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Restoring Russian-U.S. Arms Control
May 2024
By Pavel Podvig
In 2021, it appeared that the Russian-U.S. arms control process was back on track. That February, the two states extended the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for five years and, at a high-profile summit meeting in June, agreed to launch a strategic stability dialogue to explore options for moving forward with arms control.
Although not a formal negotiation process, the dialogue was expected to prepare the ground for an agreement that would succeed New START, which expires in February 2026. Delegations representing the two states had only three meetings before February 2022, when the United States paused the process in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine.
It was to be expected that the war in Ukraine would deeply affect the Russian-U.S. arms control process. Both parties, however, continued to comply with their New START obligations regarding notifications and data exchange. It was also expected that on-site inspections, suspended in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, would eventually resume despite the tensions created by the war. The U.S. attempt to resume inspections in August 2022 proved unsuccessful, leading Russia to suspend access to its sites and then the work of the treaty-mandated Bilateral Consultative Commission.
This put Russia in technical violation of the treaty, and eventually the government suspended participation in New START. In announcing that decision, which took effect in February 2023, Russia stated that it will continue to abide by the treaty limits until New START expires and that it would continue to provide notifications of ballistic missile launches as required by an earlier Soviet-U.S. agreement.1 The United States also made a commitment to stay within the treaty limits as long as Russia does so and to continue providing notifications of ballistic missile launches.2
Later in 2023, the United States made an attempt to relaunch the strategic stability dialogue process with Russia by offering to discuss bilateral arms control issues “without preconditions.”3 Russia rejected the offer, arguing that any discussion of arms control should be linked to a broader set of security issues.4
Even though the Russian government has not put forward specific conditions for resuming the dialogue, its position apparently includes a comprehensive remaking of the security architecture in Europe that would limit NATO activities there, as well as implementation of all elements of a so-called security equation.5 The latter is a concept that is often used by officials and experts to describe Russia’s official approach to strategic stability and arms control. It usually implies that future agreements “should take into account all factors significant for strategic stability,” such as nuclear and non-nuclear strategic weapons, missile defense, and security in outer space.6 Because reaching a comprehensive agreement of this kind would have been difficult in the best of circumstances, it appears to be impossible today, when the resumption of the dialogue seems to be linked firmly by Russia to resolving differences over the war in Ukraine. It is almost certain that when the New START term comes to an end in February 2026, there will be no new agreement to succeed it.
Unsettling, Not Unprecedented
The prospect of having no agreement that limits the arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers is quite unsettling, especially when it comes after several decades during which arms control arguably has become a norm. This situation, however, is not unprecedented. No limits on nuclear forces were in place in the early 1980s, when the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States were rather tense and both states were actively modernizing and expanding their strategic and nonstrategic nuclear forces. Of course, that was a very dangerous moment in Cold War history, and there is no comfort in knowing that the world might be going through the same cycle again. At the same time, the past experience in arms control can help illuminate today’s challenges.
Most importantly, past experience strongly suggests that the notion that arms control and disarmament dialogue can be sustained in an atmosphere of outright hostility in the relationships is not entirely correct. Compartmentalization may have worked in a very narrow sense, as a principle of leaving some disagreements, even serious ones, outside of the process that deals with strategic nuclear weapons as the most visible and most dangerous component of nuclear confrontation. Yet, every successful arms limitation or disarmament agreement was a product and an important component of a relative normalization of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union or Russia.
Arms control is often rationalized as a tool of managing confrontation by reducing risks, improving stability, and avoiding a costly and dangerous arms race. Indeed, it can contribute to these goals, as it has in the past, but its most significant role is in providing parties with the practical means of demonstrating that they share a common vision on certain issues and in acknowledging each other’s concerns. This aspect of arms control has been particularly important to the Soviet Union and Russia, confirming its status as an equal partner with the United States and therefore helping legitimize its role in international affairs.
In this context, compartmentalizing arms control always has value because it encourages a focus on narrow technical issues, thereby signaling acceptance of the broader status quo without having to address all issues of disagreement. The technical nature of most arms control measures also has facilitated a demonstrated commitment to compliance and to the broader objectives of political normalization.
This understanding of arms control strongly suggests that the current attempt to separate arms control from the broader context of the Russian-U.S. relations is unlikely to succeed. The current Russian leadership apparently came to believe that the United States and its allies are not prepared to acknowledge Moscow’s interests and that their views on a range of security issues, in Europe in particular, are irreconcilable. The degree to which these beliefs are justified or to which the views of the current leadership are compatible with the national interests of the Russian society is almost immaterial here. As long as the Kremlin believes that the most important component of the process, the acknowledgment of its interests, is absent, it is unlikely to return to negotiations.
