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"I find hope in the work of long-established groups such as the Arms Control Association...[and] I find hope in younger anti-nuclear activists and the movement around the world to formally ban the bomb."

– Vincent Intondi
Professor of History, Montgomery College
July 1, 2020
Issue Briefs

The Case for Senate Action on the Protocol to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

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Volume 16, Issue 2
Feb. 9, 2024

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. signature on the protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia (CANWFZ), also known as the Semipalatinsk Treaty. The CANWFZ treaty commits its five states-parties in Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—from manufacturing, stockpiling, testing, developing, and possessing nuclear weapons. The CANWFZ is designed to reinforce the global nuclear nonproliferation system and safeguard the security of five key central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union and that now lie in the shadows of nuclear-armed Russia and China.

On May 6, 2014, the five nuclear-armed members of the UN Security Council signed protocols to the CANWFZ treaty. However, the United States remains the only one of the five nuclear weapon states that has not yet ratified the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty, which commits them to provide legally binding assurances that will not be used against the states in the zone.

Given the severe challenges facing the global nonproliferation and disarmament “architecture,” the United States can and should move expeditiously to ratify the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty to solidify legally binding negative security assurances against nuclear threats or attacks for key partners in Central Asia and to strengthen the global nuclear nonproliferation system.

As Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Kazakhstan's Ambassador to the United States said in a statement provided to the Arms Control Association, U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty "will become a clear demonstration of the United States' willingness to engage Central Asian States in the common objective to maintain peace, stability, and security in our part of the world." He noted that U.S. ratification of the protocol "will finalize the institutionalization of the Treaty" and "formalize the structure and legal status of the Zone" in which nuclear weapons are prohibited.

U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty would solidify its partnership with these states, which are home to some 78 million people, are located in a strategic region, and are leaders on nuclear nonproliferation. Kazakhstan, in particular, after securing independence in 1991, inherited the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal but worked with the United States in the 1990s to dismantle it and protect nuclear material left on its soil from the Soviet era from terrorists.

To this day, and especially in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin's threats of nuclear use, Kazakhstan, along with the other central Asian states, values strong ties with the United States. In 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Kazakhstan appreciates the “continuous and firm support of the United States for [its] independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty.”

The growing tensions between nuclear-armed states, the breakdown of key nonproliferation and arms control agreements, including Russia’s 2023 de-ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the absence of meaningful nuclear risk reduction dialogue between the major nuclear-armed states have put increasing stress on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Article VI of the NPT obligates them to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." Article VII of the NPT acknowledges the value of establishing regional nuclear-weapon-free zones.

In these challenging times, the U.S. Senate should pursue all feasible and effective measures to reinforce the NPT and bolster the legal and political norms against the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear testing, and threats of nuclear weapons use.

One such way is to begin the overdue process of reviewing and providing advice and to consent for the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty. This is not only achievable but also carries a significant benefit to both the U.S. national interests and international peace and security agenda by strengthening a norm that nuclear-weapon states should never use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.

The Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty

Among the five existing nuclear-weapon-free zones in the world—the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, the South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free- Zone, the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, and the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone—the CANWFZ is the newest. The CANWFZ treaty opened for signature Sept. 8, 2006, and entered into force March 21, 2009. The impetus for this nuclear-weapon-free zone, however, goes back even further to an international conference in 1997 “Central Asia- a Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons,” which took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the extension of the NPT in 1995.

In order to keep the designated region under the treaty free from nuclear weapons, such nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties include protocols involving commitments by the five nuclear weapon states recognized in the NPT. The protocols to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties are crucial to their success because they establish legally binding negative security assurances that five nuclear-weapons states under the NPT will respect the status of the treaty and will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices against the treaty parties.

Shortly after five nuclear-weapon states signed the protocol May 6, 2014, four of the five had completed their ratification processes by the end of 2015. The United States remains the only of the five nuclear weapon states that has not ratified the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty.

Apr. 27, 2015, then-President Barack Obama transmitted the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty to the U.S. Senate for advice and consent to ratification along with the U.S. State Department’s article-by-article detailed analysis of the protocol to the treaty.

For nearly a decade, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has failed to act, and neither the Obama, the Trump, nor the Biden administration have made its ratification a priority. Now is the right time to do so.

 

Ratification Would Strengthen Partners in Central Asia

There are several reasons why this issue requires urgent attention. U.S. partners in Central Asia, located in a strategic region sharing borders with Russia and China, are in need of legally binding negative security assurance as soon as possible. Given President Putin's attempts to use nuclear coercive rhetoric in the context of Russia's war on Ukraine, the importance of the CANWFZ treaty and its protocol is more important than ever. When and if it does, the five major nuclear-weapon states, including Russia, will be legally prohibited from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against the five non-nuclear-weapon states in the CANWFZ. The United States can thereby help to push back against Putin’s territorial ambitions and unacceptable nuclear threats.

States-parties to the CANWFZ treaty are important U.S. partners, and these partners place high value on this treaty and the protocol. Since the early days of the establishment of the CANWFZ treaty, they have repeatedly endorsed the treaty through multilateral nonproliferation negotiations, such as resolutions at the UN General Assembly First Committee meetings. They called for international support in the initial phase, then later for the ratification of the protocol. At the 2022 NPT Review Conference, their joint statement emphasized “the hope to secure the earliest ratification of the Protocol by the United States so as to finalize the institutionalization of the nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia.” The United States should heed this call to further strengthen partnerships with states-parties.

Particularly with Kazakhstan, “U.S.-Kazakh cooperation in security and nuclear-nonproliferation is a cornerstone of the relationship,” according to the State Department. That cooperation includes participation in the Nuclear Security Summit, bilateral cooperation for the removal of the former Soviet nuclear program, and the Highly Enriched Uranium minimization initiative.

Coincidentally, this year, Kazakhstan will play a crucial role in multilateral nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation negotiations. In 2024, Kazakhstan will preside over the second preparatory committee for the 2026 NPT review cycle and will convene a joint meeting of representatives from states-parties to all of the world's nuclear-weapon-free zones.

In 2025, Kazakhstan will also serve as a president for the third meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The United States' ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty would help Kazakhstan build momentum for the nuclear-weapon-free zones, strengthen the NPT, and more broadly, solidify legally binding negative security assurances against nuclear attack or threats of attack against non-nuclear weapon states.

“The establishment of CANWFZ will provide legally-binding security assurances…thus strengthening the global nonproliferation and disarmament regime, especially in the current turbulent geopolitical environment. It will also result in positive externalities by fostering the intra-regional engagement among Central Asian states,” Kazakhstan’s ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev said in a Feb. 8 statement.

U.S. Ratification Would Guard Against Russian Attempts to Undermine the Treaty

Not only has Russia threatened the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of its war on Ukraine, but it has walked back its commitments to important nonproliferation agreements, including the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In November 2023, Putin decided to rescind Russia's ratification of the (CTBT), in part, to highlight the fact that the United States has not yet ratified the CTBT.

Although Russia says it will not resume nuclear explosive testing as long as the United States does not resume nuclear testing and, as a signatory to the CTBT Russia remains legally obligated not to test and to support the treaty's International Monitoring System, Russia's de-ratification of the CTBT is nonetheless a clear setback to long-running efforts to achieve entry into force of the treaty.

In light of Russia's cynical tactics on the CTBT, it is important that the United States denies Russia the same option with respect to the CANWFZ by ratifying the protocol to the treaty. It is conceivable that Russia might, in the near term, withdraw its ratification from the CANWFZ, which would weaken its commitments under the treaty not to threaten neighboring Central Asian states with nuclear weapons. As it took only a month for Russia to de-ratify the CTBT, it is imperative for the United States to ratify the CANWFZ protocol as soon as possible.

The Ratification Enhances Security for All at No Cost

The ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is “in the best interests of the United States,” President Obama wrote to the Senate Apr. 27, 2015. “[E]ntry into force of the Protocol for the United States would require no changes in U.S. law, policy, or practice,” he wrote in his transmittal letter on CANWFZ protocol to the Senate.

On the day that the United States signed the protocol, May 6, 2014, the State Department released a media note that “the Administration is satisfied that the CANWFZ Treaty is consistent with U.S. and international criteria for such zones. The United States believes that such zones, when fully and rigorously implemented, contribute to our nonproliferation goals and to international peace and security. The United States has concluded that the CANWFZ Treaty and its Protocol will not disturb existing U.S. security arrangements or military operations, installations, or activities.”

The ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is consistent with the U.S. security policy causing no negative impact. Rather, it will “promote regional cooperation, security, and stability and provide a vehicle for the extension of legally binding negative security assurances, consistent with the strengthened negative security assurance announced in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review,” the State Department assessed. Subsequent NPR updates have also reaffirmed these negative security assurances.

At the time of heightened nuclear danger --the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock stands at only 90 seconds to midnight--it is more important than ever that the United States does what it can to strengthen the barriers against nuclear proliferation, nuclear use, and nuclear coercion. Senators across the political spectrum should be able to agree that U.S. ratification of the protocol to the CANWFZ treaty is not only possible, but also beneficial, and it is overdue.—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU, research assistant

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The CANWFZ is designed to reinforce the global nuclear nonproliferation system and safeguard the security of five key central Asian states that were once part of the Soviet Union and that now lie in the shadows of nuclear-armed Russia and China.

The Nuclear Ban Treaty Is Taking a Step Forward

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Volume 16, Issue 1
Jan. 17, 2024

On the afternoon of the first day of December 2023, the UN conference room in New York was filled with long and powerful applause, when the state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), known informally as the “nuclear ban treaty,” concluded the second meeting on implementation since it entered into force in January 2021.

It has been just five years since the treaty was concluded in 2017, but the TPNW is already helping to bolster the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture by reinforcing the norms against nuclear weapons use and providing a path for non-nuclear weapon states and communities and populations adversely affected by nuclear weapons to engage in efforts to advance disarmament and address the damage done by past nuclear weapons testing and use.

Since the TPNW opened for signature, the number of states parties has grown to 70. Significantly, the number of non-signatory observer states that have joined the TPNW meetings to learn more about the treaty has also grown. Their participation underscores that states inside and outside the TPNW can advance progress toward their shared goals: preventing nuclear war and moving closer to the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

Given the treaty is steadily becoming a part of international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture, it is imperative for the United States, nuclear-armed states and states under the U.S. nuclear extended deterrence "umbrella" to consider how they can also productively engage with the treaty and its states parties, including by participating as observers in the third meeting of TPNW states parties, which will be held in March 2025.

Impact of the TPNW Since Its Entry Into Force

When it entered into force in January 2021, the TPNW became the first international legally binding agreement to comprehensively prohibit all activities related to nuclear weapons, including possession, use, threats of use, nuclear explosive testing, production, and transfer. This treaty created a space for nonnuclear-armed states along with civil society to collectively act for nuclear disarmament, which is in line with the obligation set forth in Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

The first meeting of states parties was held in Vienna in June 2022 with participation from 49 states parties, 34 observer states, and 85 NGOs. Coincidentally, the meeting was convened just a few short weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its associated nuclear rhetoric.

TPNW states parties provided leadership by issuing a strong political statement condemning unequivocally nuclear weapons threats of any kind under any circumstances. The strong political declaration adopted in the first TPNW meeting accelerated the growing international effort to condemn and push back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implied threats of nuclear weapons use in the context of the ongoing Ukraine war.

Borrowing from the terminology of the TPNW states, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated Sep. 27, 2022, that “any use of nuclear weapons is absolutely unacceptable.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Oct. 8, “We need to give a clear answer to nuclear threats. They’re dangerous for the world, and the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.” On Nov. 4, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the international community should “jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons.” The powerful Group of 20 agreed Nov. 16 at their summit in Indonesia that threats and use of nuclear weapons are “inadmissible.”

Just as importantly, the first meeting drew up a 50-point action plan for treaty implementation, which includes, inter alia, the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Group and three informal working groups in relation to the topic of verification, victim assistance/environmental remediation, and universalization. This also led to the appointment of a focal point for implementing gender provisions of the treaty as well as facilitators to promote the TPNW’s complementarity with other treaties.

Humanitarian Perspective Remains in the Core of the Second TPNW Meeting

At the second TPNW meeting held from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 2023, a total of 59 states parties, 35 observer states, and representatives from 122 civil society organizations, including the Arms Control Association, participated in the week-long meeting to evaluate progress and to reaffirm their commitment to the realization of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Since the first meeting of states parties, seven more states had signed the treaty, bringing the total number to 93 states, and five more states have ratified it, bringing the total to 70.

Like the first meeting of states parties in 2022, the second meeting produced a political statement that underscores that the TPNW is compatible with the other key elements of the nuclear nonproliferation system, including the NPT, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and nuclear weapons-free zone treaties. The 2023 statement also sought to further reinforce the unacceptability of nuclear weapons threats, as well as question the morality and sustainability of nuclear deterrence as instruments of foreign and military policy. The states parties also took tangible steps to fulfill the key parts of their 2022 action plan, specifically, their obligations under the TPNW to assist populations affected by nuclear weapons testing and use.

Mexico’s Ambassador Juan Ramón de la Fuente, who served as the president of the second meeting, allocated significant time for a thematic debate on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. In 2022, Austria chose to organize a Conference on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons on the eve of the first meeting of TPNW states parties. This was the fourth such conference since 2014. Mexico chose to focus formal meeting time on the humanitarian impacts issue by inviting scientists from the Scientific Advisory Group, a speaker from the International Committee of Red Cross, and various representatives from NGOs and affected communities, including Australia, Kiribati, and Japan to share their perspectives and findings. This set the scene and reminded all participants of what is at stake and why progress on nuclear disarmament is so vital. The states decided at the meeting to regularize the practice by empowering “Presidents of future Meetings of States Parties shall have the option to convene thematic debates.”

Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation Discussion Underway

As was the case with the first meeting, there was significant and tangible support from both state parties, observer states, and civil society on actions to provide assistance to victims of nuclear weapons use and testing and for associated environmental remediation, as mandated by Articles VI and VII of the treaty. In order to fulfill these so-called positive obligations of the TPNW, states agreed to continue intersessional discussions on a voluntary reporting system as well as the objectives for developing proposals to establish the international trust fund to support future assistance and remediation work. This effort is reflected in the decision adopted at the meeting, as two out of five decisions are devoted to this topic.

There remain many questions still to be answered about how this process will play out, some of which are outlined in the intersessional working group’s report. These include but are not limited to who is contributing to the trust fund; who can receive such funds; what administrative structures are necessary. Kazakhstan and Kiribati, co-chairs of an informal working group on this topic are exploring how those decisions can be made.

Kazakhstan and Kiribati successfully passed a relevant resolution at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in the fall of 2023 with 171 votes in favor, six in opposition, and four in abstention. This UNGA resolution, which was later adopted at the end of 2023, calls for further international cooperation and discussion on victim assistance and environmental remediation through multiple international frameworks and support for affected populations while recognizing the responsibility of nuclear use and testing. This voting result demonstrates the possibility that this implementation framework can be creative by extending to outside of the TPNW, and also contribute to the universalization of this key treaty objective.

Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons

The second TPNW conference of state parties, like the first, issued a strong political declaration that underscores that “the continued existence of nuclear weapons and lack of meaningful progress on disarmament undermine the security of all States, aggravate international tensions, heighten the risk of nuclear catastrophe and pose an existential threat to humanity as a whole.”

TPNW states parties also decided to be more explicit regarding their concerns about the dangers of nuclear weapons and military policies based on the theory of nuclear deterrence. At the suggestion of the Austrian delegation, the meeting decided to establish a “consultative process on security concerns of TPNW states,” which aims to reframe the debate of nuclear disarmament as a necessary instrument to accommodate human security and national security for all states parties.

In parallel with the strategy of stigmatizing nuclear weapons by highlighting the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, the states parties decided to “challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence” leveraging scientific research on humanitarian consequences as well as nuclear risks.

The political declaration argues that nuclear weapons do more harm than good to the human beings. “The perpetuation and implementation of nuclear deterrence in military and security concepts, doctrines and policies not only erodes and contradicts non-proliferation, but also obstructs progress towards nuclear disarmament,” the TPNW political declaration states.

The TPNW state parties further noted that “[T]his is not only a security issue. In a world where challenges persist in meeting basic human needs, the investment of substantial financial resources in modernizing and expanding nuclear arsenals is indefensible and counterproductive as it comes at the expense of investment in sustainable development for genuine human wellbeing, as well as disarmament, education, diplomacy, environmental protection, and health.”

The Role of Scientists and Research

Another unique facet of the TPNW is its newly established Scientific Advisory Group. Following the decision taken in the first meeting to establish a group of scientists to advise and “assist States Parties in implementing the treaty and in strengthening the credibility of the implementation process,” the group was formed earlier last year. The group is co-chaired by Dr. Patricia Lewis from Chatham House and Dr. Zia Mian from Princeton University. The TPNW Scientific Advisory Group presented its first report at the meeting and is expected to play an important role in advancing the TPNW, in part because most states parties do not have as significant technical experience and capacity on nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament as do the nuclear-armed states and their allies who play a more active role in other nonproliferation and disarmament treaty regimes, particularly the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Both thematic debate and the Scientific Advisory Group are bringing a “vibrant atmosphere and better collective learning,” according to Elayne Whyte, the 2017 TPNW negotiation conference president and former Costa Rican Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

Additional Observer States

As was the case with the first meeting, states parties welcomed the participation of 35 observer states at the second meeting, 12 of which had not attended the first meeting. Among the observer states were: Australia, Belgium, Egypt, Germany, and Switzerland. By attending the TPNW meeting as observers, these states were able to deepen their understanding of the treaty and engage with states that see nuclear weapons as a liability, not an asset.

Observers can support the TPNW without becoming a member state, by expressing their interests and sharing comments at the meeting. Switzerland and Germany, for instance, have expressed strong support for advancing the TPNW’s provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation since the first meeting. During the intersessional period between the first meeting and the second meeting, a think tank that has close ties with the German Green Party, in collaboration with civil society, created a project titled “Nuclear Weapons and Their Humanitarian and Ecological Consequences.” Switzerland also said that it “continues to consider the humanitarian consequences as an area of work that can unite all stakeholders.”

Further, observer states can keep TPNW member states accountable for their goals. A meeting of states parties of the TPNW is not only a place to discuss how to advance the treaty, but also serves as an opportunity to ensure that member states and civil society are earnest about their commitments.

Looking Ahead

The states parties elected the next president for the third meeting of states parties, Akan Rakhmetullin, the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, and agreed that the meeting would take place in March 2025. At an event co-hosted by the Kazakh embassy in Washington D.C. and the Arms Control Association Dec. 12, 2023, Kazakhstan highlighted that their presidency will focus on victim assistance and environmental remediation; universalization of the treaty (Kazakhstan will also convene a joint meeting of nuclear-free-zones in Kazakhstan in 2024); and building mutual trust between proponents and opponents of the TPNW.

What the past two meetings of states parties with observer states have proven is that TPNW is not widening the gap between opponents and proponents. The TPNW’s approach to nuclear disarmament is not counterproductive or causing potential repercussions, as often opponents of the treaty have persistently argued, rather, it has demonstrated that states outside of the TPNW can engage in discussions while not being part of the treaty and thus contribute to the common shared goal for all: the prevention of nuclear conflict and the total, verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.

The United States, other nuclear-armed states, and some of their allies may not yet be ready to join the TPNW or engage with states parties, however, it is time for them to recognize that the TPNW is a reality. In the meantime, before the next meeting in March 2025, there are several ways for the United States can move engage with the treaty without harming the United States' or its allies’ national security interests.

First, members of Congress can and should more carefully evaluate the role of the TPNW in reducing nuclear dangers. At the second TPNW meeting, U.S. elected officials Representative Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Massachusetts State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa attended the meeting and parliamentary conference, where 23 parliamentarians from 14 countries including Canada, Japan, Germany, Scotland, Belgium, France, Italy, Australia, Norway, and the United States gathered. Those representatives shared “the collective sentiment that many pressing challenges underscore the urgency and relevance of the mission embodied by the TPNW” and reaffirmed their commitment to activate TPNW discussion in their respective parliaments and engage with their own governments and people, according to the joint statement.

As a result of the growing presence of the TPNW in the international nonproliferation and disarmament structure, the treaty can no longer be dismissed. In early 2023, Rep. McGovern introduced a resolution titled Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to the House and gained support from over 40 members of Congress.

To move forward, members of Congress should commit to engage more substantively on how to advance nuclear risk reduction options including TPNW, to question the U.S. government on national positions on this matter, and to respond to constituent concerns about how to advance nuclear disarmament diplomacy and avoid nuclear war.

Second, the White House and the State Department need to recognize that the TPNW has become more of an asset than a liability. Despite the skepticism from the governments of the world's nuclear-armed states, the TPNW is developing into a strong new force against dangerous nuclear policies. These efforts to both delegitimize and stigmatize nuclear weapons serve as an important safeguard against rising nuclear tensions between nuclear-armed adversaries and nuclear threats from the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un. The TPNW is also a reminder that the nuclear-armed states need to heed international calls for tangible diplomatic dialogue on nuclear disarmament, which they are obligated to pursue under the NPT.

More productive engagement with the TPNW state parties on the shared goal of advancing nuclear disarmament can also benefit U.S. national interest by building ties with states that share the goal of strengthening the NPT, advancing U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese dialogue on nuclear arms control and disarmament and on reducing the risk of nuclear war. The TPNW originated from the frustration of non-nuclear weapons states and dissatisfaction with the lack of progress by the NPT nuclear-armed states in fulfilling their disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT. As the TPNW moves forward, the United States can and should join the conversation through the meetings of TPNW states parties.

The perception gap between states that believe nuclear weapons are essential to their security and the TPNW states parties that do not is both a challenge and an opportunity. Through TPNW meetings, the United States, other nuclear-armed states, and their allies can and should seize the chance to engage with TPNW states parties to better understand the wide range of perspectives and concerns about nuclear weapons. In today’s multi-polar world, this approach can help build bridges with the many states that seek to accelerate progress toward a world without the fear of the catastrophic impacts of nuclear weapons.—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU, research assistant

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It has been just five years since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was concluded in 2017, but the agreement is already helping to bolster the international nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament architecture.

Strengthening the Nuclear Taboo in the Midst of Russia's War on Ukraine

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Volume 15, Issue 1*
February 22, 2023

One year ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a massive invasion on independent, democratic, non-nuclear Ukraine that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and created economic, social, and political disruption on a global scale.

Putin's war, along with his implied threats of nuclear weapons use against any who would interfere, has also raised the specter of a nuclear conflict in ways not seen in the post-Cold War era. It has also derailed bilateral U.S.-Russian talks on implementation of existing and new arms control measures.

