Russia Violates Nuclear Treaty
April 18, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. Never say never again.
Update 2/23/2023
Unlikely everybody else, we update our stories.
In a speech to the nation yesterday, Putin formally suspended participation in the New START agreement.
Original Post
First, Russia violated the INF Treaty and the Open Skies Treaties. Then, this week the State Department announced that Russia is in non-compliance with New START—the last remaining joint arms control agreement.
We asked a real life expert, P.J. Geller, what is up with this? Here is what she said.
What’s the bottom line? Russia has once again demonstrated its disregard for its treaty obligations and that it cannot be trusted to abide by any arms control agreement. Treaty inspections exist for a reason, and due to Russia’s continued refusal to allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear forces required by the treaty, the U.S. no longer has confidence Moscow has remained within the New START limits. This is an unacceptable.
What did Moscow Do? Russia is in non-compliance of New START for two reasons: (1) Not complying with its obligation to meet in a Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) – we had an agreement to meet in November, for which the US was prepared to work on the full range of New START issues. (2) Refusal to allow inspections.
How bad is it? The Russians did not go significantly over the deployed warhead limit of 1550 warheads because US would have been able to detect that. State Department also can confirm that Russia was within the New START warhead limit of 1550 by the end of 2022. Any responses that say Russia might be going way over the treaty limits right now are not credible. All that said, we don’t have confidence that they complied with the warhead limit for the entirety of 2022 (could be off by a dozen or so warheads).
Russia is not a faithful arms control partner and does not uphold its obligations. Inspections are important because they enable us to make determinations about Russian abidance with New START with confidence. Non-compliance with this treaty is still dangerous and deserving of a response, even if any material breaches were not egregious.
What’s Next? The U.S. should withdraw from New START. The U.S. should make clear that it will only negotiate with faithful partners, and that a Russian failure to return to compliance with New START will jeopardize Russia’s interest in negotiating a follow-on treaty. Meanwhile, the U.S. must continue efforts to modernize missile defense and nuclear arsenal—to include development of the sea-launched cruise missile.
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You guys are shills. You say Putin can't be trusted, look in the MIRROR.