Russian laser weapons?

Expert Survey: Is Nuclear Arms Control Dead or Can New Principles Guide It?

July 30, 2019
RM Staff

This survey is a joint product of the Russia Matters project and the Belfer Center's U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism (IPNT). 

With the historic INF Treaty more than likely to terminate, and the future of New START in doubt, what guiding principles for interstate nuclear arms control can we hope for? Of eight U.S., Russian, European and Chinese experts surveyed by Russia Matters, most agree that bilateral agreements between the world’s two nuclear superpowers still have a role to play in any new arms control regime, but they differed considerably on the nature of that role—from it being “the only realistic option” to the need for “tacit” bilateral agreements en route to a multilateral framework using a new system for counting weapons; two experts called for a new emphasis on "mutual vulnerability" or “mutually assured security” instead of “mutually assured destruction,” while others feared that the declining sense of responsibility and flagging respect for mutual cooperation in both the U.S. and Russia would lead to a protracted, dangerous arms race that would eventually force the sides to resume arms control talks, but with untold damage done to global security.

Below are the experts’ responses to three questions about post-INF arms control arrangements (that is, if “arms control” indeed remains the right term to describe whatever new arrangements emerge, if any). The responses are lightly edited for length and clarity, with the contributors listed in alphabetical order.

1. With the U.S. to complete its withdrawal from the INF on Aug. 2 and the extension of New START in doubt, are we nearing the end of bilateral U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control as we know it?

Alexey Arbatov

Alexey Arbatov

Head, International Security Center, Russian Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO); former parliament member and participant in START negotiations

Yes, we are nearing the end of bilateral U.S.-Russian arms control, full stop. Moreover, as a consequence, we are heading toward the collapse of multilateral nuclear disarmament regimes and negotiations like the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and non-militarization of space.

Michael Krepon

Michael Krepon

Co-Founder, The Stimson Center; one of the first experts to consider possible new organizing principles for arms control; now working on a book on the rise, demise and revival of nuclear arms control (excerpted on ArmsControlWonk.com)

No, or not necessarily. Washington and Moscow might well be inclined to adhere to these limits even if they don’t formally extend. It has happened before. See SALT I’s Interim Agreement.

Ulrich Kühn

Ulrich Kühn

Deputy Head, Arms Control and Emerging Technologies, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, University of Hamburg; Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The unfortunate answer is “yes,” bilateral arms control seems to be nearing its end. And it would be wrong to solely blame Donald Trump for this sorry state of affairs. However, it would be correct to blame the Republican Party. Arms control with Russia got off the tracks under George W. Bush when Washington refused to ratify the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (ACFE) Treaty in 2002 and pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the same year. Both treaties were of enormous importance to the Kremlin. Now, under another Republican president, INF is gone and New START will follow its fate if Trump stays in office beyond 2020. But it’s not just America that lost interest in arms control. Russia as well pulled out of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in 2007, violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum through its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and holds the major share of responsibility for the demise of the INF. Both countries (again) define strength very much in terms of military hardware and manpower. Cooperation, restraint and diplomacy—all necessary ingredients for successful arms control—are not part of their political coordinates anymore.

Gary Samore

Gary Samore

Senior Executive Director, Crown Center, Brandeis University; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center’s Korea Project; former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The future of U.S.-Russia bilateral arms control depends first and foremost on the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections in November 2020. If the Democratic candidate wins, he or she will almost certainly agree to extend New START for five years in February 2021. The new administration will seek to use the five years to negotiate a new bilateral treaty with quantitative and qualitative limits on U.S. and Russian strategic forces, as well as verification provisions. If President Trump is re-elected, the future of bilateral arms control is less clear. Currently, the Trump administration seems inclined against extension, on the grounds that New START does not include limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons. Instead, the Trump administration has proposed to replace New START with a trilateral arms control treaty limiting the nuclear forces of the U.S., Russia and China. Once it becomes clear that inclusion of non-strategic weapons or negotiation of a trilateral treaty are not realistic, Trump may allow New START to expire or he may overrule hardline advisors and agree to extension, which is clearly Russian President Vladimir Putin’s preference. Extension is more likely if Russia agrees to cosmetic amendments (like a new name for the treaty) that allow Trump to declare victory—that he has “fixed” Obama’s “flawed” treaty.

