Don't Let Putin Blow Up Nuclear Arms Control
• Last week, President Joe Biden’s administration issued a pointed warning : Russia is failing to comply with the terms of the New START agreement, the last remaining arms-control treaty between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers. Given Vladimir Putin’s record of nuclear threats and disregard for international law, Biden can have no illusions about Russia’s willingness to abide by negotiated limits on the size of its nuclear arsenal. In order to preserve the treaty, the US should make clear what Russia stands to lose by abandoning it.
• Signed in 2010, the New START treaty limits both the number of long-range nuclear warheads each side can deploy and the vehicles used to deliver them. To verify compliance, each country agreed to 18 on-site inspections per year conducted by officials from the other. Even amid worsening bilateral relations, the work of disarmament quietly continued: In the treaty’s first decade, inspectors carried out more than 300 visits to nuclear bases and support facilities. Since 2018, the US and Russia have both come under New START’s cap of 1,550 deployable strategic nuclear warheads — a 30% reduction from 2002 levels and nearly 75% lower than at the end of the Cold War.

Source : Bloomberg Businessweek February 13, 2023