WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th January, 2021) The year 2020 saw President Donald Trump and his administration destroy some of the final vestiges of an international arms control regime that took a half century to build, while leaving his successor just over two week to salvage the sole remaining US-Russian nuclear pact.
In January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight, citing the unraveling of international arms control agreements in favor of narrow domestic political interests. The announcement came six months after the US exited the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
In May of 2020, the US unburdened itself from another arms control accord - the Open Skies Treaty - a mutual aerial reconnaissance agreement. This left the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires on February 5, 2021, as the only arms control agreement between the US and Russia. Moreover, it also represents the only mechanism remaining that limits the two superpowers' nuclear arsenals.
Since the day Trump took office his administration sought to remove any constraints on US military power and America's ability to develop weapons - including missiles of all types and ranges.
Former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong, who once served as Political Counselor at Ottawa's embassy in Moscow, succinctly echoed the atomic scientists concerns over the short-sightedness of Washington's decisions.
"The Trump Administration seems to be determined to kill off every remaining Cold War arms control treaty," Armstrong told Sputnik after the US left the Open Skies Treaty. "More of Washington's short-term gain for long-term pain."
The New START treaty was signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague in 2010, before entering into force in 2011. The pact, which can be extended for another five years, limits each country's strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 deployed missiles and heavy bombers. New START superseded the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Moscow Treaty, which capped warheads at 2,200. It also follows the 1991 START 1 treaty, which limited the superpowers to 6,000 warheads each.
Russia wants to renew New START for five years with no changes and is interested in having the United Kingdom and France become part of the discussions because they possess nuclear stockpiles comparable to that of China. The United States, for its part, has said it would consider a one-year extension if Russia caps the buildup of its nuclear arsenal, which was not covered by the original New START.
US President-elect Joe Biden, who will take over the White House on January 20, was vice president when the Obama administration concluded New START a decade ago. Moreover, Biden has expressed a willingness to extend the treaty. Russian President Vladimir Putin is already looking for signals regarding the treaty's future from the incoming Biden administration.
"If nothing happens this treaty will stop existing in February 2021... I said we were ready for more talks," Putin said during his annual press conference on December 17. "I know that the newly elected president, Biden, said... they wanted to preserve this fundamental treaty. We are ready for this but we need to see some reaction from our American partners."
After what happened in 2019, several world leaders, international organizations - along with US lawmakers - expressed fears that the Trump administration would exit New START or simply allow it to die.
In January, UN Under-Secretary-General Izumi Nakamitsu called on the United States and Russia to extend New START for as long as possible, in the current form, a message Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscored later in the year. Even NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed the importance of saving the treaty.
In August, the head of the US House Armed Services Committee and the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee warned of the costs and risks of not renewing the pact.
"Extending the New START Treaty for a full five years is clearly the right financial and national security choice. America cannot afford a costly and dangerous nuclear arms race, particularly in the middle of our current financial, political, and health crises," US Senator Bob Menendez and Congressman Adam Schiff said in a joint statement.
In terms of financial impact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that if the US reverted to START I limits (6,000 warheads), for example, the Pentagon would incur up to $439 billion in additional onetime acquisition costs and $28 billion in additional annual operation and sustainment costs.
FALSE STARTS: TALKS ON ROAD TO NOWHERE
The Trump administration made some overtures about jumpstarting talks, although most of it appeared to be lip service, leaving many to wonder if they were ever serious. The US also complicated issues by aggressively - yet futilely - pushing the concept that China should join an agreement - something Beijing repeatedly rejected. Moreover, it hardly seemed possible to craft and reach some new complicated arrangement, trilateral or otherwise, before New START expired.
Trump, despite little progress in the first half of the year, continued to express optimism that a deal could be reached, including during a call with his Russian counterpart ahead of mid-summer meetings between negotiating teams.
"President Trump reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia and the United States, and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after the US president's call with Putin on July 23.