This seems to contradict the view of arms control that suggests that Russia should be interested in preserving balance with the United States by establishing quantitative or qualitative limits on U.S. strategic programs. Indeed, the Soviet Union and Russia traditionally have put a premium on numerical parity with the United States. Yet, parity rarely has been the decisive factor in its arms control decisions.
Russia accepted significant disparity in the 1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II) and the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty of 2002. During the New START negotiations, Russia agreed to provisions that allowed the United States to retain the capability potentially to double the number of deployed strategic warheads.7 Numerical balance may matter when parties assess the capabilities of their strategic forces by their counterforce potential, but for a state that relies on guaranteed retaliation, as Russia clearly does, the size of the strategic arsenal is far from the most important parameter.
Nuclear arms control agreements help introduce a degree of transparency and predictability into military modernization programs, sometimes preventing unnecessary buildup. More often than not, however, treaties simply codified modernization decisions that were already made, often for reasons that had little to do with the issues of strategic balance or arms control. The contours of the current modernization programs in Russia and the United States largely have been determined, and neither country appears to have a strong incentive to scale them back. Equally important, neither side has the capability to significantly expand them either, especially with regard to strategic delivery systems.
Arms Control Lessons
One area where Russia traditionally sought to impose some constraints on the United States is missile defense. Indeed, the history of Russia’s unsuccessful attempts first to prevent the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and then to get the United States to acknowledge Russia’s concerns about its missile defense program definitely has played a role in the demise of the arms control process. It is unlikely, however, that the prospect of including missile defense in the security equation would provide a sufficient incentive for Russia to return to the dialogue today.
From the narrow technical perspective, missile defense clearly cannot undermine Russia’s deterrence potential meaningfully, even though Russia often framed the issue this way. As for the political aspect of the problem, Moscow appears to have concluded that its own asymmetric response in the form of new systems, such as a hypersonic glide vehicle unveiled in March 2018, provides an adequate answer to U.S. missile defense efforts.8 The effectiveness of these Russian systems is quite questionable, but they served their political purpose. Moscow definitely would welcome a discussion of missile defense in any event, but it apparently is no longer the central issue that it used to be.
One lesson from the 1980s is that attempts to resolve an arms control impasse by ramping up tensions and accelerating a military buildup can produce an extremely dangerous situation. Today, an attempt to force Russia back into dialogue in this manner is likely to create serious risks. Russia has a wide range of destabilizing tools at its disposal, and its recent actions suggest that its risk tolerance is much higher than that of the Soviet leadership in the 1980s.
This does not mean that progress in arms control requires accepting the Kremlin’s vision of security. Many elements of that vision have been rejected rightfully by the international community, and indeed, most of them arguably undermine the interests of Russia as a society. It may well be impossible to achieve any progress with the current Russian leaders unless they can make a plausible case to themselves and to the political audience in Russia and elsewhere that the country’s interests are taken into account. A more realistic path to progress might involve a political leadership change in Moscow. Even in this case, a stable arrangement would require a shift of political attitudes in the West toward a vision of a nonconfrontational security and arms control framework. Elements of this framework should be designed today, if only to signal the possibility of a positive shift in case of a political change in Moscow.
Depending on political developments in Russia, a future bilateral arms control deal could be more or less ambitious in scope. At the very minimum, one could imagine basic continuity in Russia’s political stance, returning to the situation that existed before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Even if the conflict in Ukraine were still unresolved, all parties possibly could engage in dialogue to reconcile their different visions of security arrangements in Europe and security guarantees to Ukraine in particular. A process such as that could open the possibility of restarting the strategic stability dialogue that the invasion interrupted.
Approaches to New Negotiations
The most natural starting point for the new round of discussions would be New START, which provides a robust framework for a future agreement. It could be adapted to address most of the concerns expressed by Russia and the United States in recent years. Other concerns could be addressed by a separate agreement or a political understanding once the negotiations process is underway.
Regarding the central limits on strategic forces, a new treaty could either leave them in place; lower them, perhaps dramatically; or raise the ceilings. Although the treaty is expected to facilitate nuclear disarmament and the reaction of the international community is likely to be very negative if the limits are held stable or are raised, it would be up to the parties to bear the political cost associated with reversing the disarmament trend of the last decades. The verification and transparency arrangements, arguably among the treaty’s most important elements, would remain in place even if the number of deployed warheads is allowed to increase.
