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Opinion
A photograph of the 1971 Licorne nuclear test, which took place in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: CTBTO
– The most recent agreement limiting the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, New START, expired on February 5, and the prospects for any type of subsequent agreement are very uncertain.
The progress made over several decades in stopping the growth of nuclear arsenals and then reducing them is in serious danger of being undone. This is despite the fact that the goal of “cessation of the nuclear arms race” is included in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a key multilateral global security agreement.
In a U.S. statement delivered Feb. 6 at the Conference on Disarmament, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno said a “new architecture” is needed, one that “takes into account all Russian nuclear weapons, both new and existing strategic systems, and addresses the rapid growth of Chinese nuclear weapons arsenals.”
That is a challenging project. An informal agreement between the United States and Russia to transparently respect New START limits for at least a short period of time seems within the realm of possibility.
But the obstacles to a successful negotiation of one or more treaties involving the United States, Russia and China are significant.
The Chinese have shown no interest in discussing limits to their arsenal, which remains much smaller than the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Russia wants the negotiations to address US missile defense plans and non-nuclear strategic strike capabilities.
The United States wants to address nonstrategic nuclear weapons and novel Russian systems, such as a long-range nuclear-armed torpedo, both not limited by New START. More broadly, the rise of authoritarian nationalism and acute geopolitical tensions are not conducive to progress.
However, especially with the upcoming five-year Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which will be held this spring, it should be emphasized that the United States, Russia and China are subject to the NPT Article VI obligation to conduct good faith negotiations on the “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date” and on nuclear disarmament.
When negotiations on the NPT were completed in 1968, cessation of the nuclear arms race was understood to fundamentally involve a limit on the strategic arsenals held by the United States and the Soviet Union, a ban on testing of nuclear explosives, and a ban on the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.
Ending the nuclear arms race was seen as preparing the ground for negotiations on nuclear disarmament, that is, the elimination of nuclear weapons.
After the NPT came into force in 1970, the United States and Russia acted quickly to reduce the arms race by negotiating bilateral treaties that limited delivery systems and missile defenses.
However, the size of the Soviet nuclear warhead arsenal continued to increase until the mid-1980s. Then a series of treaties, most notably the 1991 START I agreement, dramatically reduced the two arsenals while maintaining civilization by destroying numerous warheads.
With the demise of New START, there is no treaty regulating the arsenals of the United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear-armed states. China is expanding its arsenal and the United States and Russia are prepared to do the same. The three countries are also, in different ways, diversifying their arsenals and increasing the capabilities of their delivery systems.
The increase, diversification and modernization of nuclear arsenals, as being carried out or planned, amounts to a repudiation of the NPT objective of ending the nuclear arms race at an early date and does not meet the legal requirement of good faith in pursuing that objective.
The NPT Review Conference would be an appropriate setting to launch an initiative to reverse this dangerous and illegal trend. It must also be emphasized that arms control between the three powers does not and should not exclude multilateral negotiations for the establishment of the “architecture” of a world free of nuclear weapons.
John Burroughs is a senior analyst for the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy
IPS UN Office
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