Tom Sauer

Tom Sauer

Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Antwerp

No, in all likelihood it is not the end of bilateral nuclear arms control. Of course, all nuclear-armed states have to start thinking about how to reduce their arsenals, which implies multilateral arms control at a certain point in time. But Russia and the U.S. still possess thousands of nuclear weapons, while the other nuclear-armed states only have hundreds. Russia and the U.S. are regarded as belonging to a separate nuclear league. It is bizarre that strategists who consider “parity” between Russia and the U.S. important now expect China to be included in the next negotiations. In the short term, Moscow and Washington will have to start talking again, if this process has not already started. If bilateral arms control was successful in the Cold War, there is no reason why it could not work now.

William Tobey

William Tobey

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center; Director, U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism; oversaw INF Treaty compliance policy in the George H. W. Bush administration

Yes and no.

“Yes” because it is inconceivable that any bilateral arms control treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation could be ratified by the U.S. Senate in the face of unresolved Russian violations of multiple arms control treaties and agreements. As former Defense Department and White House official Frank Miller notes: “Today, Russia stands in violation of: the Helsinki Declaration; the Budapest Memorandum; the Istanbul Accord; the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives signed between George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev and then Bush and Yeltsin; the Vienna Document; the Open Skies Treaty; as well as the INF Treaty.”

In the 2000s, Russia tried at least twice to convince U.S. defense secretaries to support joint abandonment of the INF Treaty. When that failed, Moscow committed a material breach of the treaty by deploying a system designated by NATO as the SSC-8, which had been tested to a range prohibited under the 30-year old pact. Moreover, the deployments apparently continue and are larger than previously known publicly.

“No” because the imperatives for strategic stability and the mutual interest in avoiding unbridled competition that drove mortal enemies—the United States and the Soviet Union—to pursue arms control, despite their existential differences, will eventually push the United States and Russia again to pursue diplomacy. This may, however, occur years from now, and after a period of increasing danger.

Wu Riqiang

Wu Riqiang

Research Fellow, International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center; Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China

Probably. If the Democratic candidate wins the 2020 general election, then New START will likely be extended. But the U.S. and Russia are unlikely to have another round of nuclear disarmament treaties.

Pavel Zolotarev

Pavel Zolotarev

Supervisor of Military and Political Studies, Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; formerly headed Russian Defense Ministry's information and analytical center; served 10+ years in Russia's Strategic Missile Forces

The bilateral U.S.-Russian format of arms control does not meet the new conditions that arose after the end of the Cold War. The foundation of the U.S.-Russian format lies in providing strategic stability on the basis of mutually assured destruction. However, not just since the end of the Cold War but in light of today’s poor relations between Russia and the U.S., there is no political necessity for relying on MUTUAL nuclear deterrence. Maintaining mutually assured destruction as the basis of strategic stability destines Russia and the U.S. to focus their arms-control efforts on a bilateral format. But the most important issues for arms control are nuclear nonproliferation and, in second place, limiting the nuclear weapons of other nuclear-armed states. Ultimately, after the end of the Cold War, we got three new states with nuclear weapons. So the previous U.S.-Russian format for arms control has to be changed. We are approaching the end stage of the bilateral format. However, the scenario for this finale is currently unfolding in crisis mode, not as the result of conscious and purposeful actions by both states aimed at transforming the existing system of arms control.

2. If this is the demise of bilateral arms control, then what would be the most likely consequences in the short to medium term?

Alexey Arbatov

Alexey Arbatov

Head, International Security Center, Russian Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO); former parliament member and participant in START negotiations

In the short term there will be some new weapons deployments (like Russian 9M729 ground-launched cruise missiles and hypersonic Avangard missiles and the United States’ W76-2 warhead and B61-12 gravity bomb), but not too many. Long-range systems take a great deal of time for development and procurement. In the medium term we will gradually sink into an unlimited arms race of offensive and defensive, strategic and intermediate-range, nuclear and conventional systems, including cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, long-range air and underwater armed drones, anti-satellite weapons and cyber warfare and possibly directed-energy kill systems. Moreover, this race will be multi-lateral, involving the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, North and South Korea, Japan, some European states and so forth.

After a cycle of huge financial waste and strategic confrontations, the need for the resumption of bilateral and some formats of multilateral arms control will become obvious. However, too much time will have been lost, too many new arms and technologies will be unleashed and too little arms control expertise left. At best, some forms of marginally effective arms control will eventually be revived; at worst, the world will plunge into a quagmire of great powers' armed conflicts, nuclear escalations and catastrophic terrorism.

Michael Krepon

Michael Krepon

Co-Founder, The Stimson Center; one of the first experts to consider possible new organizing principles for arms control; now working on a book on the rise, demise and revival of nuclear arms control (excerpted on ArmsControlWonk.com)

As noted above, it’s not necessarily the demise. But even so, on-site inspections might go by the boards.