If nuclear weapons are used in this conflict or any between nuclear-armed adversaries, we are in uncharted territory. Theories that a nuclear war can be “limited” are just theories. Once and if nuclear weapons are used in a conflict involving the United States and Russia, there is no guarantee it would not quickly become an all-out nuclear conflagration.

As U.S. President Joe Biden warned Oct. 6, 2022, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

A recent Princeton Program on Science and Global Security simulation estimates the use of nuclear weapons in war between NATO and Russian forces that begins with a small number of nuclear detonations from short-range systems in a regional war could quickly escalate and lead to the death and injury of nearly 100 million people in just the first few hours.

So far, the 78-year-old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons has held, but we cannot take for granted. Tragically, the end of the war is nowhere in sight, and the danger of nuclear escalation still looms.

To preserve and strengthen the consensus against nuclear weapons use and threats of use, civil society and the international community must sustain pressure against those who might try to break the nuclear taboo.

The Nuclear Dimensions of the War

In February, April, and September 2022, Putin made veiled threats of nuclear weapons use in the event that any state attempts to interfere in Russia's massive military assault on Ukraine.

“No matter who tries to stand in our way ... they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history,” Putin said Feb. 24.

During a televised meeting Feb. 27, Putin ordered the Russian defense minister, Sergey Shoygu, and the chief of the military’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, to put Russia's long-range nuclear forces on a “special regime of combat duty.” Putin described the move as a response to NATO powers’ making what he called “aggressive statements.”

Putin’s order most likely served as a preliminary command designed to bring Russia's strategic nuclear systems into a working condition, not necessarily to prepare those forces to carry out a first strike. Nevertheless, the command was a provocative nuclear signal designed to intimidate.

Two months later, Putin reiterated his warning against outside interference in Ukraine that “creates an unacceptable threat of a strategic nature for Russia,” saying that the Russian response “lightning-fast [as] decisions on this matter have been made.”

Both the United States and the Soviet Union issued various kinds of nuclear threats and alerts during the Cold War, before the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and after. However, Russia’s current implied nuclear threats to shield an attack by a nuclear-armed state against a non-nuclear-weapon state are unprecedented—and unacceptable—in the post-Cold War era. Plus, since the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, no U.S. or Russian leader has raised the alert level of nuclear forces to try to coerce a potential nuclear adversary’s behavior.

To his credit, Biden has not responded by issuing reciprocal threats against Russia or by raising the alert levels of U.S. nuclear forces. Instead, Biden has reaffirmed that U.S. and NATO forces would not become engaged directly in the war, while still providing the necessary assistance to help Ukrainians defend their country.

“We won't be intimidated by Putin's rhetoric,” the White House emphasized in October. This stance took the punch out of Putin’s threats and has, so far, helped ensure that the Russian nuclear bully does not get his way.

But in the early weeks of the all-out Russian invasion, Biden simply referred to Russia’s “occasional nuclear rhetoric” as “dangerous and extremely irresponsible,” implying that some types of nuclear threats are "responsible." The United States and NATO, of course, exercise similar deterrence strategies that rely on the credible threat of nuclear weapons use.

France, the United Kingdom, and the United States expanded on this theme in a July joint working paper, in which they asserted that their nuclear weapons only “serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war.”

Not surprisingly, Russian officials claimed Putin’s nuclear warnings also serve “defensive” purposes, and are simply designed intended to deter Western interference.

However, from a legal perspective, the International Court of Justice unanimously determined in its 1996 advisory opinion that a threat to engage in nuclear weapons use, particularly under the circumstances suggested by Putin, stands contrary to international humanitarian law, and that the threat to use nuclear weapons violates the UN Charter.

Putin’s threats also clearly violate the 1973 bilateral Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War, which pledged the United States and the Soviet Union to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the other Party, against the allies of the other Party and against other countries, in circumstances which may endanger international peace and security.”

Importantly, the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into force in 2021 and has the support of some 130 states, prohibits not only the possession, development, testing, transfer, and use of nuclear weapons, but also threats of use.

Efforts to Reinforce the Nuclear Taboo in 2022

In contrast to the caveated criticism from Washington, London, and Paris in the first half of 2022, many leaders from non-nuclear-weapon states recognized that Putin’s brazen nuclear threats made in the context of a war against a non-nuclear weapon state required them to speak with greater clarity to avert a nuclear catastrophe. And they did.

In June 2022, the then 65 TPNW states-parties issued a political statement noting that “any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is a violation of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations,” and condemning “unequivocally any and all nuclear threats, whether they be explicit or implicit and irrespective of the circumstances.”

At the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in August, a group of 147 non-nuclear-weapon states declared the use of nuclear weapons unacceptable “under any circumstances.”

Nevertheless, on Sept. 21, as Russian forces were in retreat in eastern Ukraine, Putin suggested he might order the use of shorter-range nuclear weapons “if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened,” including the territory in Ukraine that Russia had illegally seized. "This is not a bluff," he added.

In this context, Putin's threats implied that, if he believes there is an attack on Russian territory or on Ukrainian territory illegally claimed by Russia, he might order the use of tactical nuclear weapons to decimate Ukraine's defense forces or its cities, demonstrate Russian resolve, and attempt to force Ukraine and its allies to surrender.

Subsequently, press reports revealed that, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, senior Russian military officials discussed when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Putin’s September threat clearly veered away from Russia’s official nuclear doctrine, which reserves the option to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction or if a conventional war threatens the “very existence of the state.”

In response to Putin’s stronger nuclear threat rhetoric, key leaders and nuclear experts began to speak out in starker and more direct terms. And for good reason.

In an interview with CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sept. 16, Biden was asked what he would tell Putin if the Russian leader is considering using nuclear weapons in the conflict against Ukraine. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” Biden said. “You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.” He wisely declined to detail how the United States would respond to Russian nuclear weapon use in Ukraine, saying only that the reaction would be “consequential” and would depend “on the extent of what they do.”

As I said in a report by The Washington Post on Sept. 22: “What everyone needs to recognize is that this is one of, if not the most, severe episodes in which nuclear weapons might be used in decades. The consequences of even a so-called ‘limited nuclear war’ would be absolutely catastrophic.”

A few days later, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan disclosed that the United States has warned Russia of "catastrophic consequences" if Russia uses nuclear weapons.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also weighed in. Borrowing from the terminology used by the non-nuclear-weapon states in their June and August statements. “Any use of nuclear weapons is absolutely unacceptable,” he said on Sept. 27.

President Joe Biden said Oct. 6 that the “prospect of Armageddon'' the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Oct. 8, “We need to give a clear answer to nuclear threats. They’re dangerous for the world, and the use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.” Perhaps more importantly, leaders who previously remained silent about Putin’s nuclear threats finally spoke up. Chinese President Xi Jinping said Nov. 4 that the international community should “jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons.”

Then, the powerful Group of 20 (G-20) nations issued Nov. 16 a statement at their summit declaring that the use of nuclear weapons and threats of use are “inadmissible.” The strong G-20 language – endorsed by its members, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey – was due in large part to the efforts of the host nation, Indonesia, a TPNW supporter.

By the end of 2022, Putin appeared to back off his threats of nuclear weapon use. “We see no need” to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he said in October. “There is no point in that, neither political nor military.”

This rhetorical retreat was no accident. Undoubtedly, Putin’s advisers – as well as U.S. and NATO leaders – reminded the Russian president that there is no military value in using nuclear weapons against Ukrainian targets. Instead of ending the war, such an atrocity would almost certainly draw NATO into the conflict, bringing about Russia’s defeat and Putin’s own downfall.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a Feb. 11, 2023 interview with Tagasspiegel that she saw a link between G-20 statement on about on nuclear threats being "inadmissible" and reduced Russian nuclear rhetoric since November 2022. Global norms do have an impact on the nuclear policies of autocratic states after all.

Reinforcing the Nuclear Taboo in 2023

On the one-year anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion, the UN the European Union will advance a resolution at a high-level emergency session of the UN General Assembly calling for a cessation of hostilities and a peace that ensures Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.”

Such efforts are crucial even if they do not yield immediate results. The UN charter calls for peaceful settlement of disputes and declares that all countries shall refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

But as Russia continues to try to find a way to "win" its war on Ukraine and as the Ukrainian people continue to valiantly resist, the fighting and bloodshed and the danger of escalation will continue. Although the threat of nuclear weapons use by Russia may have receded since the fall of 2022, it has not gone away.

Over the course of the war, key leaders and millions of people around the globe have become more aware of the grim realities of nuclear weapons: even "limited" nuclear use likely would trigger nuclear escalation with global consequences and millions of deaths, nuclear weapon use is immoral and illegal, and nuclear deterrence is unsustainable and ultimately unacceptable.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also demonstrated the limitations of nuclear weapons in actual war. U.S. and NATO nuclear weapons have done nothing to help prevent Russian aggression against Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine’s allies have responded with military, political, humanitarian, economic, and diplomatic means to assist with Ukraine’s defense and thwart the aggressor.

Although greater awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons is very important, it does not, by itself, solve the problem.

Russia might still use a nuclear weapon before the fighting in Ukraine ends. If this spring's anticipated military offensive-counteroffensives produces another shambolic retreat by Russian forces and Putin fears a humiliating loss of territory and military capacity, he may once again try to resort to nuclear threats or even decide to use nuclear weapons in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to turn the tide.

There are other pathways to escalation. Although U.S. and NATO leaders have made it clear that they do not intend for their military forces to become directly involved in the conflict, the risk of escalation remains very real. A close encounter between NATO and Russian warplanes or an attack by Russia on NATO territory or supply lines, or vice versa, could become a flashpoint for a wider conflict.

The world will remain in a condition of heightened nuclear danger for some time to come.

Given the stakes, civil society and the international community must pursue options to lower tension, increase dialogue, and sustain pressure against those who might break the nuclear taboo. Key objectives include:

Reiterating condemnations of nuclear weapons use: civil society and governments of all stripes need to continue to state unequivocally that nuclear weapons use, or any threat to use nuclear weapons, at any time and under any circumstances, is extremely dangerous and totally unacceptable. Key leaders need to reiterate this message in bilateral meetings, multilateral summits, votes on UN resolutions, and other venues, such as the G-7 Summit in Hiroshima in May and the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee meeting in August. Nuclear war in Ukraine, or anywhere, would affect all people and this risk demands an effective and sustained global response.

Re-establish a regular, high-level U.S.-Russian risk reduction dialogue: Over the long, dangerous course of the nuclear age, the easing of tensions and resolution of crises between the nuclear-armed states has relied not only on good luck and self-restraint, but also effective, leader-to-leader dialogue.

In June 2022, Biden declared that even as he seeks to “rally the world to hold Russia accountable for its brutal and unprovoked war on Ukraine, we must engage Russia on issues of strategic stability.”

While communications bilateral hotlines and U.S. and Russian nuclear risk reduction centers remain in place, they must be used and used effectively. Unfortunately, many diplomatic channels for dialogue between Washington and Moscow on arms control have been suspended since February 2022.

Senior U.S., NATO, and Russian military and political leaders should commit to using direct lines of communication, seek to resume the U.S.-Russian strategic stability dialogue and/or talks on follow-on agreements to the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), and refrain from provocative actions, such as moving tactical nuclear weapons from storage and toward operational deployment.

Washington and Moscow could consider updating and implementing the aforementioned 1973 U.S.-Soviet agreement requiring the two countries to refrain from nuclear threats and, in times of increased risk of nuclear conflict, “immediately enter into urgent consultations with each other and make every effort to avert this risk.”

Continue to calibrate U.S. and European military support to avoid escalation: The Biden administration has been careful, so far, to design its military aid packages and deliver more advanced weapons to help Ukraine defend itself in a way that does not trigger Russian attacks on U.S. or NATO forces or territory.

The strategy, however, isn't risk-free. If U.S. and European states begin to supply Ukraine with weapons that can strike deeper into Russian territory, into Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory of Crimea, or into Belarusian territory, such as advanced fighter aircraft or longer-range offensive missiles, and without strict controls on how Ukrainian forces can use these weapons, it may prompt a Russian response that leads to a broader European war.

Continue to refrain from making threats of nuclear retaliation: To date, Biden and leaders of NATO states have warned that Russian nuclear weapons use would certainly lead to catastrophic consequences and escalation but have stopped short of threatening nuclear retaliation. That is wise. Both sides understand that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

Threats of nuclear retaliation are not only unnecessary and counterproductive, but also would legitimate Putin's own threats and set red lines no one can afford to cross.

After all, even modern short-range nuclear weapons are devastating and indiscriminate killing machines. Most of the 450 air- and ground-based, short-range nuclear warheads in Russia's inventory have an explosive yield equivalent to about 10 kilotons of TNT. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima produced a yield of some 15 kilotons and led to the deaths of an estimated more than 140,000 people within six months of the attack.

The use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would also blow apart what support Putin still has from China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi, unleash international wrath, trigger even more dissension to Putin’s rule within Russia, and possibly lead to exactly what he wishes to avoid: direct U.S. or NATO intervention on the side of Ukraine.

Prepare a strong global diplomatic response to further threats of nuclear weapons use: If Russia or any state threatens, let alone uses nuclear weapons, UN member states should pursue a “uniting for peace” resolution to overcome the crippling gridlock in the UN Security Council and authorize effective, collective measures to restore the peace and hold Putin accountable under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Such a measure would require nearly universal support and unprecedented cooperation from all UN member states to be effective.

________

The nuclear dimensions of the war on Ukraine underscore the fact that outdated nuclear deterrence policies create unacceptable risks. To eliminate the danger, we must actively reinforce the legal prohibitions and norms against nuclear weapons use and threats of use – as well as their development, testing, possession, and proliferation – and press for effective disarmament diplomacy that leads to concrete action that puts us on the path toward the complete, irreversible, and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Such efforts require sustained, smart, and united efforts from the United States, other nuclear-armed states, states allied with nuclear-armed states, as well as the non-nuclear weapon state majority. Our common survival depends on it.—DARYL G. KIMBALL, executive director

 

*This Issue Brief was originally written for the the University of Pennsylvannia Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) blog where it is being cross-posted.

 

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The nuclear dimensions of the war on Ukraine underscore the fact that outdated nuclear deterrence policies create unacceptable risks. To eliminate the danger, we must actively reinforce the legal prohibitions and norms against nuclear weapons use and press for effective disarmament diplomacy.

A "Plan B" to Address Iran’s Accelerating Nuclear Program

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Volume 14, Issue 8
November 9, 2022

Since negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), stalled in late August, the political space for reaching an agreement to resurrect the accord has narrowed and prospects for reviving the JCPOA have diminished. Tehran’s brutal repression of protesters following the death of Mahsa Amini and Iran’s military support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, including the illegal transfer of drones, has shifted U.S. and European focus away from the nuclear talks and increased pressure on the Biden administration to refrain from any further negotiations with the Raisi government.

Iran's ambassador to IAEA Mohsen Naziri Asl speaks during the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria on September 26, 2022. (Photo by JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images)Even before the protests, Iran’s negotiating strategy jeopardized the prospects of reaching a deal to restore the JCPOA. In August, as negotiators closed in on an agreement, Tehran derailed progress with its unacceptable and unrealistic demands that the deal include a timetable for ending the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) investigation into past nuclear activities that should have been declared to the agency and a commitment that the IAEA refrain from further investigations into Iran’s nuclear past. This ultimatum casts doubt on Iran’s commitment to resurrecting the JCPOA. As Tehran is well aware, there is no space to negotiate over the IAEA’s safeguards investigation. The United States and its JCPOA partners cannot and will not pressure the IAEA into actions that are contrary to its safeguards mandate.

From a nonproliferation perspective, however, the United States cannot afford to wait for much longer for Iran to moderate its demands over the IAEA investigation or to see how the current protests play out. U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley made clear in an Oct. 31 event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that the United States still supports restoring the JCPOA, but that talks are not the U.S. focus at this time given Iran’s negotiating position. During the stalemate, the United States continues to enforce nuclear-related sanctions, but these actions are not aimed at stabilizing the current crisis, nor can they.

The Raisi government has made clear it will continue ratcheting up its nuclear activities in response to perceived provocations from the United States and Europe, including further sanctions. The alarming growth in Iran’s nuclear program and bleak prospects for JCPOA restoration significantly increase both the threat of Iranian proliferation and the risk that at some point the United States, or more likely Israel, resorts to kinetic action to try and set back Iran’s nuclear advances in the short term.

Given these risks, it is imperative for the United States, its partners in the JCPOA, and Iran to begin thinking of steps to stabilize the current nuclear crisis. Trying to negotiate an alternative, interim deal would be time-consuming and face similar challenges to those afflicting the indirect talks to restore U.S. and Iranian compliance with the JCPOA. A more feasible approach would be to focus on reciprocal, confidence-building steps by the United States and Iran designed to prevent further escalation, reduce the risk of proliferation, and decrease the chances of miscalculation. On the nuclear side, increasing the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program would be an ideal starting point for stabilizing the current situation. Increasing transparency would provide greater assurance that any move toward an Iranian nuclear weapon or diversion of materials and technologies would be detected more quickly and could help deter Tehran from taking such action.

Such an approach does not mean that the Biden administration and its European partners must abandon their support for the JCPOA, although restoration of that accord is increasingly unlikely. Rather, it allows the United States and the P4+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom) to preserve space for future diplomacy to restore the nuclear deal or to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. Preventing further nuclear escalation would also benefit U.S. national security by reducing the likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran or a military conflict to try to prevent it.

If the United States does attempt to engage with Tehran to stabilize the current nuclear crisis, the Biden administration will face criticism for undermining the protestors and legitimizing the current regime. Failure to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, however, increases the likelihood of Tehran deciding to develop nuclear weapons, particularly if it feels its regime is under threat and that external forces are responsible for or contributing to the destabilization of the state. U.S. and European involvement in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, years after both leaders abandoned their illicit nuclear weapons programs, may suggest to Iran that a nuclear deterrent is necessary to limit foreign intervention in domestic protests. North Korea’s reliance on nuclear weapons to protect the Kim regime may further bolster the assessment in Tehran that nuclear weapons are necessary to preserve the territory and governance structure of Iran.

A nuclear-armed Iran may also be emboldened to use its deterrent to act more aggressively in the region. Russia, for example, is using nuclear threats to try to deter third-party intervention on behalf of Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade the country in February.

While dealing with Iran may seem distasteful, particularly now given the government’s ruthless crackdown on the peaceful protests, it is necessary. Preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons must remain an urgent policy priority precisely because of the nature of the regime and the lengths it will go to in order to retain power. Unfortunately, the time has come to begin considering alternative diplomatic actions outside of restoring the JCPOA to achieve that goal.

The Risks Posed by Iran’s Advancing Nuclear Program

Iran’s advancing nuclear program poses both short and long-term proliferation risks that will become more serious over time if the United States and its European partners do not soon pivot to a diplomatic strategy designed to stabilize the current nuclear threat. The risk of conflict also increases, as Iran may misjudge the space it has to increase leverage by expanding its nuclear program. Given the relatively muted international response to Tehran’s past escalations, such as enrichment to 60 percent, and mixed signals from the United States, Europe, and Israel over what constitutes red lines, there is a significant chance that Iran miscalculates and triggers military action.

In the short term, Iran’s ability to "breakout," or produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb (25 kilograms of uranium enriched to 90 percent), possibly between IAEA inspections, increases the risk and likelihood of proliferation. While the United States is willing to accept the risk of undetectable breakout at this point, this calculation could change as Iran’s nuclear program advances, the prospects of a deal to restore the JCPOA diminish, or Iran perceives the benefits of nuclear weapons outweighing the costs of their development. A new, more hawkish Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu may also be unwilling to tolerate the low breakout window. Comments from Netanyahu and his allies in recent weeks suggest a greater willingness to use military force to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

The U.S. assessment of the proliferation threat may also change as Iran’s capacity to quickly produce material for multiple nuclear weapons increases. Currently, Iran can produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear bomb in less than a week. Israeli military officials have publicly stated that weaponization could still take another one to two years, but some experts assess that Iran could move more quickly. Regardless of the precise timeframe, Iran is likely to weaponize at a covert facility, making detection and disruption more difficult. One bomb’s worth of weapons-grade uranium, however, will have limited strategic value as a deterrent, particularly given that Iran has never conducted an explosive test of a nuclear warhead. But as the timeframe for producing multiple bombs' worth of weapons-grade uranium decreases, Iran's program poses more of a proliferation threat because the security value for Tehran increases significantly if it can build more than one bomb. It would also be more challenging to disrupt an Iranian breakout if Tehran were able to produce multiple bombs' worth of weapons grade uranium and move them to several covert sites. 

As of September, Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for an estimated three bombs in about a month. That one-month timeframe will drop further, even if Iran takes no additional action to expand its uranium enrichment capacity because Tehran continues to stockpile uranium enriched to 60 and 20 percent and install more advanced centrifuges, which enrich uranium more efficiently. The stockpiles of 60 and 20 percent uranium are particularly significant in assessing proliferation risk as material enriched to these levels can be much more quickly enriched to weapons grade.

Iran's short breakout window is not, by itself, an indication that Tehran intends to pursue nuclear weapons. It does, however, increase the likelihood of Iran deciding to do so at some point in the future, as Iran’s internal and external security environment faces new challenges. For instance, the growing perception by Iran’s current government that the regime is at risk as a result of the current protests or may be at risk down the road could make its withdrawal from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and/or possible pursuit of nuclear weapons appear more beneficial to hardline decision-makers, particularly if Tehran perceives third party states as playing a key role in supporting or instigating the protests.

Similarly, regional tensions, principally any attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, could lead the regime to assess that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter future attacks. Iran’s military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could also lead Tehran to gamble that Moscow would block or mitigate action by the UN Security Council if Iran were to decide to violate its international legal commitments under the NPT. Perhaps more likely, Iran may calculate that geopolitical divisions would prevent a unified international sanctions campaign against Iran, thus reducing the costs that Tehran would pay for developing nuclear weapons.

While external threats and internal dissent have been factors in Tehran’s decision-making before, Iran has never been this close to a nuclear weapon in its history. The speed at which Iran could now build a weapon will influence Tehran’s calculations, underscoring that the current proliferation risk is not sustainable.

Even if Iran’s leaders do not make the decision to pursue nuclear weapons, it appears likely that they will continue to assess that further escalation of Iran's sensitive nuclear fuel cycle programs is a sustainable form of leverage. If Iran expands its nuclear program unchecked, the development of new capabilities will have longer-term implications for the proliferation threat and raises new obstacles for future diplomacy.

