On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to extend the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia for one year with no preconditions. The proposal to renew the New START, which will expire in February 2021, was almost immediately shot down by the US.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien called Putin’s offer a “non-starter” if Moscow does not agree to freeze its nuclear warheads. O’Brien said the US made a proposal to Moscow to extend the treaty for a year in exchange for Russia and the US to cap all nuclear warheads for that year.
The New START limits the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. The US wants other weapons to be included in a new arms control deal. Russia is open to further limitations for a future treaty but wants to extend New START as it is. Moscow has repeatedly offered to extend the treaty for five years with no preconditions, as the agreement allows.
Putin stressed the importance of the vital arms control agreement on Friday. “It would be extremely sad if the treaty ceases to exist without being replaced by another fundamental document of the kind,” Putin said, speaking at a Russian Security Council meeting in Moscow. “All those years, the New START has worked, playing its fundamental role of limiting and containing an arms race.”
Earlier this week, President Trump’s envoy for the arms control talks, Marshall Billingslea, said the US and Russia reached an “agreement in principle” to temporarily extend the treaty. This was rejected by Russia’s arms control negotiator Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said Washington’s terms are “unacceptable.”
Billingslea has previously threatened Moscow that the price to renew the treaty “will go up” if an agreement is not reached before the November 3rd presidential election.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he intends to renew the New START and build more treaties on top of it if elected.
I have got to say (and this is something rarely uttered by me) that Washington’s position is pretty understandable and reasonable here.
It only appears that way on the shallow surface. Remember, Russia is the one surrounded by an encroaching NATO, and the US doesn’t even require NATO membership to arm/influence Russia’s closest neighbors. So, the “other weapons” which the US wants to introduce to the treaty are the ones which provide Russia with actionable protection against proximity and a timely defence. Russia agreed to include 2 of the 5 additional series. https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/russia-ready-to-include-2-out-of-5-new-weapon-1056456.html
Yes. Let’s make a treaty with yesterday’s power about weapons that will never be used and purposely leave out weapons that actually might be used, and also leave out the country that is an actual threat. Makes a lot of sense.
The treaty made sense when the Soviet Union was around. It makes little sense now without significant alterations.
sure u idiot—u snowflakes, feminized, insecure, paranoid –possess inferior weapons than both Russia and China…too frightened to challenge North Korea…
“the paranoid style in amerikan politics”. R Hofstadter
expected in a plywood LGBT empire near collapse—predicted in less than 10 years (Johan Galtung)
LOL
an irrelevant decayed empire with a fake economy sustained by debt
another example of the fascist amerikan mind–a diplomatic victory for Russia…this is expected from the immoral collapsing US empire
Accepting Putin’s offer to extend the Treaty would have been bad for business. Yes, that of the MIC.