Ulrich Kühn

Ulrich Kühn

Deputy Head, Arms Control and Emerging Technologies, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, University of Hamburg; Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

I would predict that we won’t see major effects in the short term. Neither side wants to engage in the kind of quantitative arms racing we experienced during the Cold War, with thousands of warheads and missiles. However, that does not mean that an arms race is off the table. Quite the opposite. The new arms race between Russia and America will be more about quality, about new weapons systems and the entanglement with rapidly emerging technologies such as autonomous weapons systems and artificial intelligence. Perhaps most pressing and troublesome over the medium term will be the total loss of transparency and predictability. Right now, New START inspections, calendars and information exchanges give each side solid knowledge about what is happening and, thereby, help to avoid dangerous misunderstandings. But with nuclear arms control gone, the next time Russia test-fires another ICBM at the end of one of its large-scale maneuvers, no one in the West will know whether that’s just a test or perhaps something more. And this combination of “strategic blindness” and mistrust combined with the potential for misunderstandings will fuel the new arms race.

Gary Samore

Gary Samore

Senior Executive Director, Crown Center, Brandeis University; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center’s Korea Project; former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction

If New START is not extended, there will be few immediate effects on strategic stability. Both the U.S. and Russia have embarked on long-term strategic modernization programs that will ensure mutually assured destruction for the foreseeable future. Over time, however, the demise of bilateral arms control will have negative political and strategic consequences for U.S.-Russian relations and strategic stability. In the absence of bilateral verification and monitoring provisions, there will be increasing uncertainty about strategic capabilities and intentions, which could produce a quantitative arms race. Russia, in particular, fears that an end to formal strategic limits—along with continued expansion of U.S. missile defense—is intended to achieve American strategic superiority. In response, Russia is likely to invest more resources in deploying larger numbers of Sarmat heavy ICBMs and developing exotic new weapons, such as hypersonic glide vehicles, long-range cruise missiles and nuclear torpedoes, designed to secure a second strike capability against the U.S. Such a build-up is bound to increase bilateral political tensions and remove one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Tom Sauer

Tom Sauer

Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Antwerp

The most likely consequence of the demise of bilateral arms control is a new nuclear arms race. The most likely regions that will be affected are Europe and Asia. With the INF Treaty gone, neither Russia nor the U.S. will have any restrictions on installing new land-based medium-range nuclear weapon systems. Russia apparently has already done so. NATO has announced countermeasures. It seems unlikely though that the U.S. will field nuclear-armed medium-range missiles in Europe like in the 1980s. If New START is not extended either, Russia and the U.S. will for the first time since the beginning of the 1970s have their hands free to develop and install as many long-range nuclear missiles as they wish and without reciprocal inspections. That would of course be in contradiction to what has been promised by the nuclear-armed states in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT (1970).

William Tobey

William Tobey

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center; Director, U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism; oversaw INF Treaty compliance policy in the George H. W. Bush administration

In the short and medium term, the United States and NATO will be compelled to match Russian deployments. Russia’s nuclear modernization program is decades ahead of the West. Moscow has hot production lines for land-based INF-range systems; the United States does not. Despite the New START Treaty, which reduced overall stockpiles, Russia has been deploying new strategic systems for decades. As of December 2018, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that 82 percent of Russian strategic forces had been modernized. The newest U.S. strategic systems are 20 years old, and many are decades older. The Obama administration announced an ambitious modernization program and the Trump administration has largely endorsed it. However, there will be little incentive for Moscow to negotiate until paper ambitions become fielded systems.

Wu Riqiang

Wu Riqiang

Research Fellow, International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center; Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China

The most likely consequence is an arms race, to some extent. A Cold War-style arms race is unlikely, but U.S. ballistic missile defense has triggered Russia’s and China’s negative reactions to build more/diversified/better nuclear weapons to restore nuclear deterrence. The U.S. position is that it will not accept any limits on missile defense. This position is unlikely to change.

Pavel Zolotarev

Pavel Zolotarev

Supervisor of Military and Political Studies, Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; formerly headed Russian Defense Ministry's information and analytical center; served 10+ years in Russia's Strategic Missile Forces

As noted before, the transition from the previous format of arms control to a new one is happening in crisis mode: Elements of the old system are being destroyed without an idea of what new shape it should take. The consequences of these processes could be manifold. Here are two possible extremes.

The most preferable option: The INF Treaty expires, but both states continue abiding by its provisions. Russia maintains a moratorium on non-deployment of missiles covered by the treaty in the European part of the country, while the U.S. in turn does not deploy such missiles in Europe. New START gets extended for five years. The U.S. and Russia use this time within the framework of their dialogue on strategic stability to develop new approaches that would allow a multilateral arms control dialogue to begin. The initial goal would be to stop the growth of states’ nuclear potential and to prevent the appearance of nuclear weapons in new states.

