Nuclear arms control enters uncharted territory. It needs tools—both old and new

Editor’s note: This article belongs to a two-part series about addressing the nuclear arms control trilemma. Read the second article in the series.

Readers of the Bulletin might be surprised that I’m not gunning for an extension of the New START arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, but I am not. My reason is simple: Today’s US political reality mandates that the next arms control treaty has to be wholly owned by President Donald Trump if it is to be successful.

Only President Trump will have the power and influence to ensure that the treaty succeeds in gaining the advice and consent of the US Senate and is ratified. He has long been interested in getting an ultimate deal with Russia, and only he can work successfully with President Vladimir Putin to get what the United States needs out of an agreement. This assumes, of course, that the current impasse over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can be either set aside for the negotiations or overtaken by a successful peace process—which would be the best outcome for the Ukrainians and everyone else, including the Russians. And the clock is ticking with New START expiring in February.

No extension of New START is not to say that elements of the treaty cannot play a role in the new agreement with Russia. But it is a proposal that gives enough flexibility so the United States can also address China’s growing nuclear threat.

Maintaining strategic limits with Russia. Before Putin’s decision in February 2023 to cease implementation of New START by halting on-site inspections and other verification activities, the treaty had proven itself fit for purpose. It enabled each side to be sure that the other was implementing it. For that reason, the essential superstructure of the verification regime can be maintained, albeit with some vital add-ons. But the inspections, notifications, data exchanges, and rule about not interfering with national technical means—satellites and other detection technologies—all should be maintained intact. That will greatly simplify negotiation of a new agreement.

Another vital element to consider is the central limits of strategic weapons under New START: 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, 700 deployed delivery vehicles, and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers. There is a strong urge in some quarters of the defense community to abandon these limits and begin to increase US nuclear deployments to counter the Chinese nuclear modernization and the specter of two nuclear peers. However, as I’ve argued already, the US diplomats and security officials don’t need to panic over this problem in the next decade. Instead, they should focus on completing the US nuclear modernization program while watching carefully what both the Chinese and Russians are up to. The program of record for modernizing the US nuclear triad is already suffering delays and cost overruns: US officials and lawmakers need to keep their eye on that prize and not allow themselves to be distracted by new nuclear requirements that will only exacerbate the problems that already exist.

Moreover, the US officials need to prevent Russia from sprinting away as the United States completes its triad modernization. Russia’s own modernization is already nearly complete, and could use its upload capacity to quickly build up deployed warhead numbers beyond 1,550. In that case, the United States would be struggling to counter Russia’s upload campaign while modernizing the triad and watching the ongoing Chinese build-up. The United States can address this potential challenge by working to keep Russia within New START limits.

Building predictability with China. With the Chinese, however, the United States needs a different approach, one that focuses on getting them to the negotiating table and selling them on the value of predictability in our nuclear relationship. China’s nuclear arsenal—at approximately 600 warheads total—is still small compared to that of the United States—over 5,000 total—but it is growing rapidly. According to the US Defense Department, China might reach 1,500 total by 2035. This build-up, which also includes more delivery vehicles and more launchers, brings into question whether China can credibly maintain its “no first use” strategy. The United States needs to get answers about China’s nuclear strategy as much as the United States needs to update China on US plans for the future of its nuclear deterrent forces.

The arms control challenge with Russia is all about sustaining existing limits; with China it is all about building predictability.

With both Russia and China, predictability and limits must be mutual to make any agreement viable. But the United States should negotiate separately with each, because the numbers with Beijing are too disparate, and the parity relationship still holds between Moscow and Washington. The United States needs to work to keep it that way, both for its national security interests and those of its nuclear modernization.

That is not to say that the United States should ignore the near-term political necessity of agreeing on some preliminary constraints with China. At a minimum, if the United States and Russia agree on maintaining the New START limits, China should agree not to undermine them by rushing to parity with the United States. We can also talk with them about a ban on nuclear weapons deployed in orbit—whether on a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS)^[1] or a satellite. This ban proposal would need to be introduced to Russia as well.

Addressing both old and new threats. The United States can succeed at two parallel negotiations, carefully crafted to get what it needs for strategic stability. As must always be the case, US national security interests must be front and center as US officials and diplomats assess how best to address nuclear threats from both China and Russia.

