President Biden agreed to extend an expiring nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, ending a standoff under former President Donald Trump that threatened to sink the pact as the Kremlin resisted U.S. efforts to add restrictions to the Russian arsenal.
“Especially during times of tension, verifiable limits on Russia’s intercontinental-range nuclear weapons are vitally important,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Wednesday announcement.
The five-year extension of the New START treaty stems a cascade of jettisoned arms control agreements between the former Cold War rivals, which U.S. officials blamed on Russian violations.
Yet the deal is a bitter pill for conservative arms control experts who worked under departed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as they had pressured Russian President Vladimir Putin to expand the expiring treaty to cover other ominous developments in Russia’s nuclear strategy.
“The United States will use the time provided by a five-year extension of the New START Treaty to pursue with the Russian Federation, in consultation with Congress and U.S. allies and partners, arms control that addresses all of its nuclear weapons,” Blinken said.
The extension is proceeding on Russia’s terms, as Moscow resisted Trump administration efforts to link the treaty’s extension to other nuclear-related disputes.
“We need this treaty to be prolonged to the same extent as the Americans,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last year. “Right now, they see our calls to prolong it for five or some number of years without preconditions as some sort of game.”
Yet, U.S. officials in the outgoing administration were alarmed that Russia is “building and modernizing an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads,” as one Trump official put it. That modern arsenal isn’t restricted by the New START treaty, and the Trump administration had refused to extend the pact unless Moscow agreed to limit those stockpiles. In the waning days of Trump’s presidency, Pompeo’s team believed that Putin’s desire to keep the U.S. constrained by New START had brought the two sides to the cusp of a significant breakthrough.
“The momentum should not be allowed to fade,” State Department special envoy Marshall Billingslea, the Trump administration’s lead negotiator for arms control, said on Jan. 19.
Billingslea, addressing the Conference on Disarmament, told international officials that Russia had agreed, in principle, to a cap on “all nuclear warheads” in exchange for a preliminary extension of the treaty.
“We urge Russia not to backtrack,” he emphasized. “This is now the minimum threshold by which future nuclear arms control agreements with Russia, and subsequently with China, will be judged.”
Biden’s inauguration the next day brought a sea change in the U.S. negotiating strategy, as the incoming president and U.S. allies in Europe prioritized the certainty provided by the familiar pact, which Russia has been willing to extend without any modifications.
“By increasing predictability and mutual confidence amongst the two largest nuclear weapon States, this Treaty limits strategic competition and increases strategic stability,” the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said Wednesday.
Blinken echoed the prior administration’s call for additional agreements and the need to limit China’s stockpile, despite the disagreement over using the New START treaty as leverage in that effort.
“We will also pursue arms control to reduce the dangers from China’s modern and growing nuclear arsenal,” he said. “The United States is committed to effective arms control that enhances stability, transparency and predictability while reducing the risks of costly, dangerous arms races.”