The worst option: The U.S. decides to deploy previously banned INF missiles in Europe and at least one Eastern European country agrees to have them on its territory. Russia responds symmetrically and also modifies its military planning to allow for preemptive strikes against these missile sites. Simultaneously, due to the potential threat of a decapitating strike, Russia would activate the readiness of a system known in the U.S. as “Dead Hand,” which would make a retaliatory strike against the U.S. and its allies inevitable. The world would find itself at the brink of nuclear apocalypse.

3. Some say the very concept of “bilateral nuclear arms control” is getting outdated. If so, what should be the new guiding principles of whatever regime follows, if any?

Alexey Arbatov

Alexey Arbatov

Head, International Security Center, Russian Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO); former parliament member and participant in START negotiations

These claims are nothing more than a smoke screen to cover the absence of political will or knowledge required for continuing and expanding the highly successful 50-year quest of arms control. What is really getting "outdated" are the sense of responsibility, competence and adequate set of security priorities in the minds of the majority of statesmen, military and civilian professionals of the post-post-Cold War vintage. Multilateral "discussion clubs" will never become a substitute for focused, formal arms-limitation negotiations. Likewise, general disputes on strategic stability, or an "ecosystem of security," will never serve as a replacement for tough talks on specific weapon systems and forces.

There are no objective reasons to consider bilateral arms control outdated; there are still a lot of problems for it to resolve, even though for the time being it might be impossible to deal with some issues, like dual-purpose systems, cyber warfare, space arms, AI drones and third-party nuclear and missile states. In the absence of bilateral nuclear arms limitations, addressing those new issues would be hopeless. But, relying on this U.S.-Russian pivot, there is a chance to eventually involve other states in nuclear arms control and elaborate agreements on innovative weapons and technologies.

Michael Krepon

Michael Krepon

Co-Founder, The Stimson Center; one of the first experts to consider possible new organizing principles for arms control; now working on a book on the rise, demise and revival of nuclear arms control (excerpted on ArmsControlWonk.com)

The “Big Two” can still be engaged with tacit agreements not to go over certain limits, partial or otherwise. There would be a need to conceive of a multilateral framework—Big Two, United Kingdom and France and the three regional nuclear powers in Asia—using a ratio or bandwidth-type approach.

Ulrich Kühn

Ulrich Kühn

Deputy Head, Arms Control and Emerging Technologies, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, University of Hamburg; Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Yeah, I know, bilateral arms control is dead. But it is not dead because of China or AI or Russia’s new generation of second-strike weapons. As I said before, it is dead because both sides lost interest in cooperation and lost the necessary respect for it. Will extending arms control to China magically solve this old couple’s problem? Of course not! Perhaps it would just make everything worse. So, does that mean that arms control with China and perhaps other nuclear-armed states makes zero sense? Quite the opposite: It would make sense, particularly against the backdrop of (hopefully) peacefully managing “great power competition” in the 21st century. Then again, to get others on board, the two remaining nuclear superpowers, Russia and America, would have to be willing to offer something—that is, to give up parts of their material military power. Why else would China agree to arms control talks if it wouldn’t get back anything of value from Washington and Moscow? And this is where my imagination fails me. I just don’t see Washington, or Moscow for that matter, being willing to trade away aspects of power—at least not with the current leaderships.

Gary Samore

Gary Samore

Senior Executive Director, Crown Center, Brandeis University; Senior Fellow, Belfer Center’s Korea Project; former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Trump administration has proposed to replace bilateral arms control with a trilateral treaty limiting the nuclear forces of the U.S., Russia and China. This is not realistic. Given the large disparity in nuclear forces between China on one hand and Russia and the U.S. on the other, China is not prepared to accept a treaty that formalizes its inferior status in terms of numbers of strategic weapons. At the same time, the U.S. and Russia are not prepared to grant China equal status. Moreover, Russia has asserted that any multilateral arms control treaty must also include the United Kingdom and France, neither of which has agreed to limit their much smaller nuclear forces in a multilateral agreement. Given the impracticality of multilateral arms control measures to limit strategic forces, the only realistic option is to continue U.S.-Russia bilateral arms control. Whatever the Trump administration decides to do, future U.S. administrations are likely to return to a bilateral approach in order to strengthen strategic stability because it is the only option available.