There is a range of nuclear-related activities Tehran can pursue to escalate or respond to perceived U.S. provocations that will have a longer-term impact.

Iran, for instance, has publicly threatened to enrich uranium to 90 percent, the level considered weapons-grade, and considered beginning enrichment to that level in June 2022 after the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution censuring Iran over the safeguard’s investigation before deciding to reduce monitoring instead. The U.S. intelligence community also appears to view Iran’s threat to enrich to 90 percent as serious, noting in the 2022 Worldwide Threat Assessment that Iranian officials “probably will consider” enriching to that level if Iran does not receive sanctions relief.

While 90 percent enrichment would be one of the more significant escalations that Iran could pursue short of declaring its intention to build nuclear weapons, Tehran may gamble that producing very small quantities of 90 percent enriched uranium, or enriching to that level but not stockpiling the material, would not be enough to incite military action against Tehran. However, even the production of 90 percent in gram quantities would provide Iran with useful, irreversible knowledge applicable to weapons development, even if it does not significantly alter the current breakout.

Even if Tehran views enrichment to 90 percent as too great a risk, Iran has other options, such as expanding its advanced centrifuge work and exploring different cascade designs to increase uranium enrichment efficiency. There is also a range of weaponization-related activities that Iran could pursue while claiming the work is for civil nuclear purposes, such as expanding its uranium metal research. Uranium metal is directly relevant to pursuing an explosive device. The E3 in particular appears concerned about uranium metal activities and has warned Iran against engaging in this key area of weapons-related research.

Initiating new areas of research pose less of a short-term threat, but over the long term, as Iran masters new capabilities, these activities will alter assessments of a proliferation risk because they expand the pathways available to Iran for developing nuclear weapons. There are also implications for diplomacy. New capabilities give Iran more leverage in future negotiations and the lack of monitoring of some of these activities raises further concerns about verification down the road and reestablishing a baseline of Iran’s nuclear program.

Research and development also has implications for the nonproliferation value of the JCPOA, decreasing the likelihood that restoration of the accord will remain a viable option if the stalemate in talks continues. For instance, when Iran was fully implementing the JCPOA from 2016 to mid-2019, the time it would take to amass enough material for one bomb was about 12 months. Under a restored JCPOA, Malley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May 2022 that Iran’s breakout would be reduced to about six months—now probably closer to four-five—because of the irreversible knowledge Iran has gained and its development of advanced centrifuges. As a result, the Biden administration may soon assess that the nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA are no longer worth the sanctions relief Tehran will receive in the return.

The Growing Monitoring Gap

Compounding the proliferation risks posed by Iran’s nuclear program is the growing monitoring gap. The lack of transparency regarding Iran’s nuclear activities has a negative impact on crisis stability and will make future diplomacy more challenging.

Currently, Iran is subject to minimal IAEA monitoring. Iran is implementing a comprehensive safeguards agreement, as required for all non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPT, but history has demonstrated that comprehensive safeguards are insufficient for preventing determined proliferators. Under the safeguards agreement, the IAEA continues to access Iranian facilities where nuclear materials are present, such as the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities and the Isfahan fuel fabrication site. The frequency of inspections at those facilities is based on several factors, including enrichment levels, so Tehran is subject to more inspections now that it is enriching to 60 percent. But even with more frequent inspections, a comprehensive safeguards agreement is insufficient for providing assurance in the long run that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful. The risk remains that Iran could try to produce enough weapons-grade material between IAEA inspections and divert materials, such as centrifuges, from facilities where the agency is not currently conducting inspections.

When the JCPOA was fully implemented, Iran’s nuclear program was subject to the most intrusive verification regime ever negotiated. Several key sites were subject to continuous surveillance and inspectors had greater access to Iranian nuclear facilities, including sites where nuclear material was not present. Furthermore, unlike many restrictions in the JCPOA, the most crucial element of that monitoring regime, Iran’s application of more intrusive IAEA safeguards known as the additional protocol, does not expire.

However, as part of its response to the U.S. pressure campaign, Iran halted the implementation of the additional protocol and other JCPOA-specific monitoring measures in February 2021. As a result, the agency has not inspected certain facilities integral to the country’s nuclear program, such as its centrifuge production sites and uranium mines and mills, for 20 months. IAEA cameras did continue to collect data from some of these locations and Tehran says it will give the surveillance recordings to the agency in the event of a deal to restore the JCPOA, but many of these cameras have been unplugged since June 2022. Iran disconnected the cameras at that time in response to the IAEA Board of Governors passing a resolution censuring Iran for failing to comply with the agency’s safeguards investigation. Further complicating the gaps in monitoring is Iran’s development of new nuclear facilities since February 2021 that are not covered by the existing safeguards agreement, such as Iran’s new centrifuge production workshops, and therefore are not being inspected. The IAEA will likely have less clarity about the capabilities and capacities at these locations if the JCPOA is restored or a new deal is reached because of the gaps in access.

As a result of the reduction in monitoring, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned in September 2022 that the agency will face “considerable challenges” in confirming Iran’s declared inventory of centrifuges and heavy water, even with Tehran’s full cooperation. The longer this gap remains, the more difficult it will be for the agency to reconstruct an accurate history of Iran’s nuclear activities during the monitoring gap.

Any doubt about the baseline will drive speculation that Tehran has diverted materials for covert purposes and could make it more challenging for the United States to assess, as required under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), whether the IAEA can monitor a future nuclear deal.

The reduction in monitoring also increases the risk of a premature use of force to set back Iran’s nuclear program. The United States and Israel, the two countries most likely to use force, might be willing to tolerate certain nuclear escalations or the continuation of current activities if there were additional verification mechanisms in place that would more quickly detect any move to try to build nuclear weapons or further increase its enriched uranium stockpiles. For instance, the risk posed by Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent might be more manageable if inspectors had daily access to uranium enrichment facilities or if Iran’s enrichment was monitored in real time again.

Enhanced Monitoring as a Stabilization Step

Given Iran’s current breakout time, the risk of Iran crossing a U.S. or Israeli redline as it attempts to build leverage, and the monitoring gap’s negative implications for diplomacy in the long run, the United States and its P4+1 partners should focus on increasing transparency as the first step in stabilizing the current situation.

Ideally, additional monitoring mechanisms should be aimed at two objectives: 1) providing greater assurance that any attempt by Iran to breakout will be detected more quickly and 2) providing greater assurance that Iran is not diverting materials from sites that are no longer subject to inspections or surveillance.

In the short term, addressing these two objectives should help reduce the threat of proliferation and the risk of premature military action to prevent it. Increased monitoring also helps address longer-term proliferation risks by providing additional insight into nuclear activities not currently monitored and could make it easier for the IAEA to reestablish a baseline on Iran’s nuclear program. Verification activities as a stabilizing step may also be more feasible politically on the Iranian side as it does not require Tehran to halt or roll back any nuclear activities or give up what it perceives as its strongest source of leverage: its HEU stockpiles.

The most straightforward option for addressing these objectives would be for Iran to resume the implementation of its additional protocol. To distinguish reapplying the additional protocol from Iran’s actions under the JCPOA, Iran could agree to voluntarily implement the agreement as it did from 2003-2005. This would be a step below the provisional implementation required by the JCPOA. Given that more than 130 countries implement additional protocols, the Raisi government could reply to domestic criticism by arguing that it is conforming with the best practices of responsible nuclear states and not subjecting Iran to unique restrictions.

However, even if this step were to be politically feasible in Tehran, Raisi would likely demand a higher price for reapplying the additional protocol than the United States would be willing to pay. The December 2020 law required Iran to suspend the more intrusive safeguards if the parties to the JCPOA “fail to normalize banking relations, completely remove export barriers, allow complete sale of Iranian oil and petroleum products, and complete and rapid return of foreign exchange [to Iran] from the proceeds of the [oil] sales.“ If Tehran tries to tie the resumption of the additional protocol to these demands, the cost will be too high for the United States, as Washington will also seek to retain its most valuable sources of sanctions leverage for future diplomacy.

There are, however, creative solutions that would increase transparency and may be more feasible from a political perspective than reapplying the additional protocol. To address the first objective, more rapid detection of breakout, the United States and its partners could press Iran to resume real-time enrichment monitoring as a confidence-building step. Reconnecting the monitors, known as OLEMS, would provide further assurance that any move to enrich to levels greater than 60 percent would be quickly detected. Without the OLEMS in place, traditional methods of sampling and analyzing enrichment levels can take three weeks or longer, according to the IAEA. During that window, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb and divert it.

Other measures that could be considered include resuming daily IAEA access to Natanz and Fordow, which would provide more assurance that Tehran will not try to breakout between inspections. Iran could also move greater portions of its stockpiles of HEU away from the enrichment sites. The material would still be under IAEA safeguards and returning it to Natanz and Fordow would put additional time on the clock and raise questions about whether Iran intended to further enrich the material.

To address the second objective, deterring diversion, one option would be for the United States and its P4+1 partners to propose that Iran turn the cameras back on at some, or all, of the facilities subject to continuous surveillance under the JCPOA. Prioritization should be given to resuming monitoring of certain facilities, such as centrifuge production workshops and facilities with source materials such as uranium conversion facilities, which pose more of a proliferation risk, as opposed to facilities such as Iran’s heavy-water production plant, which is less of an immediate concern. Tehran could turn over recordings from these cameras regularly, perhaps quarterly to coincide with the IAEA’s regular reports on Iran’s nuclear program, to help ensure there has been no diversion of nuclear material from these locations. Turning over the recordings regularly would also help demonstrate Iran’s commitment to a peaceful nuclear program.

Another option would be for Iran to allow the IAEA to conduct technical visits to certain facilities that inspectors can no longer access. These voluntary, technical visits agreed to by the state have been used in the past when the IAEA has sought inspections beyond what is permitted under a comprehensive safeguards agreement but where the agency did not want to pursue special inspections. If Tehran were to agree to negotiate technical visits for inspectors regularly it could assist the IAEA’s efforts in re-establishing a baseline down the road and it increases the likelihood that any diversion of materials from the currently unmonitored facilities would be detected.

Focusing on monitoring and verification as an initial, stabilizing step also provides benefits for Iran. First, allowing additional monitoring and verification would support Iran’s assertion that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons. The added transparency could also be useful in pushing back against speculation that Iran intends to use the impasse in negotiations to restore the JCPOA to buy time to build up its nuclear program before deciding to build nuclear weapons and/or to siphon off materials for undeclared nuclear activities.

Second, monitoring and verification reduce the risk of the United States and/or Israel miscalculating the risk posed by Iran’s nuclear activities and prematurely using force to try and roll back Tehran’s nuclear program. These strikes would be very costly to Iran and put at risk the lives of Iranians working at these facilities. Any resort to force would also only set back Iran’s nuclear program temporarily and is likely, in the long run, to spur further nuclear advances. It could also escalate to a broader conflict.

Third, greater transparency now increases the likelihood that the IAEA will be able to reconstruct a record of Iran’s nuclear activities. The IAEA’s ability to reestablish a baseline and verify the inventory of certain materials related to Iran’s nuclear program could have an impact on future negotiations, particularly given that under INARA the U.S. administration must provide to Congress an assessment of the IAEA’s ability to verify any deal with Iran. Any perception that the IAEA will not be able to monitor an agreement will negatively impact Congressional support for an accord. So, if Iran wants to keep open the option of receiving sanctions relief, it behooves Tehran to recognize the benefits of increasing monitoring now.

In exchange for Iranian actions to enhance monitoring, the United States and its P4+1 partners could offer relief from specific sanctions, perhaps including limited oil sales to Europe. This would provide Iran with some benefits and could also mitigate the gap in European energy supplies caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States could also look at sanctions relief that would have positive humanitarian impacts and could be quickly reversed if Iran were to stop voluntarily implementing the monitoring measures or the release of set amounts of Iranian frozen assets.

If both the United States and Iran take these actions on a voluntary reciprocal basis, the Biden administration could argue that this does not constitute a deal and is not subject to review by Congress under INARA. But even if the Biden administration decides not to make that case or is persuaded that Congress should review these stabilization steps, there is a strong argument that members should support the administration’s actions as an interim step to increase the prospects for a future deal. Failure to prevent nuclear escalation will also likely have negative consequences for U.S. national security and increases the risk of the United States becoming embroiled in another conflict in the Middle East, a conflict that Washington can ill afford at this time.

If these initial, reciprocal steps are successful, the United States and the P4+1 could consider some further corresponding steps that would reduce proliferation risks. This would be particularly beneficial if the United States and Iran decide not to restore the JCPOA and instead pursue negotiations on a new agreement. In that case, creating time and space for prolonged talks by reducing the most imminent threats would increase the likelihood of a successful deal. On the nuclear side, this could include a commitment from Iran to refrain from new research and development activities and/or capping its stockpiles of 60 and 20 percent enriched uranium. This approach would allow Iran to maintain what it views as its most significant source of leverage while preventing Iran’s breakout for subsequent significant quantities of nuclear materials from further diminishing.

Conclusion

Nearly two years have passed since the Biden administration took office and set out to negotiate terms with Iran to restore mutual compliance with the JCPOA. The 2015 deal remains the best path forward for both parties, but Iran's impractical demands on issues outside the scope of the JCPOA have stymied progress. Now, the Raisi government's brutal crackdown on growing protests against the regime and its military support for Russia severely complicate the path to restoring the JCPOA. Meanwhile, Iran continues to expand its nuclear program, increasing the proliferation risk and the potential for a military conflict.

Given the current challenges that the United States is facing in confronting Russian aggression against Ukraine and countering China’s regional ambitions, Washington can ill afford to be drawn into a conflict with Iran, nor can the United States and the international community afford to see Iran, possibly emboldened by its nuclear weapons capability, become more aggressive in the region and even more repressive domestically.

As a result, it is necessary to explore options designed to stabilize the current nuclear crisis by increasing monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program. Such an approach is not a long-term solution or a substitute for a comprehensive agreement that blocks Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons, but it is necessary to prevent further deterioration of an already worrisome situation that was triggered by the United States' disastrous 2018 decision to withdraw from the JCPOA. The United States can and must remain focused on a comprehensive diplomatic solution to roll-back Iran's dual-use nuclear activities. But to create the time and space for negotiations the United States and its partners must act now to try to stabilize the current crisis before it is too late.

 

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The United States and the international community can ill afford to see Iran, emboldened by its nuclear weapons capability, become more aggressive in the region and even more repressive domestically.

Toward a New Nuclear Arms Control Framework Arrangement

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Volume 14, Issue 7
October 26, 2022

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, the United States indefinitely suspended the U.S.-Russian Strategic Stability Dialogue, a longstanding forum in which the two sides planned to lay the groundwork for more formal bilateral talks on a successor to the only current but soon-expiring nuclear arms control agreement between them: the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

This is certainly not the first time throughout the long history of U.S.-Russian dialogue on arms control, disarmament, and risk reduction that talks between the world’s two largest nuclear-armed states have come to a standstill. Nevertheless, for more than five decades, leaders in both countries have overcome vast ideological and geopolitical differences and disputes to, out of a shared recognition of the great dangers of nuclear weapons, establish and maintain mutually verifiable limits on their respective nuclear arsenals. Since the first two agreements struck in 1972, the United States and Russia (and the former Soviet Union) have negotiated a series of nuclear arms control and arms reduction agreements that have successfully strengthened strategic stability, provided highly-valued predictability, and reduced the risk of nuclear war.

In support of such benefits of arms control, U.S. President Joseph Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed last year to extend New START, as allowed by the treaty text, until Feb. 5, 2026. As a result, the United States and Russia have continued to adhere to the limitations on their nuclear arsenals under New START, with the most recent regular biannual exchange conducted on Sept. 1.

At the same time, however, Putin continues to warn of potential Russian nuclear weapon use as a response to any perceived interference in Ukraine, existential threat to Russia, or threat to what the federation calls its “territorial integrity,” which includes the four recently illegally annexed Ukrainian regions. Although the likelihood of nuclear use remains low, the United States and its allies and partners must meet nuclear threats with utmost seriousness, condemnation, and consequence.

Even while rallying the world in support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and ongoing attacks, Washington must pursue the negotiation of a new arms control arrangement to supersede New START sooner rather than later.

“No matter what else is happening in the world,” said Biden on Sept. 21, “the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures.”

Despite such statements from Biden, as well as senior Russian officials, arms control talks have not begun, in part due to ongoing differences over how and when to resume New START on-site inspections, which have been paused since 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic as well as Russian implementation concerns. Even if such talks began soon, the time left until 2026 is not much for the two countries to hold formal, time-consuming treaty negotiations and secure any necessary domestic support for the new arrangement.

If the treaty should expire in 2026 with no replacement, it would mark the first time since 1972 that the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals are entirely unconstrained.

In addition, Russia’s catastrophic war in Ukraine has vastly exacerbated uncertainty on what, if any, arms control arrangement may follow New START.

Putin’s war of choice on Ukraine is absolutely indefensible and reprehensible, and Russia has rightly been hit with very real consequences from countries across the world. The pursuit of formal arms control negotiations with Moscow nonetheless is necessary, if only to ensure that the Russian nuclear arsenal remains constrained, subject to a verification regime, and open to a measure of transparency. The alternative in which the two sides fail to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework will only heighten the factors leading to strategic instability and nuclear war, exacerbate the difficulties of engaging China and other nuclear-armed states in the nuclear risk reduction and disarmament enterprise, and open the door for a global nuclear arms race that benefits no one.

Now is the time to evaluate the potential approaches to the creation of a new nuclear arms control framework.

The Value and Status of New START

The last major nuclear arms control negotiation between Washington and Moscow took place more than a decade ago. After 11 months of negotiations—a historically rather short timeline for striking arms control deals—U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed New START in April 2010.

The treaty limits U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,550 warheads deployed on 700 delivery vehicles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers assigned to a nuclear mission.

New START entered into force in February 2011 with an expiration date of 10 years, though it could be extended for an additional five years upon mutual agreement. Washington and Moscow had until February 2018 to cut their respective nuclear arsenals to those limits, and they successfully did so, with Russia significantly reducing its number of deployed warheads on ballistic missiles.

Over the ensuing years, the U.S. and Russian arsenals would naturally fluctuate based on the particular maintenance and upgrade schedules for the nuclear weapons components. Washington and Moscow have both remained at or below the treaty limits since 2018. Following the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, New START became the last treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

An integral part of New START has been the establishment of a rigorous verification regime.

The treaty allows 18 on-site inspections per country per year and requires regular notifications on the status of strategic delivery vehicles and launchers, data exchanges twice a year on the makeup of each country’s strategic nuclear arsenal, as well as the formation of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) to handle any compliance or implementation concerns that might arise.

This regime provides crucial, detailed information about the strategic nuclear arsenals of the world’s top two owners of nuclear weapons that cannot currently be gained through another avenue. The U.S. Defense Department has gone on the record emphasizing the great value it places on the information about Russia’s nuclear arsenal gathered due to New START.

Former and then-current government and military officials as well as national security leaders also spoke out strongly in favor of extending New START by five years until 2026, which Biden and Putin agreed to do in February 2021, just two days before the treaty’s expiration.

The pandemic disrupted business as usual when it came to both the New START verification regime and the talks on an arms control arrangement to follow the treaty after its expiration—all of which Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has further disrupted as well as imperiled.

The United States and Russia mutually decided to suspend on-site inspections, as well as indefinitely delay a meeting of the BCC, in March 2020 as the coronavirus tore across the world. The two countries started to hammer out how to restart inspections about a year ago. However, Moscow informed Washington in August 2022 of its decision to temporarily prohibit inspections of its nuclear weapons-related facilities subject to New START.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has claimed that there are ongoing unresolved issues, including adjusted inspection procedures to account for situations in which coronavirus spreads among the crews and inspectors, as well as difficulties the Russian flight crew and inspectors have encountered when trying to obtain visas and permissions to enter airspace controlled by the United States and its allies and partners. The latter has occurred primarily as the United States and its allies and partners, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have imposed steep costs on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s announcement regarding inspections came during the second week of the monthlong review conference for the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which brought together leaders from nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

Biden and Putin released statements on the first day of the conference Aug. 1, in which they each emphasized their commitment to nuclear arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation.

The United States and Russia were already going to be on the hot seat at the conference due to a widespread view among NPT states-parties that the two countries, along with the other three NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states (China, France, and the United Kingdom), have not upheld their treaty obligation to genuinely pursue nuclear disarmament.

With New START expiring in less than four years and no replacement arms control arrangement in sight, plus the more than two-year ongoing break in on-site inspections, Washington and Moscow have little ground to stand on to say that they have been fulfilling their NPT commitments since the last review conference in 2015.

The Current Generation of Security Concerns

For years, the United States and Russia have been suggesting differing agendas on what to cover in the next arms control arrangement after New START. The road to future U.S.-Russian arms control has long been forecast to be divisive and arduous, as well as reliant on political will.

After New START’s official extension in 2021, the Biden administration began to broadly outline its priorities for what might come next, particularly aiming to limit for the first time Russian non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons. Moscow is estimated to have about 1,900 tactical nuclear weapons, all in central storage.

In addition, Washington wants to incorporate new Russian nuclear weapon delivery systems, such as those officially unveiled by Putin in 2018 and 2019 like the nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped torpedo named Poseidon, and to explore options for arms control with China.

In contrast to the Trump administration’s initial effort to condition the extension of New START on establishing some sort of future U.S.-Russian-Chinese arms control arrangement, the Biden administration has taken a different approach toward conducting arms control talks with Beijing by suggesting bilateral U.S.-Chinese talks.

The current U.S. approach toward China on arms control, though requiring increased attention by the Biden administration, makes sense for two reasons. First, Beijing has yet to engage in the kind of nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties signed by Washington and Moscow, which struck their first arms control deal in 1972. It would be difficult for China to jump into an ongoing arms control process, outside Beijing’s preferred multilateral arena, with which the United States and Russia have much more established, though strained, relations on the issue.

Second, the Chinese nuclear weapons arsenal is estimated to be at 350, which is significantly smaller than the U.S. nuclear arsenal of about 4,000 and the Russian arsenal of about 4,500. Even if Beijing continues with the rapid expansion of its arsenal to amass 700 strategic nuclear warheads by 2027 and 1,000 by 2030 as projected by the Pentagon, it will still be numerically smaller than those of the United States and Russia. An arms control arrangement that requires equal numerical limits on all parties, like New START, would therefore be a non-starter for China.

Beijing has repeatedly expressed adamant resistance to engaging in bilateral or trilateral arms control talks over the years, instead stating its preference for multilateral arms control and stipulating that its involvement depends on U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals first decreasing to the size of the Chinese arsenal. By setting realistic expectations with China, Washington may be able to see some long-sought-after progress, which may look as straightforward as formally establishing a bilateral strategic stability dialogue.