The US and Russia had a number of "talks about talks," but the negotiations process never took off, although a glimmer of hope came in June, when Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and US Special Representative for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea during a meeting in Austria launched a process to purportedly rescue New START. This was followed by a meeting of US and Russian delegations in Vienna from July 27-30 in the framework of a bilateral strategic dialogue. Expert working groups discussed a range of issues from verification to space security.
However, no substantial progress was made towards closing the gap between both parties with respect to renewing New START. After another round of talks in Vienna in August, Ryabkov said the US team avoided answering the question as to whether they are ready to extend the treaty.
In September, a State Department official told Sputnik it wanted a trilateral agreement that boosted verification.
"Russia should commit to a framework that would lead to a new agreement on all nuclear warheads, improve verification under the current treaty on strategic systems, and set the stage for a comprehensive, verifiable treaty on the nuclear arsenals of the United States, Russia, and China," the spokesperson said on September 21.
Ryabkov, on the same day, said Russia considers it inconceivable to strengthen the control and verification measures in New START.
After talks in Helsinki in October, Ryabkov shot down reports that the two sides were close to reaching a deal to freeze nuclear arsenals. The October 5 talks with Billingslea, he added, "demonstrated that huge differences remain."
The year ended with a series of threats and allegations, including Washington saying it was ready to deploy weapons banned under New START. In November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that Russia would survive.
"If the United States breaks the last remaining... treaty on strategic arms reduction, it will be their decision, which we see in a negative light, of course. But we do not see it as a tragedy," Lavrov told reporters, adding that Russia had "everything necessary to ensure its security."
On December 8, Billingslea accused Moscow of building up an arsenal "of thousands of nuclear warheads that are completely unconstrained by the New START treaty." Two days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy that Billingslea had ignored all Moscow's own constructive proposals and instead was advancing aggressive policies against both Russia and China.
In the end, the biggest boost to arms control talks and prospects to salvaging New START may have come on December 14, when the US Electoral College officially confirmed that Trump had lost the November 3 election.
The two superpowers have also sparred over other arms control pacts, including the 1992 Open Skies Treaty the US left in May, citing Russian violations. Moscow has denied breaking the terms of the pact that aims to build trust among 34 states by allowing mutual aerial reconnaissance flights over each participating country's territory.
The US first informed Moscow that it would stay in the treaty if Russia would return to compliance. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow would work with the United States only on a mutual basis and would not accept any ultimatums.
Professor Edward Lozansky, director of Russia House in Washington and president of the American University in Moscow, said the US could have taken steps to resolve the situation before exiting the deal.
"If Moscow, as the United States claims, has violated this agreement, for example, by imposing restrictions on its flights near Kaliningrad or any other provisions of this treaty the way to resolve this problem is to call for negotiation," Lozansky said.
Despite the US move, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik the treaty would stay in force if all NATO countries guaranteed that they would not send data they obtained to third parties, particularly to the United States.
The Pentagon did not wait long in the post-INF era to begin making and testing weapons previously banned under the treaty, which had prohibited the US and Russia from developing or fielding nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,417 miles). The United States has also signaled that it will deploy such weapons to both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Russia, for its part, said it has not tested and does not have intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in service, although it was in the advanced stages of preparing an adequate response.
US officials continued to boast about fast-tracking the development and deployment of such weapons in 2020. US Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist at a press conference in September said that now that the US is out of the INF Treaty, the Pentagon is making "rapid progress" to field ground-launched missiles.
In October, Putin reaffirmed Russia's commitment to a moratorium on deployment of intermediate- and short-range missiles in Europe as long as there are no US missiles. However, NATO and Washington rejected Russia's proposals. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik that ignoring Putin's ideas show an irresponsible approach to European security.
"This is a reflection of the Russian Federation leadership's policy of looking for a way to stabilize the military and political situation in Europe, in terms of preventing the emergence of new missile crises there," Ryabkov explained after Putin unveiled his proposals.
Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov warned Washington that Moscow will respond if the United States deploys intermediate and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe or the Asia-Pacific.