Tom Sauer

Tom Sauer

Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Antwerp

The guiding principle of the new arms control regime should be to take into account the beliefs and interests of the rest of the world. Even regardless of a new arms race, the failure of bilateral arms control already has a substantial impact on how the rest of the world, and especially the non-nuclear-weapon states, perceives the willingness of the U.S. and Russia (and by extension all nuclear-armed states) to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear weapons. The non-nuclear-weapon states wonder why they have to fulfill their part of the NPT deal (by not acquiring nuclear weapons) while the nuclear-weapon states categorically refuse to fulfill their part. Many non-nuclear-weapon states are getting impatient and frustrated. These emotions—based on underlying interests—were the main driver behind the negotiations and conclusion of the multilateral Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, better known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty (2017). The way the nuclear-armed states reacted to the treaty (by boycotting the negotiations and ridiculing it) did not help either. If, on top of that, the step-by-step arms control approach—that was always put forward by the nuclear-armed states as the “realistic” alternative to the ban treaty—fails to deliver, as is currently the case, then the non-nuclear-weapon states’ frustration will further grow. It is always hard to predict the future, but my 2 cents are that some of those non-nuclear-armed states will start leaving the NPT, the “cornerstone” of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, after the 2020 NPT Review Conference that in all likelihood will fail. Until the nuclear-armed states understand this new guiding principle, that would not be an irrational path for the others to follow.

William Tobey

William Tobey

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center; Director, U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism; oversaw INF Treaty compliance policy in the George H. W. Bush administration

The principle imperatives are timeless: maintain stable deterrence such that no nation has an incentive to start a nuclear war during a crisis in the belief that going first would enable it to limit the damage of a retaliatory response to acceptable levels; and manage the deployment competition to avoid strategic surprise that could also affect crisis stability.

China’s rise may complicate this calculus, but not necessarily so. It depends on Beijing’s choices. The United States and the Soviet Union concluded several successful arms control treaties despite France’s and the United Kingdom’s modest nuclear arsenals, as China’s reportedly is today.

Most puzzling is: What is Vladimir Putin’s grand strategy? Russia’s INF Treaty violation and the pact’s subsequent demise may catalyze a renewed period of unbridled competition. The previous one, during the Cold War, did not end well for Moscow, and then the United States and the Soviet Union were widely regarded as near peers. Today, Russia’s economy is roughly a tenth the size of America’s and a twentieth of NATO’s. Moscow does not have the resources for limitless competition with the West. So why is Vladimir Putin pursuing policies instigating it?

Wu Riqiang

Wu Riqiang

Research Fellow, International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center; Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China

No, the concept of bilateral arms control is not outdated. As long as the U.S. and Russia still hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, these two countries should take the lead in nuclear disarmament.

The problem is the U.S. is now proposing invulnerability. What we should do is to return to the basic idea of nuclear arms control: mutual vulnerability. If the nuclear powers lack consensus on mutual vulnerability, then no arms control regime—be it bilateral, trilateral or multilateral—will work. The purpose of nuclear arms control is to maintain strategic stability between major nuclear powers, not to solidify anyone’s global dominance.

Pavel Zolotarev

Pavel Zolotarev

Supervisor of Military and Political Studies, Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences; formerly headed Russian Defense Ministry's information and analytical center; served 10+ years in Russia's Strategic Missile Forces

The foundation of a new arms control regime should continue to be strategic stability, but on the basis of mutually assured security instead of mutually assured destruction. The essence of this lies in minimizing the risk of nuclear weapons use, by various organizational and technical means, while maintaining the positive role of the potential of nuclear deterrence. Experience gained not only from the Cold War but from contemporary interstate conflicts has confirmed the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. Considering that nuclear weapons will continue to exist for the foreseeable future, it makes sense to use the potential of nuclear deterrence to prevent military conflict or its escalation. At the same time, it is crucial to eliminate the likelihood that nuclear weapons will actually be used. These two goals—nuclear deterrence and minimizing the risk of nuclear weapons use—are hard to combine but realistic. At the heart of this assertion lies the conviction that the leaders of all nuclear-armed states understand that the use of such weapons is inadmissible. Experts in the field have developed specific organizational and technical means that could both strengthen the potential of nuclear deterrence and lower the risk of “first use” of nuclear weapons. Such an approach to strategic stability would coincide with the interests of all nuclear-armed states and make it possible to move beyond the bilateral U.S.-Russian format.

If the worst-case scenario for post-INF Treaty developments can be avoided, then, using the approach described above, it would be completely realistic to reach multilateral agreements on preventing growth in states’ nuclear potential and, further down the road, to transition from limiting to reducing nuclear arms.

The opinions expressed in this survey are solely those of the respondents.