An announcement with the false air of Cold War. During his fluent speech delivered in Moscow on Tuesday February 21 for the first year of the conflict in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin signaled the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New Start treaty. Signed in 2010 with the United States, this agreement provided for a limitation of the number of nuclear weapons deployed in the two countries, as well as mutual inspections in dedicated military sites. The suspension of New Start could result in an increase in the number of nuclear weapons deployed, but only in the long term, judge Emmanuelle Maître, research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research, specialist in proliferation issues. Interview.
L’Express: Does this decision by Russia entail a risk of nuclear proliferation?
Emmanuelle Master: Yes, in part, but to understand it, you have to go into detail. There are generally two meanings that can be given to the term nuclear proliferation. The first refers to the idea that new states can acquire nuclear weapons. From this point of view, Russia’s decision should have no impact. On the other hand, in its second meaning, this term can also designate the risk that States which already have nuclear weapons will produce more of them. And Russia’s decision could actually increase this risk, since New Start set a volume of strategic weapons not to be exceeded. The suspension of this treaty therefore leads, de facto, to the end of this ceiling.
Is this a short term risk?
A priori, the risk should be limited in the short term, for two reasons. First, Russia has indicated that it will still respect the ceilings imposed by the New Start treaty until 2026. The second point is that even if Russia wanted to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons, she wouldn’t be able to do it overnight. These are long-term programs, which require heavy financial and industrial investments. Restarting production to increase its nuclear arsenal would necessarily take time. On the other hand, in the longer term, the suspension of New Start may well lead to an increase in the number of nuclear weapons.
Can we really believe Russia when it claims that it will continue to respect the limitation of its nuclear arsenal?
We really cannot be sure. The whole point of the New Start treaty is that there were inspection and verification procedures, which allowed American inspectors to go to Russian military sites to take stock of what was deployed or not. It can however be recalled that this had been interrupted following the Covid epidemic. For about a year, the Americans had been unable to convince the Russians to resume verification and inspection procedures. Moreover, this is not the only element available to the United States to assess the Russian arsenal. Their means of intelligence allow them to have an overview of what is happening.
A photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows the test launch of an RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, Russia, April 21, 2022.
© / Sputnik via AFP
Is this decision by Putin part of his strategy to use nuclear power to scare Westerners?
Yes, probably, even if, in the present case, it is not a question of a direct threat. One can imagine that it is no coincidence that this announcement is made the day after President Biden’s visit to kyiv, in a context of very strong opposition to the West. So this likely fits into Putin’s strategy of brandishing the nuclear bogeyman to scare people. It is, for him, a means of recalling that in this area, Russia is on an equal footing with the United States.
Can the suspension of this treaty have an implication on the conflict in Ukraine?
No, that shouldn’t have any impact. Indeed, the New Start treaty was only interested in strategic weapons, that is to say intercontinental weapons which can travel more than 5000 kilometers and hit the United States by being fired from Russia and vice- poured. On the other hand, Russia also has many non-strategic weapons (sometimes called tactical nuclear weapons), potentially less powerful and with a much shorter range, in particular less than 500 kilometers – the very ones whose use in Ukraine is feared. . But as they were not concerned by the New Start treaty, the Russian decision does not change anything from this point of view.
In any case, the Russian decision acknowledges the fact that the arms control systems are in trouble…
Indeed, this accentuates the phenomenon of the collapse of the instruments of regulation and arms control between the United States and Russia, which has been ongoing for several years. It started in the 2000s with the withdrawal of the United States from the ABM treaty on missile defense. As a result, Russia rushed into the breach and began to fail to honor its commitments almost systematically. For example, it violated the treaty on intermediate-range nuclear forces, but also the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons, by using them to assassinate several political opponents.
Many treaties have thus been called into question one after the other. This is clearly a sign of the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States. At the beginning of the conflict, there was still hope that these relations could be saved in the field of nuclear arms control, but this decision by Russia shows that this is unfortunately impossible.
Can we imagine that in the long term, a new treaty will succeed New Start, perhaps integrating new players such as China?
It would make sense and it was a major goal of the Democratic administration in the United States. The problem is the implementation. Today, we see that there is no political will on the Russian side. Moscow is not going to lend itself to the negotiation of a treaty after having sabotaged New Start, which nevertheless functioned correctly. Then, it would be very difficult to imagine the ratification of a treaty of this type by the American Senate, whereas Russia puts itself systematically in violation of its commitments and ruined the confidence which could be granted to him. Moreover, the integration of new states, in particular China, would be interesting from a strategic point of view, but once again, this seems politically impossible. Beijing has indeed signified on several occasions that it has no intention of accepting limits on its arsenals.