"Pentagon is rapidly developing systems previously prohibited under the [INF] Treaty and has already conducted two tests of such systems. Washington intends to deploy them in Asia-Pacific and Europe. The implementation of such plans in the Far East will pose a direct threat to Russia's national security and nuclear deterrence capability. We will be forced to react," the ambassador said during a panel discussion at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies on October 26.
However, Antonov added, Russia is ready to search for ways to maintain stability and prevent missile crises "in a world without the INF Treaty" as it applies to the Asia-Pacific.
"The Russian leader has suggested considering specific options for adopting mutual verification measures in order to address existing concerns. In particular, these are the verification measures with regard to the Aegis Ashore complexes with Mk-41 launchers that are deployed at US and NATO bases in Europe, as well as 9M729 missiles in the Kaliningrad region," Antonov said.
Trump, in the run up to the 2020 election, felt the US Space Force (USSF) that was instituted at the end of last year was a key issue he could exploit.
"SPACE FORCE. VOTE!" Trump tweeted from the hospital while being treated for covid a month before the November 3 election.
On December 18, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the 4,000 personnel in the US Space Force will be called "Guardians." Trump, he added, in establishing the force was focused on renewing US leadership in human space exploration and "ensuring that America remained as dominant in space as we are in land and air and sea."
Pence also said that space is a "war-fighting domain," before alleging that China and Russia are aggressively seeking ways to cut into US dominance.
The US Space Force was allocated about $15 billion in the 2021 defense budget, down from $40 billion in 2020, which includes funding for research and development, operations, and procurement.
In October, Russia, alarmed by the US bid to militarize the domain, submitted two draft resolutions on no first placement of weapons in space for consideration by the UN General Assembly First Committee dealing with disarmament and international security matters.
Washington near the end of the year slammed Russia for testing a missile allegedly intended to target satellites in orbit.
"Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test. #Russia continues to weaponize #space. @US_SpaceCom stands ready to protect/defend US/allied interests from aggression in the space domain," the command said in a tweet.
Responding to a similar statement in April, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the Pentagon seeks to justify its own anti-satellite missile development by directing such accusations at Moscow.
Both the US and Russia are parties to the Outer Space Treaty, along with China, India, the UK and over 100 other nations, prohibiting the militarization of space. The treaty does not prohibit countries from developing technology to shoot down their own defunct satellites, with US, Russia, China and India having demonstrated the capability to do so.
FRESH START: BEYOND NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL?
Successful collaboration on extending New START could provide Moscow and the Biden administration with an opportunity to address other pressing issues. In fact, challenging the prevailing orthodox wisdom, Carnegie Center Moscow expert Alexander Gabuev, citing unnamed Kremlin officials, said many within the Russian government look forward to working with a president who knows how to organize a "normal" process for national security discussions.
In addition to retaining the pillars of the arms control regime, he added, the incoming Biden administration might also be open to discussing rules around competition in cyberspace. Overall, outside of US disengagement and keeping the Western alliance in disarray, Trump's re-election presents more threats than opportunities.
"After US-Russian relations nearly hit rock bottom on Trump's watch, nobody in Russia believes that four more years of Trump could be good for Moscow," Gabuev wrote in a November 3 Foreign Policy piece. "Schadenfreude over the gradual demise of Pax Americana would simply sugarcoat the risks and downsides of Trump remaining in the White House."
Brookings Institution scholar Michael O'Hanlon told Sputnik that Biden would be in lockstop with Russia on keeping the Iran nuclear agreement intact. Moreover, he boldly suggested cooperation could extend beyond arms control, such as working on diplomatic deals to resolving the conflicts in Syria and Libya. Albeit, the think tank scholar indicated that a meeting of the minds on some issues would be akin to landing an aircraft on a celestial body.
"Ideally, too, we'd actually try to solve the Ukraine problem with a negotiated settlement on the Donbas and a lifting of sanctions on Russia. But that seems like a moonshot at present," O'Hanlon soberly concluded.
