By Matthew Teasdale
In response to the Russian decision to suspend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the Biden administration last month publicly released American nuclear data. President Vladimir Putin previously halted his country’s compliance and data transfers to coerce Washington into stopping aid shipments to Ukraine. These statistics include information on the number of deployed warheads, launchers, and missiles. Without such dialogue, the Russo-American relationship risks devolving into a nuclear arms race. Such transparency remains important to demonstrate that the United States remains committed to reducing nuclear risk, even if Russia is willing to threaten New START to obtain leverage for its war of aggression.
New START has come under threat over the past year. Russia’s last data exchange occurred in March 2022 when Moscow reported its compliance with all treaty limits. In August, the Russian foreign ministry announced that it was halting weapons inspections. In December, Russia postponed a bilateral consultative commission that would have discussed verification issues. The United States determined that Russia was not in compliance with the treaty in January 2023. President Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the treaty’s verification system the following month. Fortunately, Russian leaders have stated that, for now, they will remain in compliance with treaty limitations. Washington has gone back and forth on releasing secondary nuclear data.
This public release of U.S. nuclear data is a positive development considering the absence of dialogue. While the Russian Federation may not follow, this release prevents Kremlin leadership from portraying the United States as complicit in the decline of arms control by matching their destabilizing suspension. Enhancing transparency stabilizes the global environment and reduces the likelihood of misperception, miscalculation and costly arms competitions. At the same time, Russia’s nuclear policy looks shaky. Russian nuclear modernization is behind schedule and the high-profile Sarmat missile can’t even take off. Other highly-touted nuclear capable systems, such as the Kinzhal, are failing to live up to their hype.
Such U.S. disclosures also deny the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts to woo the Global South. Though the narrative of democracy against autocracy is popular in Western countries, the Global South is more susceptible to Russian perspectives on the Ukraine war. That Washington publicizes its data demonstrates that any failure of arms control between itself and Moscow is squarely the fault of Russian leadership. If the United States withdrew from New START, as some have proposed, it may make Washington appear as an equivalent or even more militant antagonist than Moscow.
Russia may be willing to let New START fall apart to win what the Kremlin casts as an existential war in Ukraine. During the country’s V-Day celebrations, Putin accused the West of unleashing the “real war” against Russia and recalled World War II nostalgia to evoke victimhood against western aggressors. Arms control treaties depend just as much on what happens in Washington as in Moscow. With New START tied into Russia’s (self-) perceived conflict with the West, maintaining the last nuclear arms treaty between the largest nuclear states may become difficult. As one expert notes, negotiators in Moscow have a propensity to extract concessions in return for often benign and mutually beneficial measures. Where the United States places value on global stability, Russia may be too eager for leverage over Ukraine and western weapon shipments to reciprocate.
Non-proliferation is likely to suffer in the near future despite Washington’s efforts. Although export regimes and nuclear-weapon-free-zones endure, New START is the last arms limitation treaty between the world’s two largest arsenals, and its progress is under threat. Earlier this month, Washington halted notifications on missile and launcher locations and statuses. If this treaty fails, the door is open to a costly arms race, which is the last thing Russia, with a heavily sanctioned economy; China, struggling with a post COVID recession; or the United States, tied up in debt ceiling paralysis, need.
The Biden administration’s decision to publicize American nuclear data is a welcome improvement considering the ongoing erosion of nuclear arms control. The United States is nowhere near the level of strategic vulnerability as Russia, China, Iran or its other rivals. Communicating transparency, predictability and stability puts a nuclear ceiling on a destabilizing international scene. It also puts to bed yapping Kremlin propagandists who rattle nuclear sabers and then accuse the United States of the same. Though Russia’s war against Ukraine is degenerating Moscow into a deceptive and self-absorbed partner, massive arms races are in no one’s interest. Arms control may be in limbo, but confidence-building measures remain an effective tool for bolstering global trust and security.