In addition, a concern repeatedly popping up in U.S.-Russian dialogue would be addressed for the time being with a U.S.-Chinese strategic stability dialogue underway, which can ideally be paired with efforts in other fora as well. In other words, Russia’s common refrain to the U.S. demand to include China in any future arms control arrangement is to require the participation of France and the United Kingdom as well. By addressing other nuclear powers in alternative venues, such as in a separate bilateral dialogue or in the P5 process, and essentially dividing the multitude of contentious issues on the table into different, though parallel, strains, Washington and Moscow could make some headway bilaterally.

Russia also brings to the table concerns with U.S. missile defenses, which Washington has long resisted putting up for negotiation, and U.S. non-strategic weapons deployed in Europe, estimated at about 100. Since the demise of the INF Treaty in 2019, Moscow has aimed to address at least a portion of the missiles formerly banned by this accord (ground-launched nuclear and conventional, ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers) in the next arms control arrangement.

The United States and Russia do share, however, a recognition of the fact that what may follow New START might not be a traditional arms control treaty, but rather another type of arms control arrangement or arrangements. The makeup of the U.S. Senate essentially guarantees the impossibility of procuring advice and consent on the ratification of a new U.S.-Russian arms control treaty. Therefore, the two sides must consider alternative forms of agreement, including an executive agreement.

Russia communicated its agenda to the United States and NATO in two separate proposals for agreements on broader security guarantees delivered to Washington and Brussels in December 2021. The Russian proposals were laden with non-starters (such as a proposed commitment from the United States and NATO to prohibit further NATO expansion), making it apparent that the documents were not ultimately serious in nature and thus intended for rejection.

Russian Proposals on Security Guarantees to the United States and NATO, Dec. 15, 2021 U.S. and NATO Responses to Russia, Jan. 26, 2022
Arms Control, Risk Reduction, and Transparency

Parties shall not deploy ground-launched, intermediate- and short-range missiles either outside their national territories or inside their national territories from which the missiles can strike the national territory of the other party.

The United States is prepared to begin discussions on arms control for ground-based intermediate- and short-range missiles and their launchers. NATO calls for Russia to engage with the United States on these discussions.

The United States is prepared to discuss transparency measures to confirm the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland, so long as Russia provides reciprocal transparency measures on two ground-launched missile bases of U.S. choosing in Russia.

No similar articles.

The United States proposes to begin discussions immediately on follow-on measures to New START, including on how future arms control would cover all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons (strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed) and new kinds of nuclear-armed intercontinental-range delivery vehicles. NATO calls for Russia to engage with the United States on these discussions.

NATO calls for all states to recommit to their international arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation obligations and commitments, such as toward the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention. NATO calls for Russia to resume implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty.

NATO is ready to consult on ways to reduce threats to space systems and to promote a free and peaceful cyberspace.

Sources: Article 6, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Article 5, Russia Proposal to NATO; Pages 3 and 4, U.S. Response to Russia; Article 9, NATO Response to Russia
Nuclear and Conventional Forces Posture

Parties shall not deploy nuclear weapons outside their national territories and shall destroy all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside of their national territories.

Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons or conduct exercises that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.

The United States and NATO are prepared to discuss areas of disagreement between NATO and Russia on U.S. and NATO force posture, including possibly the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, and discuss conventional forces concerns, including enhanced transparency and risk reduction through the Vienna Document.

NATO is prepared to discuss holding reciprocal briefings on Russia's and NATO's nuclear policies.

Sources: Article 7, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Article 4, Russia Proposal to NATO; Page 3, U.S. Response to Russia; Article 9, NATO Response to Russia
NATO-Russia Relations

Parties reaffirm that they do not consider each other as adversaries.

Parties shall not undertake actions, participate in activities, or implement security measures that undermine the security interests of the other party. Parties shall not use the territories of other states to execute an armed attack against the other party.

Parties shall settle all international disputes by peaceful rather than forceful means. Parties shall use fora such as the NATO-Russia Council to address issues or settle problems. Parties shall establish telephone hotlines.

NATO poses no threat to Russia.

NATO believes that tensions and disagreements must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, rather than through the threat or use of force. NATO calls for Russia's immediate de-escalation around Ukraine. 

NATO supports re-establishing NATO and Russian mutual presence in Moscow and Brussels and establishing a civilian telephone hotline.

Sources: Articles 1 and 3, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Articles 1, 2, and 3, Russia Proposal to NATO; Articles 1, 2, and 7, NATO Response to Russia
NATO Expansion

All NATO member states shall commit to prohibit any further NATO expansion, to include denying the accession of Ukraine. The United States shall not establish military bases in or develop bilateral military cooperation with former USSR states who are not part of NATO. 

The United States and NATO are committed to supporting NATO's open door policy. The United States is willing to discuss reciprocal transparency measures and commitments by both the United States and Russia to not deploy offensive ground-launched missile systems and permanent combat forces in Ukraine.

Sources: Article 4, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Article 6, Russia Proposal to NATO; Pages 1 and 2, U.S. Response to Russia; Article 8, NATO Response to Russia
Military Maneuvers and Exercises 

Parties shall regularly inform each other about military exercises and main provisions of their military doctrines.

Parties shall not deploy armed forces in areas where the deployment could be perceived by the other party as a threat to its national security (except when the deployment is within the national territories of the parties).

Parties shall not fly heavy bombers (whether nuclear or non-nuclear) or deploy surface warships in areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters where they can strike targets in the territory of the other party. 

Parties shall maintain dialogue to prevent dangerous military activities at sea.

NATO calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.

The United States is prepared to discuss confidence building measures regarding ground-based military exercises in Europe (to include modernization of the Vienna Document) and to explore an enhanced exercise notification regime and nuclear risk reduction measures (including strategic nuclear bomber platforms).

The United States and NATO are prepared to explore measures to prevent incidents at sea and in the air (to include discussing enhancements in the Incidents at Sea Agreement and the Vienna Document).

Sources: Article 5, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Articles 2, 3, and 7, Russia Proposal to NATO; Pages 2 and 3, U.S. Response to Russia; Articles 8 and 9, NATO Response to Russia
Reaffirmation of UN Charter

Parties shall ensure that all international organizations or military alliances in which at least one party participates adhere to the principles contained in the United Nations Charter. 

NATO remains committed to the fundamental principles and agreements underpinning European security, including the United Nations Charter.

Sources: Article 2, Russia Proposal to U.S.; Article 8, Russia Proposal to NATO; Article 3, NATO Response to Russia

Though flawed, pieces of the Russian proposals touch upon concerns that the United States and its allies and partners share, suggesting possible options for future arms control arrangements. For instance, both the proposals to the United States and NATO included an iteration of Moscow’s suggestion for a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles. Limiting at least some of the missiles once banned by the INF Treaty—which the Pentagon has begun developing but has struggled to lock down basing options for abroad—would benefit the United States by helping to avoid an arms race of INF-like missiles and prevent the reintroduction of additional, unnecessary nuclear capabilities into Europe as well as Asia.

Of course, if not doing so already, the United States will have to grapple with the significant changes in the strategic and geopolitical environment in which the United States and Russia now operate— changes that inescapably affect the realm of arms control. For instance, Moscow has depleted its conventional forces throughout its brutal assault on Ukraine and will therefore have to spend considerable time and money as the war drags on or after the war to rebuild those forces. Consequently, as acknowledged by the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy publicly released Oct. 12, Moscow may funnel most funds toward rebuilding its conventional arsenal and increase reliance on its nuclear deterrent, all while dealing with an expansion of NATO.

Lastly, it is important to note that arms control talks would take place against the backdrop of Putin’s recent and thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons several times, including a few days into the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine and, most recently, after the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

“We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people,” he said on Sept. 30. In late February, he also ordered the move of “Russia’s deterrence forces to a special regime of combat duty.” The scenarios in which Putin may consider nuclear use, most of which Russia outlined in its June 2020 policy, include if any country attempts to interfere in the war on Ukraine, if Moscow perceives a threat to Russia’s existence, or if Moscow perceives a threat to what it calls its “territorial integrity.”

Although the possibility of the actual use of nuclear weapons is low, it is not zero, with some analysts suggesting Russia may use nuclear weapons in a strike at a Ukrainian military facility or in a “nuclear display,” such as the detonation of a nuclear weapon over the Black Sea or the Arctic Ocean. Putin’s nuclear threats must be taken seriously.

There is unquestionable, considerable daylight between the U.S. and Russian agendas for a future arms control arrangement that, considered alongside Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine, portends a rather gloomy outlook for arms control in a post-New START world. However, nuclear arms control remains in the best security and safety interests of both the United States and Russia, not to mention the entire world, especially at such a time of growing nuclear threats and risks of escalation and miscalculation.

Redefining Arms Control in the Current Age

The United States refuses to engage in “arms control for arms control’s sake,” argued Marshall Billingslea, then-special envoy for arms control at the U.S. State Department, in May 2020. At the time, less than a year before New START was set to expire, the Trump administration had yet to put forward a concrete proposal on either the treaty’s extension or an alternative arms control arrangement to supersede the treaty.

When the Trump administration’s proposal did arrive in October 2020, it was a poison pill meant to ensure the expiration of New START with no replacement, a result that arms control opponents such as Billingslea wanted.

In December 2019, Putin tabled an offer to extend the treaty for five years with no preconditions. Ultimately, the Trump administration left the issue of New START extension up to the Biden administration, which agreed in February 2021 to the extension.

Billingslea’s charge served as a common retort to those who wanted to see the treaty extended. The Trump administration had argued that New START “does not reflect today’s reality,” citing how the treaty neither included China nor covered Russian novel and tactical nuclear weapon systems. Extending New START and pursuing those additional arms control objectives, however, were not mutually exclusive. Endeavors to expand the arms control architecture to include additional types of nuclear weapons and additional nuclear-armed countries have an arguably stronger fighting chance without having to simultaneously worry about the dangers of unconstrained U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

The overall benefits of arms control, whether undertaken in times of relationship highs or lows, can be many, including avoiding an action-reaction arms race; reducing incentives to preemptively strike adversary conventional and/or nuclear forces; lowering the chances of inadvertent escalation; increasing transparency and predictability; and saving money. In general, arms control can be defined as a form of mutual agreement or commitment through which states aim to reduce nuclear risks.

This definition of arms control is broad, as it should be. Traditionally, the concept of arms control has been primarily thought of as referring to formal treaties imposing specific limits on or the elimination of particular components of U.S. and Russian/Soviet nuclear arsenals. However, with the advent of new and emerging technologies affecting strategic stability, the development and deployment of new nuclear weapon delivery systems (such as Russia’s Poseidon), the advancing abilities of existing nuclear weapon systems (such as the increased maneuverability of ballistic missiles), as well as the high disinclination that the U.S. Senate would support new arms control treaties, the traditional understanding of arms control has warranted a reevaluation.

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) (1969-1972)
  • The Interim Agreement
    • Pledged not to construct new ICBM silos or significantly increase their size. Capped the number of SLBM launch tubes and SLBM-carrying submarines.
  • Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty
    • Permitted deployment of two fixed, ground-based defense sites of 100 missile interceptors each. Later adjusted to limit each to one regional defense of 100 ground-based missile interceptors to protect either the capital or an ICBM field.
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1987)
  • Required the elimination of all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km
  • Led to the destruction of 2,692 treaty-accountable missiles by 1991
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) (1991)
  • Limited each to 6,000 warheads and 1,600 delivery vehicles (ICBMs, SLBMs, heavy bombers)
Strategic Offense Reductions Treaty (SORT or Moscow Treaty) (2002)
  • Reduced deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,700-2,200 warheads each
  • Warhead limit set to take effect and expire on the same day, December 31, 2012
  • Relied upon START verification regime
New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) (2010)
  • Superseded SORT
  • Limits each side to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 700 strategic delivery systems and limits deployed and nondeployed launchers to 800

Strategic stability can be affected by a variety of capabilities, whether nuclear or non-nuclear (e.g., conventional weapons as well as cyber operations) and offensive or defensive. Most often, strategic stability is defined as the union of crisis stability, in which nuclear powers are deterred from launching a nuclear first strike against one another, and arms race stability, in which two adversaries do not have an incentive to build up their strategic nuclear forces.

The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union underscored the interrelationship between defensive and offensive systems by imposing limits on anti-missile systems. At the heart of the treaty, from which Washington withdrew in 2002, stood the recognition that the acquisition of ever-more capable offensive weapons would result in efforts by targeted states to acquire defenses against those weapons, sparking a never-ending cycle of competitive one-upmanship and upending strategic stability.   

As another example of this concept, multiple countries are pursuing new classes of hypersonic weapons: hypersonic boost-glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles. The United States is developing conventional-only hypersonics, while China and Russia have also deployed or continued to develop nuclear or dual-capable hypersonics. New hypersonic weapon capabilities have ignited a new arms race among nuclear-armed countries to master this technology first, as well as a drive to develop anti-hypersonic defenses. Furthermore, a 2019 study conducted by United Nations two disarmament bodies found that some countries may perceive certain types of hypersonic weapons as a strategic threat regardless of whether they are conventional- or nuclear-armed.

The new types of hypersonic weapons are but one category of numerous new and emerging technological military capabilities entering the field today and arguably adding new factors to the strategic stability calculation. A sophisticated cyber operation, depending on its intent, can wreck deleterious effects directly on a country’s nuclear weapons arsenal (e.g., nuclear-capable delivery vehicles or the command, control, and communications systems) or indirectly on the confidence and situational awareness of those who decide whether to employ nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence (AI) generates its own set of risks given the variety of applications that possess a form of cognitive capability and fall beneath the wide AI umbrella; for example, an overreliance on AI-enabled systems could prompt humans to make premature or misguided decisions, leading to armed conflict and possibly nuclear war.

All this to say, arms control must work to integrate all the new and emerging military capabilities and technologies, from nuclear to non-nuclear, capable of making waves in the nuclear realm, as well as take into consideration the various threat perceptions held by nuclear-armed countries. Given the breadth of capabilities and concerns on the table, arms control must encompass a broad range of initiatives, including not only traditional legally binding treaties but also risk reduction, crisis management, and confidence-building measures, such as establishing hotlines between high-brass military officials. Future arms control arrangements must also consider limitations or reductions across different domains (e.g., outer space, cyberspace) and different capabilities (e.g., nuclear delivery vehicles, conventional hypersonic weapons), in a style known as asymmetric arms control.

There are certainly lessons to be learned from past or expiring arms control agreements. New START, for instance, has provided an avenue to address new kinds of strategic offensives arms that might emerge after the treaty entered into force. Yet, as some experts have noted, the next arms control arrangement may aim to require a stronger, more effective new kinds of strategic offensive arms clause, such as one that applies to both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons of strategic range and automatically makes new kinds accountable to the terms of the arrangement.

Arms control at a time like this, when Russia has brandished its nuclear arsenal on multiple occasions during its war in Ukraine, becomes all the more important. Arms control can mean not only limitations on the numbers and the kinds of nuclear weapon systems but also informative data exchanges, boots-on-the-ground inspections at nuclear facilities, and crisis communication channels—all of which shed light on what a country holds in its nuclear arsenal.

The challenge presently facing the Biden administration can be described less as deciding whether arms control is worthwhile and valuable to U.S. national security interests, as it clearly is, and more as determining how to preserve, expand, and advance arms control given the differing U.S. and Russian agendas and, more notably, the despicable war waged in Ukraine by Russia.

Next Steps in U.S.-Russian Arms Control

The crucial questions at this juncture are when the United States and Russia should begin formal arms control negotiations and, relatedly, if the start of those negotiations relies on Ukraine and Russia first reaching some type of peace agreement.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Biden administration rightly paused the U.S.-Russian Strategic Stability Dialogue. Biden and Putin revived the dialogue in 2021, which then convened in July, September, and January. In the last meeting, Moscow had coopted the dialogue for its own purposes by deviating from the usual established agenda and inserting its demands for security guarantees from Washington and NATO, styled to lay the diplomatic groundwork for its invasion of Ukraine less than two months later. Thus, the bilateral dialogue is no longer a suitable place for genuine arms control discussions at this time. Plus, the dialogue, which covers topics outside of arms control, is not equivalent to a venue for formal arms control negotiations, and the latter is where Washington and Moscow must go.

Launching formal arms control negotiations on a New START replacement as Russia commits more atrocities in Ukraine will take tremendous political will. Yet, given the risks the Russian nuclear arsenal poses, it remains essential that the United States, with support from its allies and partners, engages in serious, nose-to-the-grindstone negotiations with Russia. A Russian nuclear arsenal with no limits or transparency would only heighten the risks of intended or unintended nuclear escalation and miscalculation in areas of conflict, such as Ukraine. Thus, the sooner the better that those negotiations begin.

With this recognition, by the end of 2022 at the absolute latest, there are two actions that Washington and Moscow must accomplish:

  1. The United States and Russia must launch formal bilateral negotiations on a new arms control arrangement(s) to supersede New START.
  2. Russia must end its restriction of New START on-site inspections at its nuclear facilities subject to the treaty and cooperate in the resumption of the inspections soon thereafter. However, formal arms control negotiations should not be contingent on the resumption of New START inspections.

During the formal U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations, the following should constitute the main objectives for a New START follow-on arrangement.

Central Limits

The central limits of the new arrangement should further reduce the size of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals and incorporate new nuclear weapon capabilities. New START imposes caps on ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers assigned a nuclear mission, and a new arrangement should maintain restrictions on those capabilities while adding restrictions on new ones, such as Russia’s Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo. The new arrangement should also more specifically capture intercontinental, ground-launched missiles, for although Russia’s Avangard fell under the treaty due to its pairing with a treaty-accountable delivery vehicle, future systems of this type may not necessarily be covered.

The new limit for strategic nuclear warheads should be lowered from 1,550 to 1,000. In 2013, the Obama administration determined that the U.S. nuclear arsenal could be reduced by up to one-third below the New START level without any ill effects on U.S. national security and nuclear deterrence. Although the strategic environment has changed since then with Russia’s new nuclear delivery systems and China’s expanding nuclear arsenal, so have U.S. nuclear weapon systems advanced in their abilities, meaning that the Pentagon can do more with less. Like-for-like limitations are not particularly helpful in today’s day and age, and the Pentagon’s calculation for what kind of and how many capabilities are needed to meet which threats should be reevaluated.

Furthermore, while the Pentagon projects that Beijing aims to have 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads by 2030, this is ultimately an estimation, and the Pentagon has made enormously wide-ranging projections in the past. Even so, attempts to include China in U.S.-Russian arms control have been met with only failure thus far, which is unlikely to change now. Allowing three nuclear-armed countries to go without limits on their arsenals because one would not join in arms control would be an act of sheer folly.

Lastly, at the very least, if the United States and Russia arrive in 2026 with no new arms control arrangement, the two countries must make a mutual commitment to continue adhering to the central limits of New START until such an arrangement is in place.

INF Missiles

The new arrangement should prohibit the development or limit the deployment of at least some types of missiles formerly banned by the INF Treaty. Although flawed, Russia’s proposal for a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles, plus some verification measures, can serve as a starting point.

There are various routes available. For instance, one option could be to ban all nuclear ground-launched, intermediate-range missiles, as suggested by Rose Gottemoeller, chief U.S. negotiator for New START. Another option could be to prohibit the deployment of ground-launched, intermediate-range nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles in Europe and to the west of the Ural Mountains. Any of these or other options must ensure that verification is a key component and that Russia will address the currently deployed 9M729 missiles.

The motivation to pursue a variation of the INF Treaty in the next arms control arrangement rests on the fact that neither the United States nor Russia can afford another expensive, unnecessary arms race with another class of weapon and that these weapons heighten tensions. U.S. military officials have already expressed skepticism over efforts to bring ground-launched intermediate-range missiles to the Army.

There have also emerged issues with locations to base these missiles in Europe and Asia, a challenge that the Army has acknowledged. While Army Secretary Christine Wormuth argued in May that finalizing such basing decisions do not need to be made before the development of these missiles, experts have disputed this notion, as the location of the missile will influence its range requirement.

Furthermore, a U.S. introduction of these missiles into Europe (which would require NATO’s cooperation) would serve as a provocative threat to Russia, which has stated that it will respond in kind. In such a scenario, Europe would become flooded with missiles that are not a proven military necessity and would compromise European security.

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

The new arrangement should address non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons. With an estimated 1,900 Russian tactical nuclear weapons in central storage and 100 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, these weapons are a point of interest for both countries.

Tactical nuclear weapons are understood as being designed for battlefield, or so-called limited, nuclear use and possessing shorter ranges and lower yields than strategic nuclear weapons. The thought process informing the development and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons has generally been to have a smaller, more precise nuclear weapon that is more prompt than a strategic nuclear weapon. Yet, for comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was about 15 kilotons, which would be defined as tactical today, and many modern tactical nuclear weapons have far greater yields, into the hundreds.

“No one knows if using a tactical nuclear weapon would trigger full-scale nuclear war,” wrote Nina Tannenwald, an international relations professor at Brown University, in March.

Past arms control arrangements have yet to cover tactical nuclear weapons, though it has been a longtime goal to do so.

Numerous challenges lay ahead for incorporating tactical nuclear weapons into the next U.S.-Russia arms control arrangement (e.g., mutually agreeing to definitions of relevant terms, addressing the differing numbers of tactical nuclear weapons in each arsenal, establishing a suitable verification regime, etc.). Therefore, a simple option to begin tactical nuclear arms control would be to agree to exchange detailed declarations on tactical nuclear stockpiles, including warheads in storage.

Missile Defense

The new arrangement should institute numerical limits on missile defense interceptors and launchers. Given Russian (and Chinese) longtime concerns about U.S. missile defenses, there is almost no way in which a new arms control arrangement would be reached without effective limits on U.S. missile defense systems. Despite the technical challenges, the unimpressive testing record, and the steep costs for missile defense systems, the United States has continued to pursue these capabilities and dismiss any limits on them.

The ABM Treaty, as amended in 1974, limited the United States and Russia to 100 ground-based missile interceptors deployed at one site. Such a numerical limit could be revived without any adjustment to current or future force levels. In addition, the verification regime of the new arms control arrangement could require, similar to New START, a quota for on-site visits to missile defense facilities and advance notifications before interceptor flight tests.

Missile defense systems, particularly those meant to intercept strategic threats, do not perform reliably and effectively even under the most scripted of conditions and therefore do not provide reliable protection, making it no great loss to agree to reasonable limits on those systems. Besides, the United States agreeing to limit the quantity, location, and capability of missile interceptors for a limited ballistic attack from Iran or North Korea should not impede fielding the interceptors in a sufficient number.

