Together, the United States and Russia possess approximately 90% of the world’s nuclear stockpile. To ignore each other here is not exactly conducive to U.S. national security.
But as new strategic arms control talks get underway, there are signs of hope. True, there is always the possibility that negotiators will hit a dead-end early on. While State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote that the first round of talks were “professional and robust,” the history of U.S.-Russia nuclear weapons talks is a very mixed bag.
Still, given the sorry state of U.S.-Russia relations on everything from human rights to disinformation and cyberattacks, walking away from the first session with an understanding to meet again is nothing to sneeze at. Now the hard work begins. The two leaders’ ensuring earlier this year that the New START treaty didn’t die was low-hanging fruit. Striking an entirely new accord encompassing new weapons systems such as hypersonic vehicles will be much harder.
The U.S. and Russian delegations are entering this strategic stability dialogue with separate goals. Even before President George W. Bush scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, Moscow was highly concerned about U.S. anti-missile defenses. The U.S. position on this issue has remained consistent across multiple administrations: U.S. missile defenses in Europe aren’t aimed at Russia, but Iran and North Korea, whose own capabilities in this sphere have improved over the years. But Russia has never bought this explanation. Before this week’s talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov insisted there was no alternative to putting missile defense on the table.
The U.S., meanwhile, hopes the dialogue will broaden the aperture of traditional arms control to other weapons systems. These systems include Russia’s numerically superior tactical nuclear weapons as well as space, hypersonic, and cyber weapons Moscow continues to develop. Putin is incredibly proud of these systems, frequently boasting about them. The Russians could be as resistant to trading these weapons away as the U.S. is to placing limits on its missile defense platforms. If either or both sides refuse to budge, then signing another arms control deal could be doomed.
Let us hope that the two sides can keep talking. If negotiators can forge basic consensus in the first few sessions, perhaps they’ll build sufficient trust to go for the big ticket items.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
