the Russians.’”
“That calculation was wrong,” Acton said. “If we look at the way the U.S. position has evolved, the U.S. has given up most of its original demands.”
The Arms Control Association’s Kimball agreed, noting that the Trump administration did not get serious about the negotiations until this past June or July.
“It is a fact that the Trump administration refused to engage with Russia on the future of New START, and did not get serious about its own arms control ideas, until three and a half years into Trump’s first term,” Kimball said. “It wasted valuable time, and is now running up against a deadline, and trying to rush for some sort of agreement.”
“They have significantly adjusted their demands in the last few weeks,” he said.
(Photo Credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters. US special envoy Marshall Billingslea and his delegation arrive for a meeting with Russian deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Vienna, Austria, June 22, 2020.)