The last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia is set to expire in February 2021, and talks between the two powers are not going well. Russia has offered to extend New START for five years with no preconditions, as the treaty allows, but the Trump administration is demanding concessions from Moscow.
Trump administration sources told The Washington Post that they were frustrated the Russians have not responded to a proposal submitted by US negotiators two weeks ago. Under the deal, the New START would be extended for a limited time, not the full five years, while the US and Russia negotiate a replacement treaty.
According to the Post, the proposal also said President Trump and Russian President Vladimir would sign a political agreement outlining a framework for the replacement treaty and what it would cover. The new framework the US is asking for is likely the reason Russia has not responded to it.
Officials told the Post that the proposal submitted by President Trump’s envoy for arms control talks, Marshall Billingslea, would encompass all of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, and increase verification by including more inspections. The proposal was drafted as a political agreement that would turn into a treaty once China joins, which is likely never going to happen.
Since the start of the talks, the US has insisted China be involved. But Beijing has no interest, as the size of the Asian country’s nuclear arsenal is vastly smaller than the US and Russia’s. Last week, Billingslea said that the US is seeking a commitment from Russia that China will be part of the next arms control treaty, but Moscow has no interest in trying to leverage Beijing.
“We have not taken and do not intend to take any steps to bring China into these talks, something we have told our American colleagues on multiple occasions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview this week.
Along with Billingslea’s demands come threats. “I suspect that after President Trump wins re-election if Russia has not taken up our offer, that the price of admission, as we would say in the US, goes up,” the negotiator told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper.
Just when I start to soften and think I might vote for Trump I read an article like this that jacks me up and stiffens my spine.
What good would a nuclear treaty be if China was not part of it?
Wasn’t the prior treaty with Russia done without China being a part of it? The U.S doesn’t want a nuclear treaty at all, and that is why they are putting in the poison pill of demanding that China be a party to any treaty.
Limiting both Russia and the US while
China is free to armor up, is naive.
The START limits on Russian and US weapons keep allow for each of those two sides to have enough nukes to destroy humanity several times over. It’s not as if China gaining parity or even passing the two sides — neither of which is likely to happen because apparently the CCP doesn’t blow its money that frivolously — would somehow magically start a war on its own, or cause China to win such a war.
It does no good for only two of three major nuclear powers to be bound by treaty.
There are only two major nuclear powers. China may be a slightly bigger nuclear player than, say, Israel (which doesn’t even declare its nukes, let alone bind itself to treaties concerning them). Watch how quickly the US dismisses Israel as irrelevant if the Russians insist that it must be involved in any nuclear treaty.
That would be an interesting move on Russia’s part.
The US is involved in lots of treaties that China is not party to.
Of course, but limiting yourself by treaty to only one major nuclear power is a green light for the third.
People who think any kind or amount of nuclear weapons are okay are insane.