Indeed, a new round of arms control discussions could begin shifting its focus away from numerical balance. One lesson that can be drawn from the tensions surrounding the war in Ukraine is that the role of nuclear weapons in this conflict would not have changed had the numbers been different. This is especially true for nonstrategic weapons. The situation would not have changed significantly had Russia had tens of these weapons in its arsenal as opposed to the more than 1,000 that it is believed to have today. The war demonstrated that nuclear weapons are poorly suited for a military role on the battlefield and that the political barriers to their use are quite significant.9
Another nuclear lesson from the war in Ukraine is that there is considerable value in separating nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, particularly in the case of nonstrategic systems. Amid concerns about a potential use of nuclear weapons, the absence of signs indicating preparations for such use has introduced a degree of stability in the situation.10
These considerations suggest a way of dealing with the issue of nonstrategic nuclear arsenals, which is certain to emerge in any future arms control discussion. The United States believes that any new treaty should address the disparity in the size of Russian and U.S. nonstrategic arsenals, while Russia traditionally has resisted attempts to bring nonstrategic forces into its security equation.
The U.S.-favored approach would establish a common ceiling for all nuclear warheads and give parties the freedom to choose the composition of their force. Given that the Russian nonstrategic arsenal is estimated to include about 2,000 weapons and the New START limit is 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, one option is to have a common ceiling of about 3,500 weapons.11 This approach does not take into account, however, the fact that virtually all nonstrategic weapons would be considered nondeployed in New START. Adopting the suggested common ceiling would legitimize an increase of the number of deployed nuclear warheads, in some cases increasing the risks of nuclear use. The practical implementation of this approach also would require the development of new and untested verification mechanisms to account for all nuclear weapons.12
A different way to deal with this issue would be to leave the ceiling for all nuclear warheads at the current New START level of 1,550 warheads or lower, but apply it only to weapons that are actually deployed, such as the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads. The weapons assigned to strategic bombers and to all nonstrategic systems would be removed from the bases where their delivery systems are located to some central storage sites.13 These weapons would be considered nondeployed. This approach is fully consistent with the way New START treats the reserve warheads for ICBMs and SLBMs and with the practice of operating nonstrategic weapons that exists in Russia. Importantly, the absence of weapons at base-level sites can be verified without access to nuclear weapons and with the application of tested protocols and practices.14
One issue that emerged in the course of implementing New START is that of the “exotic” systems unveiled by Russia in March 2018, such as the Avangard hypersonic glider, the nuclear-powered cruise missile, and the underwater drone.15 Some of these systems, specifically the Sarmat ICBM and the Avangard glider, already are covered by the New START limits. Others can be added to the scope of a future treaty if they ever get to the deployment stage. At the very least, the new agreement should include a detailed mechanism that would allow parties to discuss whether any new kinds of strategic arms should be covered. This mechanism should go beyond the New START provision that gives parties “the right to raise the question of such a strategic offensive arm for consideration in the Bilateral Consultative Commission” but does not provide further guidance on the matter. It also could be used to discuss “non-nuclear strategic weapons,” which Russia would like to include in its security equation.
Even if missile defense is no longer an issue of the utmost importance for Russia, any future arms control agreement would have to find a way to deal with it. In this case as well, New START provides a template for a solution. Its preamble acknowledges the interrelationship between offensive and defensive weapons, but states that “current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms” of the parties. This formula can be reproduced safely in any future disarmament agreement because it correctly reflects the capability of missile defense systems to counter strategic offensive arms.16
None of these measures would require significant concessions from Russia or the United States. Some of them, such as the treatment of nonstrategic weapons or missile defense, may depart from long-established positions, but none of them departs too far to make an agreement impossible.
One factor that could complicate the return to a Russian-U.S. arms control dialogue is the concern about the direction of China’s nuclear modernization program often expressed by the United States. It may be difficult to bring China into this equation, especially given its traditional reluctance to get involved in arms control. Most of the analysis regarding the Russian and U.S. views of the political role of arms control would apply to the situation with China as well. Russia’s response to any military buildup by the United States would be determined primarily by the status of their broader bilateral relationship rather than by narrow considerations of numerical balance.
Despite all the problems facing nuclear arms control and disarmament today, it is important to recognize that the system is not entirely broken. The commitments made by Russia and the United States to remain within the New START limits and to continue the exchange of some notifications signal some restraint on both sides. For example, the way Russia handled the deratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 2023 also suggests that it is not prepared yet to fully abandon the test ban regime and its institutions.17
It is important to preserve the experience and practices of bilateral and multilateral arms control because they could provide a foundation for future nuclear reductions once political change makes them possible. The change may seem quite distant today, but it may be closer than it appears. A vision for a cooperative arms control framework and nonconfrontational security arrangements is essential to create this change.
