For Immediate Release: Oct. 16, 2020
Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, (202) 463-8270 ext. 104.
(Washington, DC)—Arms control experts are urging President Donald Trump to agree to a Russian proposal to extend a key 2010 arms control agreement for at least one year, and ideally for five years, without preconditions to allow additional time for negotiations on a follow-on deal on range of related issues before the treaty expires on Feb. 5, 2021.
Without an extension, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) will lapse with nothing to replace it, removing all legally-binding limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972. The treaty permits an extension “for a period of no more than five years” so long as both the U.S. and Russian presidents agree to it.
“New START extension is vitally important for U.S., Russian, and international security," noted Thomas Countryman, former acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and current chair of the board of Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group in Washington, DC. "We strongly urge President Trump to take ‘yes’ for an answer to Russia’s proposal to extend New START without conditions, ideally for five years."
"Unless Trump somehow overrules his hard-line advisors and adjusts course—or Joe Biden wins the presidential election and makes good on his pledge to extend New START—the treaty very likely will disappear," remarked Daryl Kimball, the group's executive director.
"The loss of New START would open the door to an ever-more dangerous and costly global nuclear arms race. In the absence of New START, Washington and Moscow could quickly 'upload' several hundred additional warheads on existing deployed delivery systems to exceed the treaty’s 1,550 warhead ceiling. Such unconstrained nuclear arms racing would be unaffordable and dangerous for both sides," Kimball noted.
"A five-year, clean extension of New START would provide a foundation and the time for follow-on discussions and agreements to address unconstrained nuclear warheads and non-nuclear weapons that impact strategic stability, and to improve opportunities to more fully include other nuclear-armed states, including China, the U.K., and France, in the arms control process," Kimball said.
Experts Available in Washington:
- Thomas Countryman, former acting under secretary of state for arms control and international security, and chair of the board for the Arms Control Association, [email protected], 301-312-3445
- Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, [email protected], 202-463-8270 ext 107
- Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, [email protected], 202-463-8270, ext. 104