Verification Regime

The new arrangement should maintain an on-site inspections and verification regime, similar to that of New START. The U.S. military has repeatedly gone on the record to confirm the great value of the New START verification regime, as, for instance, the information gathered through data exchanges cannot necessarily be attained through other avenues.

Although adjustments will likely have to be made to establish the process for inspections of new kinds of nuclear delivery vehicles, these should be rather straightforward changes.

Additional Nuclear-Armed Countries

U.S.-Russian arms control does not and should not exist in a silo. Therefore, alongside the steps on a new U.S.-Russian arms control arrangement outlined above, the following actions should also be taken:

  1. The five NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states should implement various, effective risk reduction and conflict escalation management measures.

    A measure that should be implemented as soon as possible is the official establishment and the consistent use of hotlines, or direct communication channels, between both political and military leaders of different countries. Washington and Moscow established a similar deconfliction line a few days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which proved a smart move as Russian missile strikes crept closer to NATO borders. In May and October, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked to their Russian counterparts in an attempt to gain clarity on various claims and avoid miscommunication or escalation.

    Additional potential measures include delaying tests of nuclear weapon delivery systems and nuclear exercises or related activities that could be perceived as particularly provocative. Austin delayed then canceled a scheduled test of the U.S. Minuteman III ICBM in early March to guard against any worst-case assumptions. Unfortunately, the United States and NATO moved ahead with the scheduled Steadfast Noon nuclear exercise in October, while Russia proceeded with nuclear exercises in the Kaliningrad enclave in May and in the Ivanovo province in June and has just begun its annual Grom exercises.
     
  2. The United States must, if it has not already, invite China to officially establish a U.S.-Chinese strategic stability dialogue that includes arms control among its main topics for discussion. Washington must propose to design the dialogue as a venue in which to set the foundation for potential arms control in the future. This means building familiarity with each country’s arms control officials, establishing a glossary of terminology for more detailed discussions, and so on. The first session of the dialogue should not include a demand that China immediately join in U.S.-Russian arms control processes, as that would likely prompt Chinese officials to walk right back out the door. Creating an official U.S.-Chinese strategic stability dialogue is the first step in a very long potential multilateral arms control endeavor.

    In addition, the United States can consider augmenting the P5 forum—which involves senior officials from Washington, Moscow, London, Paris, and Beijing discussing their NPT obligations—to feature more formal arms control discussions and perhaps, in time, negotiations. One possibility in this venue is for China, France, and the United Kingdom to report on their total nuclear weapons holdings and freeze the size of their nuclear stockpiles so long as the United States and Russia pledge to pursue deeper verifiable reductions in their arsenals.

The top priority must be for the two countries to, at least, continue adhering to New START’s central limits until they successfully negotiate a new arrangement, although the better option would be to secure lower limits on strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems in U.S. and Russian arsenals.

From there, Washington and Moscow can tackle missiles formerly banned by the INF Treaty, tactical nuclear weapons, U.S. missile defenses, and new and emerging technologies in the space and cyber domains, in this general order.

The achievement of a U.S.-Russian arms control framework to replace New START, plus the other actions for the five NPT-recognized nuclear powers, will require unwavering political will and determination in the currently charged strategic landscape, as well as pragmatism and compromise. However, the outlined steps must be taken to guard against the outbreak of nuclear war.

History demonstrates that the benefits of bilateral arms control agreements involving the possessors of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals have consistently outweighed the costs. Now is the time to absorb lessons learned from previous arms control efforts and apply them to the negotiation of a new, effective, and more comprehensive arms control arrangement between the United States and Russia that addresses today’s current strategic and geopolitical environment, and before the existing nuclear arms control regime under New START ends. —SHANNON BUGOS, senior policy analyst

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Even while rallying the world in support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and ongoing attacks, Washington must pursue the negotiation of a new arms control arrangement to supersede New START sooner rather than later.

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A Case for More Oversight of Military Aid to Ukraine

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Volume 14, Issue 6, August 9, 2022

Even before Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States and some of its allies were providing weapons to Kyiv. In the immediate aftermath of Russia's assault, the United States and its allies rushed additional and more advanced weaponry to Ukraine to help the government fend off the Russian offensive and improve Ukraine’s bargaining position in future negotiations on an end to the war.

The United States alone has committed $9.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration. In July, the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, appealed to Congress for more weapons. “I’m asking for something now I would never want to ask. I’m asking for weapons, weapons that would not be used to wage a war on somebody else’s land, but to protect one’s home in the right to wake up alive in that home, I’m asking for air defense systems in order for rockets not to kill children in their strollers, in order for rockets not to destroy children’s rooms and kill entire families,” Zelenska said July 20.

Currently, there are no signs that Russia seeks any sort of negotiation nor that it will cease to brutally attack Ukraine. On July 24, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, blatantly admitted that Russia sought to “help the Ukrainian people to free themselves from their anti-people and anti-historical regime” during his trip to Egypt after denying that Russia sought regime change in Kyiv multiple times in the past.

Pallets of ammunition bound for Ukraine are secured onto a commercial plane during a security assistance mission at Dover Air Force Base, Del., July 21, 2022. (Photo: Air Force Senior Airman Faith Schaefer)

Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now entered its sixth month, but arming Ukraine comes with potential security risks and consequences. These risks include equipment being sold for monetary gain within or outside of Ukraine and arms entering the illegal arms market, especially after the end of the conflict as commonly happens in any conflict. At the moment, there is no evidence that weapons sent to Ukraine are getting into the wrong hands. However, Europe, Ukraine, and the United States must work to mitigate these risks. As Ukrainians valiantly fight for their country against unprovoked aggression, the United States and its partners must improve oversight mechanisms to ensure they are used for their intended purpose and prevent arms supplies from falling into the wrong hands, especially after the end of the war.

In partial recognition of these needs, the EU launched a new platform in mid-July with the inclusion of its Ukrainian and Moldovan counterparts to discuss how to prepare to tackle organized crime in connection with the war in Ukraine. EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson announced that the main subject on the agenda was illegal arms smuggling of weapons originally sent to the Ukrainian armed forces. 

“We have some indications [of this already happening], but we also know by experience that this very often happens, that firearms travel around afterward or during the war,” said Johansson despite providing little evidence that this was occurring.

On July 22, Europol stated that it was working with Ukrainian officials to reduce the risk of illegal arms trafficking into the European Union. Europol noted that it had full confidence in its Ukrainian partners as they implement new measures to mitigate these risks.

Concerns about the issue from foreign partners prompted politicians and lawmakers in Ukraine to call for and establish a special monitoring committee of their own. On July 19, the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, created a temporary oversight committee to particularly track the use and receipt of arms transferred to their country by international partners. More recently, The Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine refuted allegations about Western arms disappearing in Ukraine in a CBS News documentary titled “Arming Ukraine” by declaring that a EUCOM Control Center of Ukraine operates in Stuttgart, Germany directly oversees the provision of weapons and their use.

In addition, the Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine also announced on August 7 that Brigadier General Gerrick M. Harmon, Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché of the United States, has been put in charge of overseeing the transfer and use of these weapons by Kyiv. Overall, these and other measures will help Ukraine monitor the use of these weapons and counter Russian allegations and misinformation about lax export controls.

The Call to Arm Ukraine and The Risks

The United States and its allies have committed a wide range of weapons to Ukraine. According to the most recent fact sheet released by the Department of Defense, the U.S. has contributed hundreds of howitzers, 400,000 artillery rounds, 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 6,500 javelin anti-armor systems, loitering munitions, MANPADS, and 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and ammunition, among other weaponry.1

To facilitate these arms transfers, the Biden administration has employed rarely used legal authorities to accelerate weapons transfers to Ukraine (See ACT May 2022). In late April, U.S. officials declared an emergency under the Foreign Military Sale Program to provide Ukraine with over $165 million of ammunition. By invoking this authority, the executive branch is allowed to bypass mandatory congressional review periods before concluding the arms sale. Congress then approved the Ukraine Democracy Defend Lend-Lease Act, which removes some obstructions to providing Ukraine and other Eastern European countries with defense assistance. And, the May approval of a $40 billion emergency allocation for Ukrainian and European security contained little constraints as to how the executive branch can use these funds.

Allies have also promised—and delivered in some instances—a diverse set of sophisticated equipment. For instance, France notably sent Caesar self-propelled Howitzers, Poland signed a contract with Ukraine to deliver Krab self-propelled Howitzers among other equipment, and Canada notably delivered M777s. On top of this, countries such as Australia, the UK, Norway, Italy, and Greece pledged critically needed artillery systems and ammunition, and recently, Germany announced that Ukraine had finally received the heavy weapons that it had pledged to deliver months ago such as the first Gepard anti-aircraft vehicles and ammunitions, plus the Multiple Rocket Launchers Mars II and self-propelled Howitzers. Not to mention the thousands of small arms provided.

Along with committing a diverse set of military weaponry, the West has also been training Ukrainians to use them. This appears to be a long-term commitment and one designed to overhaul Ukraine’s weapons inventory as NATO’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, stated on June 27 that “over the longer term, we will help Ukraine transition from Soviet-era military equipment, to modern NATO equipment. And further, strengthen its defense and security institutions.”

Providing such training in the middle of a war and doing so without putting U.S. and allied combat forces on the ground in Ukraine creates training challenges. In April, the Pentagon confirmed that it would resume direct weapons training of the Ukrainian military on the howitzers, counter artillery radar systems, and other equipment as part of the assistance packages, but do so outside of Ukraine. Canada similarly confirmed that it was training Ukrainian soldiers to use M777s elsewhere in Europe. In July, London announced that up to 10,000 recruits from Ukraine would arrive in the UK for specialized military training.

Training also takes time, which must be factored into all decisions. This was notable when the Pentagon announced in June that it would be transferring the HIMARS as Russia made several advances in its attempt to take the Donbas region through its use of heavy artillery. The Pentagon stated that it would take about three weeks to teach Ukrainians how to operate these systems, and another few weeks to teach them how to maintain them. However, those tasked with maintenance would not necessarily operate them.

Throughout the conflict, concerns about escalation and its shifting dynamics have been front and center and are expected to continue. In response, the United States has set limits on certain systems like the HIMARS. On May 31, President Biden declared in an op-ed in The New York Times that the United States would “not encourage or enable Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.” The Pentagon announced that it would only provide Ukraine with munitions up to 70 km in approximate range for the HIMARS, a system that the Ukrainians had been requesting for over two months. As pointed out by the Stimson Center, this transfer may have set a significant precedent for U.S. arms transfers, for the United States had earlier only transferred the system to select partners.

Questions about the conditionality established through agreements between the United States and Ukraine regarding the use of these weapons are also likely to return. On June 1, the Pentagon declared that Ukraine had given assurances that it would not use the HIMARS to strike targets beyond its borders.

Nonetheless, when asked about the repercussions if Ukraine violates these assurances during a news conference, DoD Undersecretary for Policy, Dr. Colin Kahl replied that “they've given us their assurances that they're not going to use these systems for striking Russian territory. And we trust the Ukrainians will live up to those assurances.” On July 20, the DoD assured that the Ukrainians are effectively using the HIMARS by targeting Russian ammunition depots and have made due on their assurances.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has requested even longer-range ammunition such as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). At a recent DoD news conference, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III replied that the weaponry that Ukraine received “has really given them a lot of capability” and the decision on longer-range weapons will “be based upon how they're prosecuting this fight and what their needs are.

However, at the Aspen Security Forum in late July, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reiterated that President Biden had said that there were certain capabilities that the Biden administration was not prepared to provide. “One of them is long-range missiles, ATACMS that have a range of 300 kilometers (max range)” because of escalation concerns.Just a week later, CNN reported that House Representative Elissa Slotkin said that there was bipartisan support to provide Ukraine with ATACMS, which can strike as far as 180 miles.

Oversight Initiatives

Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, told the BBC on July 15 that the weapon smuggling narrative is part of a Russian disinformation campaign, but he also confirmed what analysts following the conflict have known and predicted for months: that a limited number of Western weapons (some next generation Light Anti-tank Weapons) have fallen into Russian hands when Ukrainian troops retreated from certain cities in the Donbas as it happens in every war. As the media has extensively noted, Ukrainian forces have also acquired Russian equipment, especially following the retreat of Russian forces from the Kyiv axis earlier in the war.

As for monitoring, Reznikov affirmed that Ukraine uses a NATO logistics and account control system in a limited but functional way and that he has invited foreign emissaries to observe. Reznikov also stated that representatives of some of Ukraine’s partners had already done this and had no questions. Additionally, Reznikov clarified that some of the weapons sent to Ukraine possess GPS trackers. This move and the creation of the temporary special commission entrusted to the Verkhovna Rada to oversee weapons transfers during martial law are good first steps toward addressing the risks of weapons transfers.

The development of arms transfer monitoring mechanisms shows that Ukraine is willing to be transparent with its Western partners and work toward the standardization of an oversight initiative.2 During the first few months of the war, such initiatives were understandably difficult to execute because of active combat and the security concerns around the transfer of these weapons.

Nonetheless, Ukraine needs not only needs to continue to be transparent with its Western partners about its use of foreign-supplied weaponry, but also with its own people. To do this, they need to continue to develop their own capacity for accountability. As we are now entering the sixth month of this brutal war and Ukrainian civil society experts have a key role to play in ensuring oversight and advising the Ukrainian government via workshops, roundtables, and/or working groups while taking into account the security concerns regarding the weapons deliveries.3

In the United States, members of Congress and many others have voiced their concerns regarding the subject and continue to do so. While Senator Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) efforts to condition the $40 billion package in May upon establishing an inspector general for its spending, the law does include requirements for the Defense Department’s inspector general to provide a report on the funds within 120 days, a report on end-use monitoring efforts within 45 days, and an unclassified report every 30 days detailing defense articles and services provided to Ukraine. Congress should pay special attention to such reports and work with Ukrainian officials as they further implement new measures to improve their capacity to absorb these weapons deliveries.

In late June, the Pentagon announced that it was considering sending weapons inspectors to Ukraine. Lawmakers have also pushed for further oversight. A June letter from the DoD Acting Inspector General to Senator Charles E Grassley (R-Iowa) reveals that the Inspector General office had partnered with Inspector General offices at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development to form a joint working group.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)In May, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a bill to establish a Special Inspector General for Ukraine to oversee the use of these funds to assist Ukraine. Just a month later, Rep. Bob Wittman (R-Va.) introduced companion legislation to Senator Kennedy’s bill in the House to introduce a special inspector to oversee how aid packages are appropriately spent. Earlier this month, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) wrote a letter to President Joe Biden requesting rigor and accountability when it came to the assistance provided to Ukraine among other allegations.

As colleagues from the Stimson center point out in Defense One, the United States should develop a plan and mechanisms to account for the weapons provided. The United States should also engage with external experts from civil society and provide detailed information about the procedures undertaken to track these weapons and ammunition stockpiles.

The possibility of arms supplies getting into the wrong hands is not unique to the military assistance that the United States is providing to Ukraine although it would not be fair to state that the case of weapons assistance to Ukraine is a replica or even compares to the case of Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet poor military equipment accountability practices are common in active combat zones. For instance, SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) reports and congressional hearings in the last decade noted poor accountability when it came to small arms deliveries in Afghanistan due to poor record keeping when they were received in Afghanistan along with other funds. Proper accountability was also an issue in Iraq. The Center for Civilians In Conflict and other organizations have also pointed out the shortcomings of U.S. monitoring practices.

It is very likely that for the foreseeable future the United States will continue to provide Ukraine with very substantial military assistance in accordance with the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces. Further oversight of the assistance provided to Ukraine can ensure the weapons are used for the intended purposes (to assist Ukrainians in the defense of their country) and are not diverted elsewhere. Transparency is the best antidote when it comes to countering attempts to ruin Ukraine’s credibility in the face of aggression, especially, when military aid from Ukraine’s partners is so crucial for Ukraine to defend its sovereign territory. Thus, every party has something to gain through enhancing transparency.—GABRIELA ROSA, research associate

 

ENDNOTES

1. For more details and a timeline of arms transfers to Ukraine, see the Forum on the Arms Trade's resource "Arms Transfers to Ukraine," https://www.forumarmstrade.org/ukrainearms.html, Accessed Aug. 9, 2022.

2. ACA Interview with anonymous Ukrainian civilian.

3. ACA Interviews with Dr. Olya Oliker (Director of Europe and Central Asia Department at the International Crisis Group) and anonymous Ukrainian civilian experts.

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For the foreseeable future, the United States will likely continue to provide Ukraine with substantial military assistance in accordance with the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces to repel the Russian offensive. Oversight of the assistance provided to Ukraine can ensure the weapons are used for the intended purposes and not diverted elsewhere, especially after the conflict.

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The Last Chance to Restore Compliance with the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal

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Volume 14, Issue 5, July 13, 2022

After a three-month stalemate, indirect talks between the United States and Iran over restoring compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), resumed in Doha June 28. Rather than producing a breakthrough and de-escalating tensions, the two days of talks underscored that the inflexibility of the U.S. and Iranian positions on issues extraneous to the JCPOA continue to jeopardize efforts to restore mutual compliance with the original 2015 nuclear deal.

Given the intransigence on both sides and the growing proliferation risk posed by advances in Iran’s nuclear program, it is increasingly likely that efforts to restore the JCPOA will soon collapse—unless Washington and Tehran are willing to be more creative and flexible in bridging the remaining gaps that stand in the way of an agreement to resurrect the nuclear deal.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell directly emphasized the urgency of the current situation when he tweeted July 5 that “decisions are needed now” if the parties want an agreement to restore the JCPOA. He warned that the political space to revive the nuclear deal “may narrow soon.”

Despite Borrell’s warning, no further talks are scheduled, and the United States and Iran continue to point fingers over who is to blame for the impasse.

U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley described the round of negotiations as “a wasted occasion” in a July 5 interview with NPR and noted that Iran came to Doha with added demands that have “nothing to do with the nuclear deal.” According to Malley, the EU, which is mediating between the United States and Iran, “put on the table a very detailed outline of what they think a fair outcome would be” and the United States is “prepared to take that deal,” but Iran “has not said yes.” Malley went on to say the Biden administration assesses that Tehran needs to “come to a conclusion about whether there are now prepared to come back into compliance with the deal.”

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks in May to Iran’s first international event on privatization. (Photo credit: Iranian government website)

Iran’s attempt to reopen old issues may appear to support the assessment that Tehran is uninterested in a deal or stalling to further build leverage—but this is a tactic Tehran has used in negotiations in the past. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said July 5 that Tehran is pursuing “no claims that go beyond the JCPOA” and is “determined to seek a good, strong and lasting accord,” suggesting that Iran is still interested in a deal to restore the JCPOA.    

But time is not on Iran’s side if it hopes to string out talks to increase its leverage and extract more from the United States. Nor is it on the side of the Biden administration if it attempts to wait Iran out.

Both Tehran and Washington must seize the moment now to find a creative approach to address the outstanding issues in the talks, namely Iran’s demand to lift sanctions designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization and for guaranteed economic benefits.

Iran’s advancing nuclear program confirms Borrell’s assessment that Washington and Tehran must act with greater urgency to address these issues and restore the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran is closer now to a nuclear bomb than it has been at any point in its history and is subject to the bare minimum of monitoring. At this point, there is no guarantee that the international community could quickly detect an attempt by Iran to amass enough fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon.

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But even if Iran demonstrates restraint—which it so far has been unwilling to do— and takes no new steps to expand its nuclear activities, the current trajectory of its program and the reduction in monitoring will threaten efforts to restore the JCPOA and increase proliferation risk. If the Biden administration lets the door close on reviving the JCPOA, it has no good alternatives for effectively and verifiably reducing the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program.

At that point, the best possible outcome would be for the Biden and Raisi administrations to take actions to deescalate tensions and stabilize the current crisis, which would build up time to negotiate an interim deal. Even this approach would be very difficult and time consuming to negotiate, is fraught with risk, and would be subject to spoilers, further highlighting the critical necessity for a last-ditch effort to restore the JCPOA before it is too late.

Breakout on the Brink

Iran’s ongoing and accelerating violations of the JCPOA are heightening proliferation risk and decreasing the window for restoring the nuclear deal. The impacts generally fall into three categories: reduction in breakout time (the time it would take to produce enough weapons-grade nuclear material for one bomb), irreversible research and development, and decreased transparency.

The reduction in Iran’s breakout time—from more than 12 months when the JCPOA was fully implemented to less than 10 days as of early June 2022—poses the most significant short-term proliferation risk. If Tehran decided to dash for a bomb, the 10-day timeframe would allow Iran to attempt to break out between IAEA inspections, which currently occur on roughly a weekly basis, and transfer its weapons-grade uranium to a covert site to complete the weaponization process. Building a bomb would likely take another 1-2 years but that process would be more difficult to detect and disrupt, which is why the United States has historically focused on ensuring that Iran could not quickly produce the nuclear material for a weapon and negotiated limits that produced a breakout time under the JCPOA (12 months for more than a decade) that would create ample time for the international community to respond to any attempt by Iran to move toward a nuclear weapon.

The precipitous drop in breakout since 2019, when Iran began to breach its obligations in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA a year earlier, is due to several factors. Most notably, Iran began ratcheting up enrichment to 60 percent uranium-235 in April 2021, a level just shy of the 90 percent considered weapons-grade, and can now enrich uranium more efficiently than it could in the pre-JCPOA period due to its development, installation, and use of more advanced centrifuge machines.

As of the May 30 IAEA report, Iran had produced an estimated 43.3 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Iran claims 60 percent enriched uranium is necessary for research reactor fuel and a future submarine program, but there is no legitimate civil justification for Tehran to be taking this step—no other non-nuclear weapon state enriches to this level. Now, having produced more than 40 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, Tehran could use that stockpile of material exclusively as feed to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb, or about 25 kilograms of uranium enriched to 90 percent.

Iran’s enrichment capacity is also nearly three times what was permitted by the JCPOA, which limited Iran to enriching uranium with 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges and strictly regulated the testing of advanced centrifuge machines. As of the May 30 IAEA report, Iran has installed an additional 1,000 IR-1 centrifuges at its enrichment facility at Natanz, as well as about 1,000 IR-2 centrifuges and about 500 IR-4 centrifuges. Iran also has plans to install 1,000 IR-6 centrifuges, distributed between the Natanz and Fordow sites, about 500 of which were installed as of the May 30 report.

