The START atomic arms control treaty expires after three decades in force: “Nuclear danger increases”

During the worst of the Cold war (1945-1991), students in American schools were given drills on how to behave in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviet enemy. The fear of a conflict with these apocalyptic weapons was part of the collective imagination. Both countries developed a powerful arsenal and threatened each other with “mutual assured destruction”an uncertain balance of forces that was on the verge of being broken on several occasions.

After the implosion of the Soviet Union, Washington and Moscow decided to negotiate a nuclear control systemintended primarily for minimize the risks of accidental war. They stopped the nuclear race and began sharing information to reduce mutual distrust. The objective was to avoid a fatality triggered by miscalculation or for one “strategic surprise” derived from an “excessive secrecy”, according to the US State Department website.

With this spirit in mind, George H. W. Bush y Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first nuclear control agreement on July 31, 1991 in Moscow, the START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

It was replaced by a similar one, the START II, agreed on January 3, 1993 also by Bush and the Russian president, Ilways. The third version of that agreement, New START, was sealed by the president Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitri MedvédevApril 8, 2010.

They both shook hands Prague to formalize that disarmament agreement, which has been in force until this Wednesday, February 4, after a five-year extension in 2021.

Now you are entering uncharted territory. The two great nuclear powers are no longer legally bound to share information or limit their arsenals. Is the world heading into a new race for accumulate nuclear weapons without limit? Will distrust between the two atomic titans increase?

The Russian president, Vladimir Putinhas already suspended inspections and the exchange of information in 2023, following the United States’ support for Ukraine to confront the Russian invasion. Now, Moscow has proposed extending it for another year. Donald Trump said that the idea seemed good to him, but he has not made it concrete in anything.

So, as of this Thursday, the parties are no longer obliged to comply with the transparency and limitations of the Treaty.

More than 10,000 nuclear warheads

USA has, that is known, 5,177 nuclear warheads. Russia, 5.459.

The Treaty New START It does not limit the number of nuclear warheads, but rather establishes operational thresholds and transparency systems to generate trust between nuclear powers.

Set a maximum of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads deployed and a maximum of 700 launch systems of those warheads (aircraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarines with nuclear delivery capabilities).

In addition to these limits, New START includes a information verification and exchange system designed to reduce the aforementioned calculation errors.

In this sense, since its entry into force on February 5, 2011 and until February 1, 2023, the United States and Russia have carried out 328 inspections in the territory of the other. They have participated in 19 meetings of the Bilateral Advisory Commissionthe Treaty review body. And they have made 42 semester exchanges of data on strategic offensive weapons. In total, they have exchanged 25,449 notifications of relevant events to the other party, all according to data from the US State Department.

“Nuclear danger increases”

All that is now history. The parties can continue to honor the agreement voluntarilybut nothing binds them contractually anymore. Inspections or information sharing are unlikely.

“The expiration of the New START treaty increases the global nuclear danger,” EL PERIÓDICO tells EL PERIÓDICO David Cortrightprofessor at the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University. “This is evident in the recent decision of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to advance his famous ‘apocalypse clock‘to bring it closer to midnight [una metáfora del apocalipsis nuclear]”There is a growing risk associated with nuclear weapons.”

There is a simple continuity solution. “Washington and Moscow should issue parallel executive statements in which they indicate that they will remain within the weapons limits of New START even if the treaty no longer has legal force,” says Cortright, who is also professor emeritus at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

There are no signs that anything like this is going to happen. Despite the aforementioned voluntary extension offer made in September by Putin, Trump has not given any official response. “American action is needed now. If Washington says yes to Moscow’s ‘give’, it can prevent an unrestricted arms race and increase global security,” Cortright concludes.

“Reflection of the decline of the international order”

The truth is that the end of this historic treaty occurs at one of the most uncertain moments on the international geopolitical scene.

The new US Administration is systematically dynamiting the multilateral structures that the country had defended since the Second World War. Trump has ordered the United States to be removed from dozens of United Nations institutions and international agreements, such as the Paris climate agreements. He promotes the discredit of the UN with speeches in which he warns that its decisions are not binding on him, and creates parallel decision structures such as the so-called Peace Boarda club of leaders to which only a dozen second-order countries have joined. Meanwhile, Putin maintains his large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The termination of New START is not the exception, but the rule. In recent years, historical treaties such as the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forceswhich largely eliminated the deployment in Europe of short- and intermediate-range nuclear weapons. They have also died Open Skies Treatywhich allowed the signatory countries, including the US and Russia, to carry out reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory to monitor their military forces; and the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europewhich set caps on the number of tanks, troops and artillery systems that Russia and NATO could deploy on the continent.

“The end of New START is a reflection, perhaps the result, of the decline of the international order”Jane Bouldenm, professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada, comments for this newspaper. “Legal instruments such as treaties are no longer valued or pursued in the same way as in the past, and this reflects the extent to which the international community is already in a situation where the foundation on which the international order has been sustained since the Second World War is fragile.”

There is no movement or momentum “on either side” to move toward the next steps. “It is possible that they will continue to respect the terms of the treaty informally. And this is probably the best we can hope for at the moment,” adds Bouldenm. “I think it is unlikely that the US will begin serious negotiations as long as Trump is president. He has had little luck trying to get Putin to move toward peace in Ukraine. “There is little indication that he will have any better luck with a nuclear arms deal.”

The lack of effort on the part of the United States and Russia to negotiate a new replacement is also interpreted as a violation of the Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But, in the new international order in which Washington and Moscow defend that peace is guaranteed by the use of force, the expiration of New START seems definitive.

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