Putin holds arms treaty ‘hostage’ to war on Ukraine
Nuclear arms control is the latest casualty of Russian war on Ukraine, as Putin suspends Russian participation in New START treaty.
Late last February, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Vienna, Austria, meeting with a Russian diplomat on the sidelines of international talks on restoring the Iran nuclear deal, which, at the time, seemed close.
Russia’s new invasion of Ukraine had started the day before. But the parties to the deal had in earlier episodes managed to compartmentalize the talks from other global crises, including Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, and the Syrian civil war, because they each saw a diplomatic solution to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons as in their respective national interests.
Until that point, Russian negotiators had been working to try to use their leverage with the new, more hard-line Iranian negotiating team to try to move the negotiations forward, often working to find compromises behind closed doors, while publicly defending Iranian negotiating positions, in a way that was able to advance progress on a draft deal to restore the pact. (Then-US President Trump pulled the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, but the Biden administration had been trying to re-enter it, if Iran would return to the deal’s nuclear limits.)
But now, a year after that hotel lobby meeting in Vienna last February, talks on a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program have long since been suspended, following Iran’s rejection, most recently in early September, of a final draft deal to restore the pact; Iran has produced enough fissile material for several nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi; and media reports this past weekend suggest that IAEA inspectors have been trying to understand alleged 84% enriched uranium detected in Iran’s underground Fordo site, close to weapons grade, which Iran has denied.
Meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday (Feb. 21) that Russia is suspending participation in the New START treaty, the last arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, which together possess ninety percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.
World powers that previously compartmentalized arms control from their other disagreements now no longer appear willing to do so, putting solutions to limit the threat of nuclear proliferation in jeopardy, on Iran and globally.
“It’s terrible,” one European official who works on arms control said, about the end of Western/Russian cooperation on curbing Iran’s nuclear program. “The work of twenty years somehow lost.”
Russian diplomats who previously proved constructive in the Iran nuclear negotiations now often seem to be tasked with justifying whatever decision the Kremlin has made after the fact—most recently, Putin’s decision to suspend Russia’s participation in New START.
“I assume…some diplomats are still committed to work towards reanimation of the JCPOA, but they are increasingly irrelevant in the overall Russian system,” the European diplomat said.
As one expert on the Russian Iran nuclear issue recently told me, before Putin’s announcement, “arms control is dead.”
Putin Holds Arms Control ‘Hostage’ to War on Ukraine
“I would like to stress that the United States and NATO are openly saying that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Putin said towards the end of a two hour address to the Russian Duma Feb. 21. “And what, after such statements, they are supposed to tour our defense facilities, including the latest ones, as if nothing happened?”
“In this regard, I am compelled to announce today that Russia is suspending its membership in the New START Treaty,” Putin said. “To reiterate, we are not withdrawing from the Treaty, but rather suspending our participation. Before we come back to discussing this issue, we must have a clear idea of what NATO countries such as France or Great Britain have at stake, and how we will account for their strategic arsenals, that is, the Alliance's combined offensive capabilities.”
Though Putin said Russia was suspending participation in, but not formally withdrawing from, the New START treaty, many analysts said they were not much reassured.
“The way in which Russia has framed its suspension of participation in the New START treaty is as a political decision,” Sarah Bidgood, with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told NPR. “They’re really making it clear that this is a decision that’s based on… the changing political environment with the United States against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.”
“While in principle I’ve heard some analysts point out that this is a potentially reversible decision, … the conditions under which I think Russia would be inclined to rejoin participation are not ones that I think the U.S. would…be interested in,” Bidgood said.
“To me, it sounds like Russia is essentially interested in holding the treaty hostage to change the U.S. position with respect to the war in Ukraine, which is leaving me feeling quite pessimistic,” Bidgood said.
‘This is really a break’
In the past, even during the Cold War, the United States and Russia have been able to compartmentalize their arms control discussions from their other disagreements, Russia expert Angela Stent said today. That is no longer the case, she said.
“Part of the New START treaty is that there are supposed to be these regular on-site inspections,… so that we have some insight into what the Russians are doing, to make sure that they're complying, and they have insight into what we're doing,” Stent, with the Brookings Institution and Georgetown University, said on a Foreign Policy Live event today. “And throughout the Cold War, … however bad relations were between the Soviet Union and the United States, this was compartmentalized, the arms control part of the relationship continued with whatever provisions were there. So this really is a break.”
“Putin and the Russians have refused for some time to allow these inspections, even though the U.S. wanted them to happen,” Stent continued. “So what Putin has done now is to say that Russia is suspending its participation, in other words, it's not going to allow these mutual inspections anymore.”
“I do worry about this,… as it indicates that if relations between Russia and the West continue to be as bad as they are, there may be no possibility of replacing New START when it expires in 2026 with another major arms control agreement that regulates the US and Russian nuclear arsenals, and possibly even the Chinese,” Stent said. “And I think the longer term consequences of that are very serious, because I think that would also promote... nuclear proliferation in other parts of the world, and would probably lead to Russia and probably the United States then… developing again more new weapons systems.”
Putin’s decision makes it more likely that there will not be any agreed limit to US and Russian nuclear arsenals after New START expires in 2026, agreed Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“Without a new agreement to replace New START after 2026, there will be no agreed limits on strategic arsenals,” Kimball said in a press statement. “Such a course of action would produce an arms race that no one can win and that leads to increasing nuclear danger for everyone.”
US: ‘Deeply unfortunate and irresponsible’ decision, leaving door open to talks
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken lamented Russia’s announced decision as deeply unfortunate and irresponsible, while making clear the United States was leaving the door open for arms control talks if Russia changes its mind.
“The announcement by Russia that it’s suspending participation in New START is deeply unfortunate and irresponsible,” Blinken said in Athens Feb. 21. “We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does. We’ll of course make sure that in any event we are postured appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies.”
“But of course, we remain ready to talk about strategic arms limitations at any time with Russia irrespective of anything else going on in the world or in our relationship,” Blinken also said. “I think it matters that we continue to act responsibly in this area.”
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement after Putin’s announced decision that said Russia would continue to abide by the quantitative limits on deployed warheads in the treaty, though without inspections to verify that; and noting that the decision was reversible.
“In order to maintain a sufficient degree of predictability and stability in the missile and nuclear sphere, Russia intends to adhere to a responsible approach and will continue to strictly adhere to the quantitative limitations on New START provided by it within the life cycle of the Treaty," the Russian MFA statement said.
The Russian MFA statement “seems like it was intended to quell concerns,” said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Russian Iran nuclear issues with Harvard’s Belfer Center. “There are some decent signals that Russia won’t go full on rogue.”
“Putin’s speech was very domestic focused, and his comment on New START seemed really emotional,” Grajewski also noted.
But it seemed unlikely that Putin would reverse the new START suspension, which was rubber stamped by the Russian Duma today, at least as long as the Russian war on Ukraine continued, Stent said.
“It’s in the long run quite dangerous for the world … unless something changes and the Russians are willing to rethink this,” Stent said. “But I don't see that happening as long as the war’s going on.”
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