Even more concerning is the fact that Iran notified the IAEA July 9 that a cascade of IR-6 centrifuges installed at Fordow is configured in a way that allows Iran to switch enrichment levels more quickly. While Iran informed the IAEA that the planned enrichment level is 20 percent, that could change if Tehran seeks to build further leverage. That this activity is taking place at Fordow, a facility buried deeply into the mountains near Qom, will likely be even more concerning to U.S. policymakers as it would be difficult, if not impossible, to destroy or damage the site with a conventional military strike.

As a result of these advances, Iran could produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb (25 kilograms of 90-percent enriched uranium) in less than 10 days. The Biden administration confirmed the risk posed by this shortened timeframe when U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley testified May 25 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran “could potentially produce enough fuel for a bomb before we can know it, let alone stop it.”

Restoring the JCPOA’s limitations will not push the breakout back to 12 months, as Iran’s irreversible knowledge gains have eroded that timeframe. However, the JCPOA’s limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program will have an immediate impact of increasing the breakout to an estimated six months through at least 2030, alleviating the heightened risk of an undetected breakout and giving the international community adequate time to respond to any move toward a bomb.

While breakout poses the most significant and immediate proliferation risk, it is not currently a driving factor in the Biden administration’s calculations regarding the viability of a restored JCPOA. Nor does Iran’s crossing the threshold of undetectable breakout appear to be spurring any urgency toward reaching an agreement.

In late 2021, undetectable breakout appeared to be a red line for the United States. Now, however, the Biden administration appears willing to tolerate this increased risk level in the short term, or at least as long as restoring the JCPOA remains a viable option. This may be because while breakout can be useful in measuring the time it would take for Iran to produce weapons-grade material, it does have limitations in measuring threat. Breakout relies on worst-case scenario calculations and assumptions, and more importantly, it does not take into account intent. The Biden administration may feel more confident that the risk posed by a short breakout can be managed if they believe that national technical intelligence means would be sure to detect a breakout, even if it occurs between IAEA inspections, and/or they feel confident that Iran has not, and likely will not, decide to build a nuclear weapon. Iran’s continued rhetoric in support of a deal to restore the JCPOA suggests that Tehran still concludes the costs of pursuing nuclear weapons outweigh the benefits.

In the longer term, particularly if restoring the JCPOA is no longer a viable option, such a short breakout could be destabilizing and increase the risk of conflict. A sudden decision by Iran to pursue the bomb, a new government in Israel that views the short breakout time as a more imminent threat, or faulty intelligence assessments could all push the United States to use force. Even if Iran does not undertake new nuclear activities, given the short breakout time, leaders in Washington may assess at some point that military options are the only means to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. While that could increase breakout in the short term, Iran would likely respond, as it has in the past, by ratcheting up its nuclear activities even further. At worst, it could push Tehran to assess that covertly or openly pursuing nuclear weapons is the best option to prevent further attack by the United States or Israel.

Irreversible Research and Development

While the shorter breakout timeline does not appear to be driving the Biden administration’s current calculus regarding the window of opportunity for restoring the JCPOA, Iran’s research and development activities may drive the United States to reassess the value of the JCPOA, as the irreversible knowledge that Iran gains from these activities will continue to decrease the nonproliferation benefits of the accord.

After EU lead negotiator Enrique Mora visited Tehran in early May to encourage progress on restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Saeed Khatibzadeh, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said his government had introduced special initiatives and proposals and it was time for the United States to act.  (Photo: Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA)Iran’s initial violations of the JCPOA were carefully calibrated to pressure the remaining parties to the deal to deliver on the relief envisioned under the accord after the United States withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions. These early breaches, which began a year after Trump pulled out of the accord, consisted of activities that Tehran had undertaken before the JCPOA’s implementation—actions that could quickly be reversed and posed no new challenge to the JCPOA’s nonproliferation benefits. These actions included enriching to 5 percent uranium-235, slightly above the 3.67 percent limit established by the JCPOA but below the 20 percent Iran had produced before 2013. Iran also breached the stockpile cap of 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to 3.67 percent—a clear violation of the deal, but one easily rectified by shipping out or blending down excess stocks.

Iran’s breaches, however, have grown more serious and more difficult to reverse as Tehran has taken increasingly drastic steps in an attempt to increase its leverage and to respond to attacks against its nuclear facilities and assassinations of its scientists, acts which Israel has often claimed credit for.

For instance, after the November 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a nuclear scientist deeply involved with Iran’s pre-2003 organized nuclear weapons program, Iran passed a law requiring the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to take certain steps to expand its nuclear program. While some of the required steps, such as resuming 20 percent enrichment, were activities Iran had undertaken before the JCPOA’s negotiation, most of the required actions broke new ground and resulted in the acquisition of irreversible knowledge. The law, for instance, required Iran to install and operate 1,000 IR-2 and IR-6 centrifuges, which are much more efficient models that Iran had little to no experience using for large-scale enrichment before the JCPOA’s negotiation. As a result, Tehran has gained knowledge that cannot be reversed about the production and operation of these more advanced machines.

The law also required Iran to begin work on a facility to produce uranium metal. While the IAEA has confirmed that Iran completed the installation of the equipment necessary for the first stage of metal production but is not operating it, the AEOI did begin laboratory experiments that resulted in small quantities of uranium metal. Iran claims this work is necessary to develop fuel for its reactors, but uranium metal is also directly relevant to nuclear weapons development. While Iran conducted uranium metal experiments as part of its pre-2003 nuclear weapons program, it does not appear to have mastered the capability nor did it have such a facility when the JCPOA was implemented, as the deal prohibited uranium metal work for 15 years.

Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have raised particular concern about Iran’s uranium metal work and its potential impact on JCPOA restoration. In a June 7 statement, the three countries said that uranium metal “is a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon” and the “more Iran is advancing and accumulating knowledge with irreversible consequences, the more difficult it is to come back to the JCPOA.” The E3 warned that “it is essential that Iran does not resume these activities or commence any further work.”

Iran’s decision to enrich uranium to 60 percent in response to an act of sabotage at its Natanz site also broke new ground. After testing several configurations for 60 percent production, Iran appears to have settled on a particular uranium enrichment process, suggesting that it is mastering this new enrichment level, which is dangerously close to weapons-grade levels (greater than 90 percent uranium-235).

To date, the Biden administration appears to assess that the knowledge Iran has gained from these new research activities can be managed under a restored JCPOA and the deal’s nonproliferation benefits of the accord remain strong.

However, given that Iran appears intent on continuing to build leverage, it is likely that Tehran’s research and development activities will expand over the coming months. But the reduced transparency and the undetectable breakout timeframe give Tehran little room to maneuver. There is an increasing likelihood that Iran’s quest for leverage will lead Tehran to take steps that render the JCPOA’s nonproliferation benefits beyond repair or, at worst, trigger a military response. Vague and contradictory statements that the Biden administration has made about its red lines for military action against Iran’s nuclear program and upcoming elections in Israel increase the risk of Iranian miscalculation.

For instance, some officials within the Raisi administration are pushing to begin enrichment to 90 percent, a move that the U.S. intelligence community warned that Iran will consider if it does not receive sanctions relief in its 2022 Worldwide Threat Assessment. While the Raisi administration may view this step as just another means of increasing its negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the United States, even a small-scale effort to produce 90 percent would result in new knowledge for Iran that would likely kill any prospect of restoring the accord.

Furthermore, given the immediacy of the risk posed by enriching to 90 percent, such a step would significantly increase the likelihood that the United States and/or Israel assess that Tehran intends to pursue nuclear weapons, in turn triggering the use of military force to prevent Iran from accumulating enough bomb-grade uranium material for a weapon.

There are other actions, short of enriching to 90 percent, that Iran could take which are less likely to prompt a military response but would jeopardize the nonproliferation value of a restored JCPOA. Experimenting with more efficient centrifuges and different cascade designs would further erode breakout under a restored JCPOA. Another such action might be using 20 percent or 60 percent enriched material as feed for centrifuges, even if Iran does not withdraw the enriched uranium product.

If Tehran does not show restraint and continues to pursue new capabilities, the Biden administration will have to take these advances into account when determining if restoring compliance with the JCPOA will still provide nonproliferation benefits that address U.S. security concerns and are equal to the sanctions relief Iran would receive under the deal. Washington and its JCPOA partners will also need to determine what steps Iran may need to take to mitigate the proliferation potential of these capabilities, prolonging negotiations to restore the accord and the risk of spoilers disrupting those efforts.

Bare Minimum of Monitoring

Iran’s reductions in monitoring and transparency further complicate efforts to assess the impact of Iran’s research and development activities, detect breakout, and maintain an accurate record of Iran’s nuclear activities—a history that will be necessary to reimplement the JCPOA.

Iran has announced it is accumulating uranium enriched by more advanced technology, including these IR-4 centrifuges.  (Photo: Atomic Energy Organization of Iran)The monitoring regime established by the JCPOA is the most intrusive ever negotiated. Iran has always been legally required as a party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to implement a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) with the IAEA, which gives inspectors access to facilities where nuclear materials are present to ensure that Iran’s declared nuclear activities are peaceful and must continue to implement that agreement regardless of the JCPOA’s future. CSAs, however, have proven inadequate in preventing states from conducting illicit nuclear activities, underscoring the importance of the JCPOA’s additional monitoring provisions, particularly for a country like Iran that violated its legally binding NPT commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons in the past.

The JCPOA builds on the legally required CSA by requiring Iran to implement an additional protocol (AP) to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which gives IAEA inspectors access to more information about a country’s nuclear activities and to any facility that is part of the program. Under an AP, for instance, inspectors can access centrifuge production facilities, which are not included under a CSA because there is no nuclear material present. The JCPOA also requires continuous surveillance of key sites, real-time monitoring of enrichment levels, and daily access to enrichment facilities.

Furthermore, the Joint Commission, the body established to oversee the implementation of the JCPOA, can vote by a majority to require Tehran to allow the IAEA access to any site in Iran to investigate evidence of undeclared nuclear materials and activities within a set time frame (JCPOA, Annex I, Section Q). This is designed to prevent Iran from stalling IAEA investigations, as it has in the past.

As a result of Iran’s JCPOA breaches, only the CSA currently remains in place. After Iran announced it would stop implementing its AP and other JCPOA-specific monitoring measures in February 2021, Tehran and the agency reached an agreement whereby IAEA cameras would continue to collect data during the period of reduced agency access that would be handed over to inspectors if the JCPOA was restored. The data collected would allow the IAEA to reconstruct a history of Iran’s nuclear activities and maintain its continuity of knowledge about Tehran’s actions, which would provide a baseline for monitoring a restored JCPOA.

Iran, however, announced June 9 that it was disconnecting 27 of the IAEA’s cameras that were critical to maintaining continuity of knowledge. While Tehran does not appear to have destroyed the data collected to that point, the gap in the monitoring of even a few weeks will have significant consequences. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi described Iran’s decision as dealing a “fatal blow” to efforts to restore the JCPOA within 3-4 weeks. While that period has now passed, and the Biden administration assesses that continuity of knowledge can be restored after a longer period of reduced visibility, the gap will certainly cause significant challenges, both politically and from a verification perspective.

The lack of adequate international monitoring and transparency increases the risk that Iran could break out undetected or move equipment and materials for a covert program to an undeclared site. It would be time-consuming and difficult—if not impossible—for the IAEA to reconstruct history and definitively determine that Iran had not taken such steps if the JCPOA is restored.

As Germany, France, and the United Kingdom noted in a June 9 statement, Iran’s decision to remove the cameras “will only aggravate the situation and complicate our efforts to restore full implementation of the JCPOA.” The decision also casts “further doubt on Iran’s commitment to a successful outcome.”

Even if the IAEA can account for Iran’s activities, the gap will fuel speculation that Iran engaged in illicit actions during the period of reduced monitoring. Whether there is evidence to support this conclusion or not, it risks undermining the sustainability of JCPOA.

In addition to the challenges, this poses for quick detection of illicit activities and/or diversion, the reduction in monitoring will complicate efforts to restore the JCPOA and garner the necessary political support in the United States to sustain the accord.

In his June 9 news conference, Grossi raised concerns about being able to reestablish a baseline to accurately verify compliance with a restored JCPOA. When the JCPOA was first implemented, Iran had to provide the IAEA with certain access and information before receiving any sanctions relief. This allowed the IAEA to establish a baseline against which to verify Iran’s JCPOA commitments. A similar process would likely be included in a deal to restore the JCPOA.

If Iran delays or stalls on that process, or if the IAEA is unable to establish such a baseline, it could prove challenging to verify the deal and for the Biden administration to certify to Congress that the IAEA has the capacity to monitor the deal—an assessment that will have to be submitted within five days of an agreement to restore the deal being reached as required by the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. Depending on the sequence of actions that Iran must take, the United States may need to submit the verification assessment before the IAEA can determine if such a baseline can be reestablished and if Iran will provide the information necessary to do so. This could undermine support for the JCPOA in Congress before the agreement could be restored.

The JCPOA Remains the Best Option

If Iran’s advancing nuclear program is not prompting the Biden administration to act with greater urgency to close a deal to restore the JCPOA, the lack of viable alternative options for reducing Iran’s nuclear risk should.

The Biden administration is already previewing its approach for countering Iran if talks to restore the JCPOA should fail: increasing sanctions pressure and diplomatic isolation to push Iran back to negotiations; shoring up military defenses in the region; and threatening military action if necessary to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

This playbook worked for the United States in the past when the Iranian nuclear program was far less advanced and before the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA. The Obama administration spearheaded a campaign to shore up international support for UN and US sanctions, including from China and Russia, countries that are outspoken against sanctions overreach, a particularly unilateral measure which they describe as an infringement of sovereignty. The Obama administration paired this pressure campaign with credible offers for diplomatic negotiations that ultimately produced the JCPOA.

However, it is very unlikely that the Biden administration would be able to reconstitute the same level of support for sanctions that it did in the lead-up to the negotiations on the JCPOA in 2013.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions targeting Moscow have only reinforced opposition to these measures in Russia and China. The current global energy crisis, as well as the perception that the United States caused the current nuclear crisis with Iran by withdrawing from the deal without cause in May 2018, will make it more difficult to build global support for sanctions and likely give Tehran more willing partners in its attempts to evade sanctions. Even France raised the need to explore the possibility of using Iranian oil to stem rising prices and meet global demand in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine squeezing the energy market.

It is also extremely unlikely that the Security Council will take any action on Iran, even if the IAEA Board of Governors refers Iran to that body for failing to meet its safeguards obligations (the IAEA is investigating undeclared nuclear materials from the pre-2003 period) or for engaging in new, undeclared nuclear activities. Absent convincing evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, a Russian or Chinese veto is almost certain.

France or the United Kingdom could attempt to use the sanctions “snapback” mechanism in Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA, to force the reimposition of Security Council sanctions that were modified when the JCPOA was implemented in January 2016. But that move, which cannot be vetoed, will be more difficult after the Trump administration attempted snapback in September 2020 without any legal standing to do so. The Europeans may also be reluctant to take such as step, given that it would likely spark further divisions between the states party to the JCPOA.

Given the challenges of reconstituting international support for sanctions, it will be a long and arduous process for the United States and its partners to build enough pressure so that Iran determines negotiations and restraint are in its best interest. During that time, Iran will also have had the opportunity to continue expanding its nuclear program—which it can do much more quickly—giving Iran more leverage in future negotiations. Iran could use its new capabilities, such as higher-level enrichment and advanced centrifuge development, to bargain for more concessions in future talks. Having to take these capabilities into account in a future accord could result in the United States giving up more to reach an agreement as effective as the JCPOA.

While Iran’s short-term escalation dominance could give it an upper hand in any new negotiations, Tehran’s expanding nuclear program also increases the risk of the United States and/or Israel resorting to military force to reduce the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Israel’s ongoing efforts to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities and assassinate nuclear scientists suggest that kinetic action to try and roll back the program will continue. Biden, like his predecessors, has also made clear that the United States will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, implying that Washington will use force, if necessary, to achieve that goal.

Iran’s ability to break out undetected and its apparent determination to continue upping the pressure on the United States by expanding its nuclear activities significantly increase the likelihood that Tehran miscalculates in expanding its nuclear program and crosses a U.S. and/or Israeli red line.

While a military strike may set back Iran’s nuclear program in the short term, it is far more likely to drive Tehran to further harden its nuclear facilities against an attack and expand its nuclear program, as it has in the past in response to acts of sabotage. An attack will also fuel the arguments of policymakers in Tehran that favor pursuing nuclear weapons and that withdrawing from the NPT and building a nuclear deterrent is the only way to thwart future attacks. Even if an attack is successful in the short term, the United States could, at worse, face a full-blown war with Iran and the prospect of Tehran openly pursuing nuclear weapons, or, at best, driving further nuclear advances that it will have to contend with in any future negotiations.

An unrestrained Iranian nuclear program could also lead to further proliferation challenges in the region that the United States is ill-equipped to address. Saudi Arabia has openly threatened to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran’s nuclear program is not limited. Riyadh has thus far refused to negotiate new safeguards with the IAEA, despite its intention to expand its civil nuclear program and the fact that its current IAEA monitoring regime is based on an outdated protocol deemed insufficient by the agency and foreswear developing enrichment and reprocessing capabilities in its nuclear cooperation negotiations with the United States. Satellite imagery also suggests that Saudi Arabia is pursuing its own ballistic missile production capabilities, which would give it the means to deliver nuclear weapons.

If Saudi Arabia follows through on its threats or attempts to build a nuclear hedging capacity that preserves its option to move quickly for a bomb in the future, the typical tools of statecraft that the United States relies on for countering proliferation will likely be inadequate. It will be more challenging to sanction Saudi Arabia, given its military relationship with the United States and its oil reserves, and to diplomatically isolate it.

If a restored JCPOA is no longer on the table, the best of this list of bad options would be for the United States and Iran to negotiate an interim deal after first agreeing to a set of de-escalatory steps to stabilize the current situation. Since negotiating even an interim deal would itself be a time-consuming, complex undertaking that could be threatened by spoilers, it would behoove each side to take voluntary steps to build time for diplomacy and avert the risk of war.

On the Iranian side, Tehran should consider steps that would increase transparency and give IAEA inspectors greater access to the country’s nuclear program. Greater transparency would provide more assurance that Tehran does not intend to pursue nuclear weapons and that moves in that direction would be quickly detected. Even if Iran continues to try and build pressure by further expanding its nuclear program or engaging in new nuclear activities, an increase in transparency and monitoring would reduce the proliferation risk that these activities pose. It would ideally prevent a precipitous move to use military force based on bad intelligence that was suggesting a dash to a bomb and provide a better baseline for implementing any future deal.

In return, the United States and its P4+1 partners could include limited sanctions relief that targets humanitarian sectors in Iran and/or unfreeze a limited amount of Iranian assets held abroad for those purposes. That could provide Iran with an infusion of cash to address the worsening economic crisis in the country.

Actions along these lines would allow both sides to retain their most significant leverage and demonstrate a commitment to a peaceful resolution and prevention of war. Stabilizing the current situation would also create time for a new diplomatic foray that could focus first on negotiating an interim deal that halts and rolls back Iran’s more proliferation sensitive activities, such as enrichment to 60 percent, freezes the development and installation of further advanced centrifuges, and prohibits new research activities. In return, Iran could receive commensurate sanctions relief.

Ideally, by reducing the immediacy of the proliferation risk and building confidence in the diplomatic process, an interim deal would create the time and space to negotiate a new agreement along the lines of the JCPOA that considers Iran’s nuclear advances and Tehran’s legitimate concerns about the performance of sanctions relief.

Diplomacy With Iran Worth a Political Price

While critics of the JCPOA may applaud Biden for walking away from the JCPOA rather than removing the IRGC from the foreign terrorist organization list, he will pay a far higher price for allowing the opportunity to restore intrusive monitoring and strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program slip by. If Biden cannot find the flexibility to remove the symbolic designation that has failed to reign in the IRGC’s destabilizing regional activities, his administration must put forward additional practical, realistic solutions to address the current impasse. If Biden loses this opportunity and does not move quickly to stabilize the current situation and build time for new negotiations, he risks going down in history as the president that allowed Iran to get to the brink of a bomb or the president that went to war to stop it.

Just as it is critical for the Biden administration to demonstrate creativity and flexibility, Iran must also show some flexibility and some restraint. Iran has hinted that it has relaxed its demands on the IRGC issue, but has failed to articulate clearly what it wants instead, and continues to put unrealistic demands on the table, such as a U.S. guarantee that Washington will honor an agreement post-Biden and the IAEA dropping its safeguards investigation into undeclared nuclear activities and materials from pre-2003. Tehran’s adamance in expanding its nuclear program and reducing transparency, despite the heightened proliferation risk, further jeopardizes the accord and increases the risk that Iran miscalculates, and tensions escalate to military action. Neither side wins if talks to restore the JCPOA collapse.

The JCPOA is a proven and effective strategy that verifiably blocks Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons. If fully implemented, it is the swiftest, most effective way to roll back Iran’s nuclear activities, put its program under a microscope, and provide Tehran with the sanctions relief necessary to revive its flagging economy. The United States and Iran must agree to return to talks and hammer out a path forward for restoring the JCPOA before it is too late.--KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy

Description: 

Resumed talks between the United States and Iran over restoring compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last month underscored the inflexibility of the U.S. and Iranian positions on issues extraneous to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

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The Final Push for U.S. Chemical Weapons Demilitarization

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Volume 14, Issue 4, March 14, 2022

For more than a century, chemical weapons have been recognized as one of the most horrific, inhumane, and militarily dubious instruments of war. These realities led to nearly universal support for the ratification and entry into force of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC), including support from Russia and the United States—which were at that time the possessors of the world’s two largest chemical weapon arsenals.

Negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the CWC prohibits all signatories from developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, or retaining chemical weapons. It also bans the direct or indirect transfer of chemical weapons, and the assisting, encouraging, or inducing of other states to engage in CWC-prohibited activity. Since its ratification, the main mission of the CWC has been the verified and irreversible destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles.

Photographed on Nov. 23, 2021, palletized 105mm projectiles at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant await eventual destruction outside of the explosive containment room in the Enhanced Reconfiguration Building. (Photo credit: PEO ACWA)When the United States ratified the CWC on April 25th, 1997, it accepted the treaty mandate to eliminate its chemical weapons stockpile and related facilities completely and verifiably by April 29, 2007, with the possibility of a five-year extension until 2012.

