WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2021) The United States and Russia can launch fresh negotiations for limits on missile defense systems and intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) after agreeing to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for five years, Los Alamos Study Group Director Greg Mello told Sputnik.
"Paths trodden in the past may still be among the best, including limitations on missile defense and intermediate arms," Mello said. "It would be helpful if NATO countries ended NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty]-violating basing of US nuclear weapons."
On Wednesday, the United States and Russia agreed to extend the New START treaty for five more years without any renegotiation of its terms. The treaty is now set to expire on February 5, 2026.
Mello said extending New START was the easiest move the new Biden administration could make with Russia to revive momentum in strategic arms control talks following President Donald Trump's scrapping of so many arms control agreements. But further progress could now be made despite the poor state of US-Russia relations, Mello noted.
"The New START extension was very much the 'low-hanging fruit' on the arms control tree. Other fruit is not ripe but could ripen if bilateral relations were to warm up. There is no visible sign of that - the opposite I would say - but arms control and disarmament have always proceeded under threatening clouds," he said.
Both American public opinion and significant elements within the US military favored scrapping or at least curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons systems, Mello pointed out.
"We cannot leave this matter to the officials of the Biden Administration but must seek every way forward, like water finding its way. We therefore must be hopeful but realistic also. The American people do not much like nuclear weapons, and a fair chunk of the military has no love for nuclear weapons either," he said.
The United States and Russia still enjoyed the possibility of reaching strategic cooperation on nuclear arms as well as in other major security areas in the coming years because the costs and dangers of continuing confrontation were so high for both nations, Mello observed.
"Yes, they can agree, for the simple reason that the United States in particular will, over time, find its empire unsustainable. Cooperation will become necessary for survival. Let us hope both our countries are best with farsighted, capable leadership, which to be frank has been in short supply in the United States," he said.
It was virtually certain that progress in arms control and disarmament would follow, not lead, progress in other spheres, such as addressing the massive inequality which has grown in the United States, Mello advised.
"I think politics, including arms control politics, may follow culture. ... Sooner or later some of the US nuclear modernization plans will slow. 'Sooner or later could be a long time, or, in a mild degree it could be only a year or two," he said.
However, that time was not come yet, Mello cautioned.
"The atmosphere has to be right, and it isn't," he said.
The New START Treaty has been in effect since 2011 and was set to expire on February 5. It remains the only arms control agreement between the United States and Russia and implies that each side would gradually reduce its nuclear arsenal to a total of 700 rockets, 1,550 warheads, and 800 launchers.
