U.S.-Russian Efforts to Extend Nuclear Arms Control Treaty Appear to Have Broken Through

The United States and Russia appear to have made a breakthrough on the renewal of the New START Treaty, which is due to expire.

The Russian Foreign Ministry proposed to the U.S. on Tuesday (October 20, 2020) to hold talks on freezing the number of nuclear warheads on each side and extending the treaty for another year.

A few hours later, the U.S. State Department issued a brief statement saying, “We appreciate the Russian Federation’s willingness to seek progress on nuclear arms control, and the United States is prepared to meet with the Russian side immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We look forward to Russia authorizing its diplomats to do the same.”

Last week, the Trump administration’s special envoy on arms control, Marshall Billingslea, said that top U.S. and Russian officials had recently reached a “gentleman’s agreement” to extend the new U.S.-Russian strategic arms reduction treaty that expires next February, but that details and specifics needed to be finalized by Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded immediately afterwards, calling Billingsya’s claim that the two sides had reached an agreement in principle illusory and deceptive.

Contradictory statements last week by U.S. and Russian arms control negotiators had raised fears that the only binding nuclear arms control treaty between the world’s two nuclear superpowers was about to expire and would be difficult to reverse.

However, even if the United States and Russia were able to extend the New START treaty for another year, observers say, future arms control negotiations would remain difficult.

U.S. Special Envoy Billingslia said that the U.S. condition for renewal of the treaty is that the two countries freeze the expansion of their entire nuclear arsenals, including non-strategic nuclear weapons. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, who spoke with Billingslia, said he could not accept the U.S. condition of freezing all nuclear arsenals, adding that Moscow would not ratify the renewal of the New START treaty before the U.S. election.

In addition, the United States continues to insist that China should participate in the arms control treaty. President Trump has said that he wants to avoid a costly three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the U.S., hence the need for China’s participation in arms control negotiations.