But both the 2007 and 2012 deadlines proved to be severe underestimates of the time and effort needed to safely demilitarize all nine declared U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles. The United States requested and received two additional deadline extensions from the international chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Now, the United States is pushing hard to finish destroying the last vestiges of its once-massive Cold War-era chemical weapons stockpile by Sept. 30, 2023.1

Current Status of the U.S. Chemical Demilitarization Effort

Despite the delays in its campaign to eliminate chemical weapons, the United States has achieved tremendous progress toward the destruction of its massive and highly toxic chemical weapons arsenal. According to the OPCW’s annual report for 2022, the OPCW confirmed that the United States has verifiably destroyed a total of 26,606.252 metric tons of priority Category 1 chemical weapons, which is 95.81% of the total U.S. declared stockpile.2 The United States has destroyed all of its Category 2 chemical weapons, such as phosgene, and Category 3 weapons, including unfilled munitions, devices, and equipment designed specifically to employ chemical weapons.

As of March 2022, 418.4 metric tons of mustard agent remain at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Colorado and just under 300 metric tons of VX nerve agent are left to be destroyed at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant in Kentucky.3

With only a year and a half left to finish its chemical weapons demilitarization mission - an effort started nearly 40 years ago – the United States government must commit the necessary resources and funding to ensure it meets its treaty-mandated deadline of Sept. 30, 2023.

Congressional authorization of sufficient funding for chemical agents and munitions destruction this year will help ensure the work is done on time and according to stringent safety and environmental standards. Congress and the Biden administration must prioritize finally finishing destruction activities to maintain our standing as a dependable and influential member of the international disarmament community.

The Fiscal Year 2022 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, introduced to the House in July 2021, set aside $1,094,352,000 for the Army to make the final push in the chemical agents and munitions destruction mission.4 Of the total amount proposed, $995,011,000 is designated for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, the Army organization that oversees operations at the last two U.S. chemical weapons destruction facilities in Colorado and Kentucky. The remaining sum is distributed amongst operations/maintenance and the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP).

By the end of this fiscal year, the United States will have spent more than $41.7 billion (adjusted for inflation) since 1986 on chemical weapons stockpile elimination efforts.5

Why It Is Vital to Meet the 2023 Deadline

As a leader in upholding the norm against the possession and use of chemical weapons, the United States owes it to our international partners, and our local communities, to demonstrate our commitment to ridding the world of these inhumane weapons once and for all by meeting the 2023 stockpile elimination deadline.

U.S. credibility and leadership are on the line. Countries such as Russia and Iran have attempted to use the United States missed chemical weapons destruction deadlines to discredit U.S. commitment to the CWC, at a critical time in which the United States seeks to have a leadership role in holding countries like Syria and Russia accountable for their failure to comply with the CWC.

During a June 30, 2021, public meeting of the Colorado Citizens’ Advisory Commission, U.S. National Authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention and acting Deputy Secretary Assistant at the State Department, Laura Gross, emphasized the diplomatic importance of completing stockpile elimination.

“From our perspective at the State Department, we want to be able to […] demonstrate the commitment that the United States has against the use of chemical weapons,” Gross said. “That’s why it’s so important to be able to maintain that commitment to the timeline […] because we have adversaries in Russia, China, Iran, and Syria, who are using or developing chemical weapons for potential use, and we really want to be working at the OPCW to deter them.”

“We don’t want these countries to have the opportunity to use potential delays against us,” Gross added later in the meeting.

Domestically, the U.S. government owes it to the communities surrounding chemical weapons stockpiles and destruction facilities to finally finish eliminating these dangerous weapons. For well over 50 years, at least 9 states have had to deal with the health and environmental risks that come with the storage and destruction of chemical munitions and agents.

While U.S. President Joe Biden has not publicly commented on the importance of meeting the 2023 deadline, other government officials including Dr. Brandi Vann, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense, and the newly appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Threat Reduction and Arms Control, Kingston Reif, have reiterated the United States’ commitment to meeting the deadline.6

History of the U.S. Chemical Weapons Demilitarization

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union amassed enormous stockpiles of these dangerous weapons: by 1990, the United States had 31,500 U.S. tons (63,000,000 pounds) of chemical agents, and the Soviet Union had 39,967 metric tons (88,112,152 pounds).7 Highly toxic nerve agents, such as sarin, are lethal at as little as 100 mg.

The United States’ effort to eliminate its massive chemical weapons arsenal began before the end of the Cold War and well before the entry into force of the CWC in 1997. In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-145, which called for the safe destruction of the United States’ stockpile of nonbinary lethal chemical agents and related facilities by Sept. 30, 1994.8

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Russia and the United States held several rounds of talks on chemical weapons disarmament and signed the 1990 Bilateral Destruction Agreement. However, faced with internal funding issues, Russia did not begin stockpile destruction efforts until 2000.9 The 1986 Congressional decision to begin stockpile destruction without reciprocal action by Russia demonstrated early on the United States’ commitment to chemical weapons disarmament.

Under this new congressional mandate, the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) (which was later renamed Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) in 1992) began construction of the Johnston Atoll prototype high-temperature incineration facility in 1988. Originally, the Army planned to build three centralized incinerators at 3 chemical weapons stockpile depots – one on Johnston Atoll, one in Utah, and one in either Alabama or Arkansas – and transport chemical weapons from the other 6 stockpile locations for destruction.10

However, the transport of these dangerous weapons was highly contentious and was later outright banned by Congress (50 U.S. Code 1512a, 1994). Instead of three centralized incinerators, the Army announced in 1988 that it would build 8 disposal facilities at each of the 8 chemical munition storage sites on the continental United States.11,12 In September of that same year, Congress extended the deadline to eliminate the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile to April 30, 1997, as the new approach was going to take far more time, planning, and resources.13

After multiple mechanical problems and several rounds of testing, the Johnston Atoll facility began burning agents in 1990 that had been previously stored by the U.S. military in Okinawa and Germany. These chemical munitions had been secretly relocated to Johnston Atoll in the 70s and 90s respectively.14 Construction for the second incineration facility began in Tooele, Utah in 1989.

As the U.S. chemical weapons demilitarization process got underway, civil society organizations including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Chemical Weapons Working Group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, as well as Native American communities and local grassroots organizations, were actively researching and raising serious concerns about the impact of incineration of chemical warfare agents on the environment and the health of local communities.

The U.S. Army released a draft environmental impact statement in 1990 that concluded the incineration process would have a minimal environmental impact, and the commander of the U.S. demilitarization program, Colonel Walter Busbee, said that fears about pollution were overblown.15

Despite the promises from the Army, sites for incineration facilities were beset by litigation and protests over environmental and public health concerns regarding the danger of potential leakages and emissions during incineration. The Environmental Protection Agency fined the Army for a nerve agent stack release in March 1994, a group of civil society organizations sued the Army in June 2000 over the potential release of MC-1 Sarin nerve gas during the processing of a bomb, and the Pine Bluff citizens’ group filed an appeal with the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission in September 2000 over whether future emissions would constitute as “pollution” under Arkansas law.

Throughout the 1990s, citizen activists and non-governmental research organizations continued to press the government to investigate and pursue alternatives to incineration. Preceding the construction of each U.S. incineration destruction facility were lengthy public hearings and environmental impact reports.

As early as June 1990, the U.S. Army confirmed that it expected to miss the 1997 deadline set by Congress. A GAO report attributed the expected delay to “(a) stringent environmental regulation of the operation of the first U.S. continental incineration plant, (b) program budget cuts, and (c) operational delays in testing the first disposal plant on Johnston Atoll.”16

By 1991, Congress pushed back the deadline for U.S. chemical weapons stockpile elimination further. During a December 1991 testimony in front of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Susan Livingstone, said, “I wish to state candidly that schedule will not be a primary driver for this program. We have always stated that safety is the paramount consideration in making decisions for this program.”17 Construction of additional incineration facilities began in Anniston, Alabama in 1991, Umatilla, Oregon in 1996, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 2002.

The concerns of communities surrounding chemical weapons destruction sites were echoed by key members of Congress. As part of the Senate resolution on advice and consent for ratification of the CWC, policymakers included a set of conditions, including a mandate that the president and the Army explore alternative, non-incineration technologies for the destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile “to ensure that the United States has the safest, most effective and environmentally sound plans for programs for meeting its obligations under the Convention for the destruction of chemical weapons.”18

Per the Congressional conditions, the U.S. Army’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program was established to investigate and test alternative methods to baseline incineration to dispose of chemical weapons. In 2001, the Army announced that six alternative technologies for chemical weapons destruction had been identified and tested, with neutralization/biotreatment and neutralization/supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) progressing to the engineer design phase.19

The CWC required the United States to destroy its remaining 27,200 metric tons of chemical warfare agents within 10 years.20 However, due to delays attributed to the search for environmentally preferred alternatives to incineration, the treaty-mandated destruction deadline was pushed back from April 29, 2007, to April 29, 2012, with the approval of the other CWC States Parties.

While asking for the United States’ first deadline extension request, former U.S. permanent representative to the OPCW, Ambassador Eric Javits, explained that the U.S. would be unable to meet the 2007 deadline due to setbacks and delays caused by difficulties in constructing facilities, obtaining permits, and addressing safety and environmental concerns. He candidly noted that the United States was asking for the April 2012 deadline “as our extended deadline because that is the latest date the treaty allows us to ask for,” but that “based on our current projections, we do not expect to be able to meet that deadline.”21

In addition to the five incineration facilities, the U.S. Army CMA constructed and operated two neutralization facilities in Edgewood, Maryland and Newport, Indiana. Those two sites finished operations in 2007 and 2010 respectively. The Maryland bulk mustard agent storage site, located outdoors with limited protection, was expedited primarily due to security concerns after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

While the U.S. Army CMA was responsible for the first seven stockpile destruction facilities, the last two remaining chemical weapons destruction facilities, located in Pueblo, Colorado, and Blue Grass, Kentucky, are overseen by the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA). Both sites feature alternative destruction processes to incineration.

At the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (PCAPP), most of the mustard projectiles stored there are being destroyed in a two-step process: neutralization followed by biotreatment. Three Static Detonation Chambers (SDCs) are also being employed to destroy “problematic munitions,” including the stockpile of 4.2-inch mortar rounds.

At the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP), the majority of the nerve agents (including GB/Sarin and VX) are being destroyed through neutralization. Like the PCAPP process, several “problematic” munitions, mainly 155mm mustard projectiles, were destroyed by SDCs. The site’s remaining M55 rockets are also slated to be destroyed by the SDCs.

The Final Push to Eliminate What Remains

As of March 4, 2022, the United States has 418.4 metric tons of mustard in 105mm projectiles and mustard 4.2-inch mortar rounds left at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Colorado. There are 296.6 metric tons of VX nerve agent in M55 rockets and GB nerve agent in M55 rockets left to destroy at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant in Kentucky.

Walton Levi, site manager for the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, confirmed that the facility is still on target to meet the September 2023 deadline in a recent interview with KUNC.22

Crews at the two remaining facilities have continued to work diligently throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and their dedication to helping the United States meet its treaty mandated deadline in such uncertain circumstances is truly commendable.

Following a public comment and testing period, the Pueblo, Colorado facility was granted an environmental permit to use Static Detonation Chambers to finish eliminating the remaining mustard munitions. 23

CWC Outlier States

The completion of the long campaign to eliminate the U.S. chemical weapons arsenal will also put more pressure on the remaining CWC hold-out states to join and meet their commitments.

Four countries remain outside the CWC: Egypt, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan. North Korea is estimated to possess a stockpile of approximately 5,000 metric tons of agent. The status of Taiwan, prohibited from joining all multilateral treaties by China, must also be resolved, especially given its large chemical industry. Syria, which joined the CWC in 2013 under intense international pressure and agreed to the elimination of the bulk of its former stockpile of some 1,300 metric tons of prohibited chemical agents, has failed to provide a full accounting of its stockpiles to the OPCW.24

Russia—which once possessed the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpile consisting of approximately 40,000 metric tons of chemical agent, including VX, sarin, soman, mustard, lewisite, mustard-lewisite mixtures, and phosgene—officially completed the destruction of its chemical weapons arsenal in 2017.

Like the United States, Russia received an extension of the original chemical weapons destruction deadline when it was unable to complete the task by the 2012 deadline set by the CWC. Russia’s destruction program benefited from technical assistance and funding through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Finally, the OPCW announced Sept. 27, 2017 that Russia completed the destruction of its declared chemical weapons stockpile.

However, Russia still retains some chemical weapons capacity. In March 2018, Russia used the advanced chemical agent Novichok to assassinate a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, in the UK. In a 2021 State Department report on compliance with the CWC, the United States accused Russia of non-compliance with the CWC for its alleged use of Novichok. The report also noted that “The United States cannot certify that Russia has met its obligations" under the Convention and asserted that Russia had not made a complete declaration of its stockpile.

Conclusion

As we enter the final year and a half of demilitarization efforts, the United States government must recommit to prioritizing its chemical weapons stockpile elimination efforts, while, at the same time, continuing to protect the security and safety of local communities. The active involvement of local communities, state regulators and authorities, environmental and public health experts and activities, and other interested stakeholders has been an excellent example of democratic and transparent decision-making.

Leaders in Washington, D.C. must provide the leadership and support necessary to meet international treaty commitments and maintain the United States’ standing as a responsible and influential leader in the global disarmament community.

When the United States does eliminate the last of its deadly chemical weapons, it will be a critical step in strengthening the taboo against chemical weapons and a strong boost for the CWC and the OPCW at a critical juncture in the long fight against these inhumane weapons.—LEANNE QUINN, Chemical Weapons Coalition Program Assistant

ENDNOTES

1. The 8 nations that have declared chemical weapons stockpiles to the OPCW are Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia, South Korea, Syria, and the United States.

2. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Report of the OPCW on the Implementation of the Convention in 2020,” 1 Dec. 2021, https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2021/12/c2603%28e%29.pdf

3. ‘US Chemical Weapons Stockpile Destruction Progress,” Program Executive Office, Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, 4 March 2022, https://www.peoacwa.army.mil/destruction-progress/

4. “H.R.4432 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2022,” Congress.gov, 15 July 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4432/text

5. This number was calculated by finding the sum of all congressional appropriations under the section “Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction” since 1986. Each number was adjusted for inflation in relation to 2021. We have submitted a FOIA request for an official estimate and will update this issue brief when we receive a response.

6. See: Recording of “US Chemical Weapons Stockpile Elimination: Progress Update” webinar at https://www.cwccoalition.org/us_cw_demilitarization_webinar/

7. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), “Report of the OPCW on the Implementation of the Convention in 2017,” 19 Nov. 2018, https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018/11/c2304%28e%29.pdf

8. “Public Law 99-145-Nov. 8, 1985,” GovInfo.gov, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-99/pdf/STATUTE-99-Pg583.pdf, see: Sec. 1412 Destruction of Existing Stockpile of Lethal Chemical Agents and Munitions

9. Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), “Report of the OPCW on the Implementation of the Convention in 2000,” 17 May 2001, https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/CSP/C-VI/en/C-VI_5-EN.pdf, page 10

10. Paul Walker, “Three Decades of Chemical Weapons Elimination: More Challenges Ahead,” Arms Control Association, December 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-12/features/three-decades-chemical-weapons-elimination-more-challenges-ahead

11. “50 U.S. Code § 1512a – Transportation of chemical munitions,” Cornell Law School, n.d., https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1512a

12. CMA also oversaw stockpile destruction activities of the chemical weapons stored at Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah; Umatilla Chemical Depot, Oregon; Anniston Chemical Activity, Alabama; Pine Bluff Chemical Activity, Arkansas; Newport Chemical Depot, Indiana; Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; and Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Basin.[12][12]

13. “Public Law 100-456-Sept. 29, 1988,” US Code House, n.d., https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=102&page=1934

14. “CMA Milestones in U.S. Chemical Weapons History,” U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity, n.d., https://www.cma.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2021_02_05_CMA_FS_CMA-MILESTONES.pdf

15. Arms Control Reporter: A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons & Policy, 1990. Chalmers Hardenbergh (Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, 1990), page 704.E-1.

16. Arms Control Reporter: A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons & Policy, 1990, Chalmers Hardenbergh (Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, 1990), page 704.E-1.5.

17. Arms Control Reporter: A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons & Policy, 1991, Chalmers Hardenbergh (Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, 1991), page 704.E-1.18.

18. “U.S. Senate’s Conditions to Ratification of the CWC,” United States Chemical Weapons Convention Web Site, 24 April 1997, https://www.cwc.gov/cwc_authority_ratification_text.html

19. Arms Control Reporter: A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals, Weapons & Policy 2001, John Clearwater (Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, 1991), page 704.E-1.1

20. “Closing U.S. Chemical Warfare Agent Disposal Facilities,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d., https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/demil/closing_facilities.htm

21. “Statement Concerning Request to Extend the United States’ Destruction Deadline Under the Chemical Weapons Convention,” U.S. Department of States Archive, 20 April 2006, https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/64878.htm

22. Michael de Yoanna, “Static detonation chambers likely to be used to destroy Colorado’s final chemical weapons,” NPR for Northern Colorado, 18 Jan. 2022, https://www.kunc.org/news/2022-01-18/static-detonation-chambers-likely-to-be-used-to-destroy-colorados-final-chemical-weapons

23. Michael de Yoanna, “Static detonation chambers likely to be used to destroy Colorado’s final chemical weapons,” NPR for Northern Colorado, 18 Jan. 2022, https://www.kunc.org/news/2022-01-18/static-detonation-chambers-likely-to-be-used-to-destroy-colorados-final-chemical-weapons

24. “Syria’s Declaration of Compliance with Chemical Weapons Convention Still Inaccurate Due to Persisting Gaps, Inconsistencies, Top Disarmament Official Tells Security Council,” United Nations: Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 5 January 2022, https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/sc14760.doc.htm

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When the United States ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, it accepted the treaty mandate to eliminate its chemical weapons within a decade. But several extensions have come and gone, and the government is pushing hard to finish destroying the last vestiges of its once-massive Cold War-era stockpile by 2023.

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Russia’s War on Ukraine and the Risk of Nuclear Escalation: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

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Volume 14, Issue 3, Feb. 28, 2022

Media Contacts: Daryl Kimball, executive director (202-463-8270 x107); Shannon Bugos, senior policy analyst (202-463-8270 x113)

Disponible en español

In the midst of his catastrophic, premeditated military assault on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin Feb. 27 ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to move to a higher state of alert of “a special regime of combat duty,” unnecessarily escalating an already dangerous situation created by his indefensible decision to invade another sovereign nation.

By choosing the path of destruction rather than diplomacy, Putin has launched a violent military assault that threatens millions of innocent civilians in independent, democratic Ukraine.

Putin has also sharpened tensions between Russia and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), increased the risk of conflict elsewhere on the European continent, and derailed past and potential future progress on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, possibly for years to come.

Putin’s order to put Russia’s nuclear forces on higher alert is not a complete surprise given his previous implied threats against any nation that tried to stop him in Ukraine.

But clearly, inserting nuclear weapons into the Ukraine war equation at this point is extremely dangerous. It is essential that U.S. President Joe Biden along with NATO leaders act with extreme restraint and not respond in kind. This is a very dangerous moment in this crisis, and all leaders, particularly Putin, need to step back from the nuclear brink.

In justifying his actions, Putin has pointed to longtime grievances, such as NATO’s expansion eastward, and the specious claim that Kyiv has plans to build nuclear weapons or obtain them from the United States. Ukraine was neither headed for NATO membership any time soon nor seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Ukraine did not pose the kind of threat that Putin claimed to justify his invasion.

Tragically, Putin also bypassed diplomatic options that could have addressed many of Russia’s stated security concerns in Europe.

In December, Moscow transmitted to each the United States and NATO a proposal on security guarantees, which included several nonstarters, such as a prohibition on allowing Ukraine to join NATO.

Nevertheless, the Russian proposal, as well as the U.S. and NATO counterproposals, highlighted potential areas for negotiations to resolve mutual security concerns. Yet, with the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has made any further progress on arms control and risk reduction impossible, at least for the time being.

The 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which is the only remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, expires in four years, which is a short period of time for negotiating and securing the necessary domestic support for a replacement arrangement.

As we wrote last week, “Although Putin’s regime must suffer international isolation now, U.S. and Russian leaders must eventually seek to resume talks through their stalled strategic security dialogue to defuse broader NATO-Russia tensions and maintain common sense arms control measures to prevent an all-out arms race.”

Below are answers to frequently asked questions about Putin’s war in Ukraine, Russia’s nuclear weapons, and the risks of escalation.—DARYL G. KIMBALL, executive director, and SHANNON BUGOS, senior policy analyst


What did Putin say, what does it mean, and how should we respond?

Putin’s statement is probably designed to reinforce his earlier implied threats that were clearly designed to try to ward off any military interference in his attack on Ukraine, a non-nuclear weapon state.

“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country, but leaders of major NATO countries are making aggressive statements about our country,” Putin said Feb. 27 in a meeting with defense officials. “So, I order to move Russia’s deterrence forces to a special regime of combat duty.”

A few days prior in his speech announcing his decision to invade Ukraine, Putin threatened any country that “tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people” with consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Putin’s threat is unprecedented in the post-Cold War era—and unacceptable. There has been no instance in which a U.S. or a Russian leader has raised the alert level of their nuclear forces in the middle of a crisis in order to try to coerce the other side's behavior.

The White House and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg immediately denounced the move but did not indicate they would follow suit.

“This is really a pattern that we’ve seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki commented Feb. 27. “At no point has Russia been under threat from NATO [or] has Russia been under threat from Ukraine.”

“We have the ability to defend ourselves,” assured Psaki.

“This is dangerous rhetoric,” Stoltenberg said. “This is a behavior which is irresponsible.”

It is not clear at this point, however, what changes to Russian operational readiness Putin has put into motion. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reportedly told Putin Feb. 28 that all nuclear command posts have been boosted with additional personnel.

Yet, one senior U.S. defense cautioned that while there is “no reason to doubt the validity of this order[,]…how it’s manifested itself I don’t think is completely clear yet.”

Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, tweeted Feb. 27 that he is unsure that “we are dealing with elevated readiness level,” adding that, in his view, “it’s different.” Rather, he proposed that Putin’s order “most likely…means that the nuclear command and control system received what is known as a preliminary command.” This type of command, Podvig described, brings the nuclear systems into a working condition, but it “is not something that suggests that Russia is preparing itself to strike first.”

“The basic idea here is clearly to scare ‘the West’ into backing down. But part [of] the danger here is that it's not clear to me Putin has a clear de-escalation pathway in mind (except for the capitulation of Ukraine),” tweeted James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

What Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons also underscores is that nuclear weapons cannot prevent nuclear-armed states from launching major wars and that they increase the risk of an armed conflict between nuclear-armed states and nuclear-armed alliances. Rather than increasing security, they increase the danger of war by way of fostering the possibility of miscalculation and advertent or inadvertent escalation.