With Russia, the superstructure and the central limits of New START are still fit for purpose, but new ideas are needed to address the long-standing US concern about a preponderance of Russian non-strategic nuclear warheads. President Trump, in his first administration, introduced an important innovation in that respect: He got President Putin to agree in 2019 to a freeze on all nuclear warheads, deployed and non-deployed, strategic and non-strategic.

If President Trump reintroduces this proposal, it will be an important step toward constraining Russian non-strategic warheads, for it will open the door to negotiating direct limits on warheads. Until now, nuclear treaties have only controlled warheads indirectly, through limitations and reductions in their delivery vehicles, but not on the total number of nuclear warheads in their inventories. Implementation of a freeze would allow frank consideration of warhead monitoring and verification, which will be vital to the success of future warhead constraints.

Other innovations might include a freeze on deploying new types and new kinds of missiles for the duration of the treaty, which would begin to constrain the Russian exotic systems, such as the nuclear-propelled sea-based missiles that Putin has been showing off in recent years.

As to the duration of a new agreement with Russia, 10 years would seem appropriate as it would allow for the completion (at least nearly so) of the US triad modernization by the mid-2030s. The United States’ main objective should be to sustain a stable strategic environment while the program of record is being achieved. The negotiations should also consider whether it should be 10 years renewable upon review of the US, Russian, and Chinese modernization programs, with the status of the UK and French nuclear forces and the nuclear nonproliferation regime also being factored in any renewal decision.

Missile defense, too, will have to be considered.

The issue was front and center in New START negotiations—and I have the scars to show for it. With President Trump’s new Golden Dome proposal for a comprehensive defense of the United States’ homeland, one might expect Moscow again to raise the issue—in spades.

However, one can wonder, as the war in Ukraine made it clear to all parties including NATO allies, that integrated air and missile defenses are necessary to address the explosive proliferation of drones and missiles, including shorter-range and air-breathing systems that operate in the atmosphere, such as cruise missiles, based on land, at sea, and in the air. It is not clear if Russia—or China for that matter—is really going to say that no one should work on integrated air and missile defenses when indeed they will be doing so themselves.

Here, great nuclear powers must discuss what it means to undermine the strategic offensive deterrents of the others. Can they develop judicious defenses against shorter and intermediate-range missiles, including air breathers, while sustaining the effectiveness of their central strategic forces? I don’t have the answer to this question, but I think that it deserves a serious discussion. China, Russia, and the United States must develop a mutual understanding of what this revolution in missile and drone capability means for the viability of offensive nuclear deterrence at the strategic level.

Such a discussion should be an inherent part of parallel negotiations with Moscow and Beijing, but Washington may also want to open it to the other nuclear powers. Certainly, India and Pakistan have missile proliferation to contend with, as do the United Kingdom and France. Perhaps talks among the five nuclear weapons states (P5) could include India and Pakistan to discuss how to balance wide-ranging missiles proliferation with the requirement for integrated air and missile defenses and the need to maintain stable strategic nuclear deterrence.

A new agreement for a new era. The world has entered uncharted territory on many strategic and technological levels. It behooves all actors involved to make best use of what is still useful from the past—aspects of New START—but also be willing to tackle new emerging issues. With the willingness that President Trump has already shown to take on the issue of constraining warheads, the current US administration has the opportunity to forge into new territory on nuclear arms control.

In doing so, US officials must be mindful of new developments such as intensive missile proliferation and be ready to confront them in new ways. If no one wants to do without missile defenses, then how is the United States going to sustain its strategic offensive deterrent over time? And that is not even considering the impact artificial intelligence and quantum technologies will have on nuclear deterrence.

In a new era, one must approach the nuclear arms control dilemma by order of priority. For now, the United States must think about what makes sense in the immediate period for the control of nuclear weapons—for the sake of the American people, the US nuclear modernization program, but also the future of global stability and security.

Notes

[1] A FOBS is a weapon delivery system that places a payload into a low Earth orbit, which is then deorbited to re-enter the atmosphere and strike a target. The Chinese tested one in 2021. https://breakingdefense.com/2021/11/its-a-fobs-space-forces-saltzman-confirms-amid-chinese-weapons-test-confusion/