ENDNOTES
1. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Foreign Ministry Statement in Connection With the Russian Federation Suspending the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START),” February 21, 2023, https://www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/spokesman/official_statement/1855184/?lang=en.
2. Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability, U.S. Department of State, “U.S. Countermeasures in Response to Russia’s Violations of the New START Treaty,” June 1, 2023, https://www.state.gov/u-s-countermeasures-in-response-to-russias-violations-of-the-new-start-treaty/; “Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan for the Arms Control Association (ACA) Annual Forum,” Arms Control Association,
June 2, 2023, https://www.armscontrol.org/2023AnnualMeeting/sullivan-remarks (hereinafter Sullivan remarks).
4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Statement and Answers to Media Questions During a News Conference on Russia’s Foreign Policy Performance in 2023, Moscow, January 18, 2024,” January 18, 2024, https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1926392/?lang=en.
5. Evgeny P. Buzhinskiy, Vladimir A. Orlov, and Sergey D. Semenov, “Against Compartmentalization,” PIR Center, December 26, 2023, https://pircenter.org/en/editions/against-compartmentalization/.
6. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s Opening Remarks at a Briefing at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency on Arms Control and Strategic Stability, February 11, 2021,” February 11, 2021, https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1415641/.
7. Although Russia has later obtained a similar capability, it did not have it at the time the treaty was signed. Matt Korda, “If Arms Control Collapses, U.S. and Russian Strategic Nuclear Arsenals Could Double in Size,” Federation of American Scientists, February 7, 2023, https://fas.org/publication/if-arms-control-collapses-us-and-russian-strategic-nuclear-arsenals-could-double-in-size/.
8. President of Russia, “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly,” March 1, 2018, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957.
9. Pavel Podvig, “Why a Russian Nuclear Expert Thinks the Doomsday Clock Should Move Away From Midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 8, 2023, https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/why-a-russian-nuclear-expert-thinks-the-doomsday-clock-should-move-away-from-midnight/; Daryl Kimball, “Strengthening the Nuclear Taboo in the Midst of Russia’s War on Ukraine,” Arms Control Today, February 2023, https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2023-02/strengthening-nuclear-taboo-midst-russias-war-ukraine.
10. Pavel Podvig, “A Russian Nuclear Strike on Ukraine Is Not a Threat - At Least Not Yet,” The Moscow Times, October 18, 2022, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/18/a-russian-nuclear-strike-on-ukraine-is-not-a-threat-at-least-not-yet-a79114; David E. Sanger, “Biden’s Armageddon Moment: When Nuclear Detonation Seemed Possible in Ukraine,” The New York Times, March 10, 2024.
11. Frank Miller, “As the World Changes, So Should America’s Nuclear Strategy, Says Frank Miller,” The Economist, April 4, 2024, https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/04/as-the-world-changes-so-should-americas-nuclear-strategy-says-frank-miller; Edward M. Ifft, “Beyond New START,” Hoover Institution, January 27, 2023, https://www.hoover.org/research/beyond-new-start.
12. For one attempt to develop arrangements of this kind that illustrates the complexity of the task, see Miles A. Pomper et al., “Everything Counts: Building a Control Regime for Nonstrategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe,” CNS Occasional Paper, No. 55 (May 2022), https://nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/op55-everything-counts.pdf.
13. Pavel Podvig and Javier Serrat, “Lock Them Up: Zero-Deployed Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), 2017, https://www.unidir.org/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/lock-them-up-zero-deployed-non-strategic-nuclear-weapons-in-europe-en-675.pdf; Pavel Podvig, Ryan Snyder, and Wilfred Wan, “Evidence of Absence: Verifying the Removal of Nuclear Weapons,” UNIDIR, 2018, https://www.unidir.org/sites/default/files/publication/pdfs/evidence-of-absence-verifying-the-removal-of-nuclear-weapons-en-722.pdf.
14. Pavel Podvig, ed., “Menzingen Verification Experiment: Verifying the Absence of Nuclear Weapons in the Field,” UNIDIR, 2023, https://unidir.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/UNIDIR_Menzingen_Verification_Experiment_Report.pdf.
16. Pavel Podvig, “The False Promise of Missile Defense,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 14, 2009, https://thebulletin.org/2009/09/the-false-promise-of-missile-defense/.
17. Pavel Podvig, “Preserving the Nuclear Test Ban After Russia Revoked Its CTBT Ratification,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 80, No. 2 (March 3, 2024): 75-80.
Pavel Podvig is a senior researcher in the weapons of mass destruction program at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.