In the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Putin is essentially using the threat of nuclear weapons as a cover for his massive invasion of a non-nuclear weapons state. Key U.S. officials share the view that nuclear weapons can provide cover for projecting conventional military force. Admiral Charles Richard, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said in remarks published in February 2021 that "We must acknowledge the foundation nature of our nation's strategic nuclear forces, as they create the 'maneuver space' for us to project conventional military power strategically."


Have U.S. or Russian leaders made any similar nuclear threats against one another since the end of the Cold War?

No. Putin’s public implied nuclear threats toward NATO and the United States and his decision to raise the alert status of Russia’s nuclear forces is unprecedented in the post-Cold War era.

However, during the Cold War, between 1948 and 1961 as well as the the period between the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and into the mid-1970s, there were numerous nuclear threats and alerts designed to change the behavior of adversaries.

For example, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger developed what he called the "madman theory," which posited that threatening massive, even excessive, levels of military violence, including nuclear attacks, would intimidate the North Vietnamese and their patrons in the Soviet Union into submission at the negotiating table.

On Oct. 9, 1969, Nixon and Kissinger instructed the Pentagon to place U.S. nuclear and other military forces around the globe on alert, and to do so secretly. For 18 days in October of that year, the Pentagon carried out one of the largest and most extensive secret military operations in U.S. history. Tactical and strategic bomber forces and submarines armed with Polaris missiles went on alert. This "Joint Chiefs Readiness Test" culminated in a flight of nuclear-armed B-52 bombers over northern Alaska.

The secret 1969 U.S. nuclear alert, though certainly noticed by Soviet leaders, failed to pressure them into helping Nixon win concessions from Hanoi. Nixon switched his Vietnam strategy from one of intimidation to one of steady troop withdrawals and Vietnamization—reinforced by rapprochement with China and détente with the Soviet Union. In the end, he exited Vietnam only after negotiating an unsatisfactory armistice agreement.

In the past, similar nuclear gambits have failed to work as intended. Such threats are unlikely to succeed when the side threatened possesses its own nuclear weapons capabilities, when a non-nuclear state or a guerrilla or terror group is presumably under the protection of a nuclear state, or when the nuclear threat is disproportionate and therefore not credible because it is aimed at a small country or non-state actor.


How many nuclear weapons do Russia, the United States, and NATO currently have?

The United States deploys 1,389 strategic warheads on 665 strategic delivery systems, and Russia deploys 1,458 strategic nuclear warheads on 527 strategic delivery systems as of September 2021 and according to the counting rules established by the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). Both countries are currently modernizing their nuclear delivery systems.

Strategic warheads are counted using the provisions of New START, which Biden and Putin agreed to extend for five years in January 2021 but will expire in 2026. New START caps each country at 1,550 strategic warheads deployed on 700 delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers assigned a nuclear mission.

The U.K. and France, also NATO members, are estimated to possess 225 nuclear warheads and 290 respectively.

The United States also has an estimated 160 B-61 nuclear gravity bombs that are forward-deployed across six NATO bases in five European countries: Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The total estimated U.S. B-61 stockpile amounts to 230.

In addition, Russia is believed to have an estimated 1,900 non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons, all of which are thought to be in central storage, not deployed in the field.

Russia, like the United States, keeps its land-based ICBMs on a high state of readiness at all times, and it is believed that Russia’s SLBMs, like the U.S. forces, are similarly postured. The ICBM forces of both countries are maintained on a “launch-under-attack” posture, meaning they can be launched within minutes of an authorized “go” order by either leader and can arrive at their targets within 20 minutes or less. This posture leaves each side with very little time to make a decision about launching a retaliatory strike if they detect a launch of strategic nuclear weapons against their forces, which creates the risk that a false alarm could trigger nuclear war.

Sea-based strategic nuclear weapons, which are extremely hard to detect and destroy, can be fired nearly as quickly at their targets depending on their location. Other systems, such as strategic bomber-based weapons, take relatively more time to arm with nuclear weapons and reach their target launch points, but bombers can be recalled for a period of time after launch orders are given.


What are the policies governing U.S. and Russian nuclear use?

Both U.S. and Russian presidents have sole authority to authorize the use of nuclear weapons, meaning they do not require concurrence from their respective military and security advisers or by other elected representatives of the people.

Current U.S. and Russian military strategies reserve the option to use nuclear weapons first. In Russia’s case, its military policy allows for the president to order the use of nuclear weapons if the state is at risk or possibly if Russia is losing a major war. The theory is that a “limited” use of nuclear weapons could halt an adversary’s advances or even tip the balance back in favor of the losing side.

Some U.S. officials have argued for deployment of additional types of “more usable” low-yield nuclear weapons in the arsenal. However, even what are deemed low-yield nuclear weapons today still hold immense power. For instance, the low-yield W76-2, a new warhead deployed in late 2019 for U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missiles, is estimated to have an explosive yield of five kilotons, roughly one-third the yield of the bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

But once nuclear weapons are used in a conflict involving nuclear-armed adversaries—even if on a so-called “limited scale” involving a handful of “smaller” Hiroshima-sized bombs—there is no guarantee the conflict would not escalate and become a global nuclear conflagration.

Biden and Putin both seem to understand that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a statement originally endorsed in 1985 by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and reiterated by the five countries with the largest nuclear arsenals in January 2022.

The former head of U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. John Hyten, described in 2018 how the command’s annual nuclear command and control and field training always ends. “It ends bad,” he said. “And the bad meaning it ends with global nuclear war.”

However, such a recognition among leaders does not mean a nuclear war will not break out. After all, Putin has demonstrated that he is an extreme risk-taker.

To reduce the risk of nuclear war and draw a strong distinction between Putin's irresponsible nuclear threats and U.S. behavior, Biden should adjust U.S. declaratory policy by clarifying that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter the first use of nuclear weapons by others. A sole purpose policy would rule out the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike or in response to a non-nuclear attack on the United States or its allies, increase strategic stability, and reduce the risk of nuclear war.

In fact, during the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs: “As I said in 2017, I believe that the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring—and, if necessary, retaliating against—a nuclear attack. As president, I will work to put that belief into practice, in consultation with the U.S. military and U.S. allies.”

Ultimately, even the best intentions of one side cannot ensure that the interests of all to prevent the use of nuclear weapons will win out. Therefore, the only action that can actually prevent the use of nuclear weapons is the removal of these weapons from the battlefield and their verifiable elimination.


What would be the effects from an outbreak of nuclear war?

Beyond the many dangers to the millions of innocent people caught in Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine, there is also an increased risk that the war might lead to an even more severe, if unintentional, escalatory spiral involving NATO and Russian forces, both of which have nuclear weapons at their disposal.

The indiscriminate and horrific effects of nuclear weapons use are well-established, which is why the vast majority of the world’s nations consider policies that threaten nuclear use to be dangerous, immoral, and legally unjustifiable and consequently have developed the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

If Russian or NATO leaders chose to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict in Europe, the result could be a quick escalation from a local disaster into a European nuclear war and then a global catastrophe. Millions, perhaps tens of millions, would die in the first 45 minutes.

A detailed study published in 2002 assessed the direct consequences of a major conflict between the United and Russia.

The study concluded that if 350 of the strategic nuclear warheads in the Russian arsenal reached major industrial and military targets in the United States, an estimated 70 to 100 million people would die in the first hours from the explosions and fires.

The U.S. president could quickly retaliate with as many as 1,350 nuclear weapons on long range missiles and bombers and, in consultation with allies, another 160 nuclear gravity bombs on shorter-range fighter-bombers based in five NATO countries in Europe.

Many more people would be exposed to lethal doses of radiation. The entire economic infrastructure of the country would be destroyed—the internet, the electric grid, the food distribution system, the health system, the banking system, and the transportation network.

In the following weeks and months, the vast majority of those who did not die in the initial attack would succumb to starvation, exposure, radiation poisoning, and epidemic disease. A U.S. counterattack would cause the same level of destruction in Russia, and if NATO forces were involved in the war, Canada and Europe would also suffer a similar fate.

More recent scientific studies indicate that the dust and soot produced by a nuclear exchange of 100-200 detonations would create lasting and potentially catastrophic climactic effects that would devastate food production and lead to famine in many parts of the world.


What are the past and present arms control treaties that have limited U.S. and Soviet/Russian nuclear weapons? What is the status of those treaties?

During the Cold War and after, arms control agreements helped to win and maintain the peace.

However, there has been growing mistrust between Russia and the West in recent years, leading to and fueling the loss of pivotal conventional and nuclear arms control and/or risk reduction treaties through negligence, noncompliance, or outright withdrawal.

Some of these treaties, which have acted as guardrails preventing the outbreak of catastrophic conventional and nuclear wars, included:

In the absence of these agreements, cooperation between the parties has eroded, concerns about military capabilities have grown, and the risk of miscalculation skyrocketed.

Of note is also the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which prohibits nuclear test explosions and established a global monitoring and verification network. The treaty has 185 signatories, including China, Russia, and the United States. During the course of the nuclear age, at least eight states conducted more than 2,000 nuclear weapon test blasts above ground, underground, and underwater. The CTBT has effectively halted nuclear test explosions. However, the treaty is not yet in force due to the failure of eight states to ratify, leaving the door to nuclear testing in the future ajar.

In addition, the United States and the Soviet Union—and later Russia—negotiated a series of treaties that capped and eventually reversed the nuclear arms race. These included:

  • The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I): Though important as the first such treaty, it only slowed the growth of the two countries’ long-range nuclear arsenals. It ignored nuclear-armed strategic bombers and did not cap warhead numbers, leaving both sides free to enlarge their forces by deploying multiple warheads onto their missiles and increasing their bomber-based forces.
  • The 1979 SALT II: This treaty was never formally ratified because the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan later that year, but Reagan agreed to respect its limits.
  • The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I): This agreement, which expired in December 2009, was the first to require the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their strategic deployed arsenals and destroy excess delivery systems through an intrusive verification involving on-site inspections, the regular exchange of information, and the use of national technical means (i.e., satellites). START I was delayed for several years due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuing efforts to denuclearize Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus by returning their nuclear weapons to Russia and making them non-nuclear weapons states under the nuclear 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and parties to START I.
  • The 1993 START II: This treaty called for further cuts in deployed strategic arsenals and banned the deployment of destabilizing multiple-warhead land-based missiles. However, it never entered into force due to the U.S. withdrawal in 2002 from the ABM Treaty.
  • The 1997 START III Framework: This framework for a third START included a reduction in deployed strategic warheads to 2,000-2,500. Significantly, in addition to requiring the destruction of delivery vehicles, START III negotiations were to address “the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads…to promote the irreversibility of deep reductions including prevention of a rapid increase in the number of warheads.” Negotiations were supposed to begin after START II entered into force, which never happened.
  • The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT or Moscow Treaty): This treaty required the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic arsenals to 1,700-2,200 warheads each. Unfortunately, it did not include a treaty-specific verification and monitoring regime. SORT was replaced by New START Feb. 5, 2011 .
  • The 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START): This legally binding, verifiable agreement limits each side to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 700 strategic ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers assigned a nuclear mission. The treaty has a strong verification regime. The United States and Russia agreed Feb. 3, 2021, to extend New START by five years, as allowed by the treaty text, until Feb. 5, 2026.

As a result of these agreements, the total stockpiles of the two countries have been slashed from their peaks in the mid-1980s at almost 70,000 nuclear weapons to about 10,000 total U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons today. Plus, we no longer live in a world in which nuclear-armed states are detonating nuclear test explosions to perfect new and more deadly types of nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, the United States and Russia still currently possess far more nuclear weapons than necessary to destroy one another many times over and more than enough to deter a nuclear attack from the other.

Consequently, the United States and Russia should further reduce their nuclear stockpiles and work to get other nuclear-armed countries involved in the process and eventually in the agreements. In 2013, for instance, the Obama administration found that the United States could further cut its deployed nuclear arsenal to about 1,000 without sacrificing U.S. or allied security.

Unless Washington and Moscow resume talks to reach a new agreement to replace New START before its expiration, there will be no limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972—and we risk an all-out nuclear arms race once again.

Admittedly, however, Putin’s destructive, indefensible war on Ukraine will make that task much tougher.


How should the United States and NATO respond to Putin’s threat and minimize the risk of an outbreak of nuclear war?

The danger of miscalculation and escalation, including to the nuclear level, among adversaries is real and high.

Though Russia has yet to locate military forces along the Ukrainian-Polish border, for instance, there is a possibility that Russian and NATO forces will engage militarily, prompting the situation to quickly spin further out of control.

There is also the potential for close military encounters elsewhere involving U.S./NATO and Russian aircraft, warships, and submarines.

In the days and weeks and months ahead, leaders in Moscow, Washington, and Europe, as well as military commanders in the field, must be careful to avoid new and destabilizing military deployments, dangerous encounters between Russian and NATO forces, and the introduction of new types of conventional or nuclear weapons that undermine shared security interests.

For example, the offer from Russia’s client state, Belarus, to host Russian tactical nuclear weapons, if pursued by Putin, would further undermine Russian and European security and increase the risk of nuclear war. Unfortunately, Belarus voted Feb. 27 in a referendum to abandon its status as a non-nuclear state.


How can the United States and Russia get nuclear arms reduction efforts back on track?

Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s regime will and should face the consequences and suffer international isolation imposed through a strong and unified front.

For the time being, this isolation includes a suspension of the bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic stability dialogue, which Biden and Putin resumed in June 2021 and last convened in early January 2022.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman confirmed Feb. 26 that Washington will not proceed with the dialogue under the current circumstances, saying that she sees “no reason” to do so. The day prior, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that while “arms control is something that will continue to be in our national security interest,…we don’t have another iteration of the Strategic Stability Dialogue planned.”

Eventually, however, U.S. and Russian leaders must seek to resume talks through their bilateral strategic security dialogue in order to prevent even greater NATO-Russia tensions and maintain common-sense arms control and risk reduction measures.

The Russian proposal on security guarantees from December 2021 and the U.S. (as well as NATO) counterproposal from January 2022 contain areas of overlap, demonstrating that there is room for negotiations to resolve mutual security concerns. The areas with the most promise are related to crafting a new agreement similar to the now-defunct INF Treaty; negotiating a follow-on to New START; agreeing to scale back large military exercises; and establishing risk reduction and transparency measures, such as hotlines.

Washington must test whether Moscow is serious about such options and, if possible, restart the strategic stability dialogue—and they must try to do so before New START expires in early 2026, else the next showdown will be even riskier.

In the long run, U.S., Russian, and European leaders—and their people—cannot lose sight of the fact that war and the threat of nuclear war are the common enemies. Russia and the West have a shared interest in striking agreements that further slash bloated strategic nuclear forces, regulate shorter-range “battlefield” nuclear arsenals, and set limits on long-range missile defenses.


Should Ukraine have kept its nuclear weapons that it inherited from the Soviet Union? Will Ukraine seek to have nuclear weapons once again?

Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the current invasion violate the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

In 1994, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed this important agreement, which extended security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. In return, the newly independent Ukraine acceded to the nuclear 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapon state and gave up the 1,900 nuclear warheads it inherited from the Soviet Union.

Ukraine did not have operational control of and could not have safely maintained those nuclear weapons. Any attempt by Kyiv to keep these nuclear weapons would only have resulted in greater danger for Ukraine, Europe, and the world.

Arguments that a nuclear-armed Ukraine would be safer today are fallacies, as are any claims that Kyiv seeks to build or obtain nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons do not make anyone safer and instead pose an existential threat to all of us.

Putin’s takeover of Crimea in 2014 and this new, massive invasion in 2022 serve to undermine the NPT and reinforce the unfortunate impression that nuclear-armed states can bully non-nuclear states, thereby reducing the incentives for nuclear disarmament and making it more difficult to prevent nuclear proliferation.

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Although Putin's regime must suffer international isolation now, U.S. and Russian leaders must eventually seek to resume talks through their stalled strategic security dialogue to defuse broader NATO-Russia tensions and maintain common sense arms control measures to prevent an all-out arms race.

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La guerra de Rusia contra Ucrania y el riesgo de una escalada nuclear: respuestas a preguntas frecuentes

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Volumen 14, número 3, 28 de febrero de 2022

Contactos con los medios: Daryl Kimball, director ejecutivo (202-463-8270 x107); Shannon Bugos, analista sénior de políticas (202-463-8270 x113)

Read this in English.

En medio de su ataque militar premeditado y catastrófico contra Ucrania, el 27 de febrero, el presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin, ordenó a las fuerzas nucleares de Rusia pasar a un estado de alerta más alto de "un régimen especial de servicio de combate", lo que intensificó innecesariamente una situación ya peligrosa creada por su decisión indefendible de invadir otra nación soberana.

Al elegir el camino de la destrucción en lugar de la diplomacia, Putin ha lanzado un ataque militar violento que amenaza a millones de civiles inocentes en una Ucrania independiente y democrática.

Putin también agudizó las tensiones entre Rusia y los estados miembros de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN), aumentó el riesgo de conflicto en otras partes del continente europeo y descarriló el progreso pasado y futuro potencial en la no proliferación nuclear y el desarme, posiblemente en los años venideros.

La orden de Putin de poner a las fuerzas nucleares de Rusia en alerta máxima no es una completa sorpresa dadas sus amenazas implícitas anteriores contra cualquier nación que intentara detenerlo en Ucrania.

Pero claramente, insertar armas nucleares en la ecuación de guerra de Ucrania en este punto es extremadamente peligroso. Es esencial que el presidente de los Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, junto con los líderes de la OTAN, actúen con extrema moderación y no respondan del mismo modo. Este es un momento muy peligroso en esta crisis, y todos los líderes, particularmente Putin, deben alejarse del borde nuclear.

Al justificar sus acciones, Putin ha señalado agravios de larga data, como la expansión de la OTAN hacia el este y la engañosa afirmación de que Kiev tiene planes para construir armas nucleares u obtenerlas de Estados Unidos. Ucrania no iba a alcanzar la membresía de la OTAN  en un plazo corto de tiempo ni buscaba una capacidad de armas nucleares. Ucrania no representaba el tipo de amenaza que Putin afirmó para justificar su invasión.

Trágicamente, Putin también pasó por alto las opciones diplomáticas que podrían haber abordado muchas de las preocupaciones de seguridad declaradas por Rusia en Europa.

En diciembre, Moscú transmitió tanto a Estados Unidos como a la OTAN una propuesta sobre garantías de seguridad, que incluía varios obstáculos, como la prohibición de permitir que Ucrania se una a la OTAN.

La propuesta rusa, así como las contrapropuestas de EE. UU. y la OTAN, destacaron áreas potenciales de negociación para resolver preocupaciones de seguridad mutua. Sin embargo, con la invasión de Ucrania, Putin ha hecho imposible cualquier progreso adicional en el control de armas y la reducción de riesgos, al menos por el momento.

El Nuevo Tratado de Reducción de Armas Estratégicas de 2010 (Nuevo START), que es el único tratado restante que limita los arsenales nucleares de EE. UU. y Rusia, vence en cuatro años, que es un período corto de tiempo para negociar y asegurar el apoyo interno necesario para un arreglo de reemplazo.

Como escribimos la semana pasada, “Aunque el régimen de Putin debe sufrir el aislamiento internacional ahora, los líderes de EE. UU. y Rusia deben eventualmente tratar de reanudar las conversaciones a través de su estancado diálogo de seguridad estratégica para calmar las tensiones más amplias entre la OTAN y Rusia y mantener medidas de control de armas de sentido común para evitar una carrera armamentista”.

A continuación se encuentran las respuestas a las preguntas frecuentes sobre la guerra de Putin en Ucrania, las armas nucleares de Rusia y los riesgos de una escalada.—DARYL G. KIMBALL, director ejecutivo, y SHANNON BUGOS, analista principal de políticas

¿Qué dijo Putin, qué significa y cómo debemos responder?

La declaración de Putin probablemente esté diseñada para reforzar sus amenazas implícitas anteriores que estaban claramente diseñadas para tratar de evitar cualquier interferencia militar en su ataque a Ucrania, un estado sin armas nucleares.

“Los países occidentales no solo están tomando medidas económicas hostiles contra nuestro país, sino que los líderes de los principales países de la OTAN están haciendo declaraciones agresivas sobre nuestro país”, dijo Putin el 27 de febrero en una reunión con funcionarios de defensa. “Por eso, ordeno trasladar las fuerzas de disuasión de Rusia a un régimen especial de servicio de combate”.

Unos días antes, en su discurso anunciando su decisión de invadir Ucrania, Putin amenazó a cualquier país que “trate de interponerse en nuestro camino o, más aún, cree amenazas para nuestro país y nuestra gente” con consecuencias “como nunca se ha visto en toda tu historia.”

La amenaza de Putin no tiene precedentes en la era posterior a la Guerra Fría, y es inaceptable. No ha habido ningún caso en el que un líder estadounidense o ruso haya elevado el nivel de alerta de sus fuerzas nucleares en medio de una crisis para tratar de coaccionar el comportamiento del otro lado.

La Casa Blanca y el secretario general de la OTAN, Jens Stoltenberg, denunciaron de inmediato la medida, pero no indicaron que harían lo mismo.

“Este es realmente un patrón que hemos visto del presidente Putin a lo largo de este conflicto, que está fabricando amenazas que no existen para justificar una mayor agresión”, comentó la secretaria de prensa de la Casa Blanca, Jen Psaki, el 27 de febrero. “ En ningún momento Rusia ha estado bajo la amenaza de la OTAN [o] Rusia ha estado bajo la amenaza de Ucrania”.

“Tenemos la capacidad de defendernos”, aseguró Psaki.

“Esta es una retórica peligrosa”, dijo Stoltenberg. “Este es un comportamiento que es irresponsable”.

Sin embargo, en este momento no está claro qué cambios ha puesto en marcha Putin en la preparación operativa rusa. Según se informa, el ministro de Defensa ruso, Sergei Shoigu, le dijo a Putin el 28 de febrero que todos los puestos de mando nuclear han sido reforzados con personal adicional.

Sin embargo, un alto defensor de los EE. UU. advirtió que si bien “no hay motivo para dudar de la validez de esta orden[,]… no creo que esté del todo claro todavía cómo se manifiesta”.

Pavel Podvig, director del Proyecto de Fuerzas Nucleares de Rusia, tuiteó el 27 de febrero que no está seguro de que “estamos lidiando con un nivel de preparación elevado”, y agregó que, en su opinión, “es diferente”. Más bien, propuso que la orden de Putin “muy probablemente… signifique que el sistema de comando y control nuclear recibió lo que se conoce como un comando preliminar”. Este tipo de comando, describió Podvig, pone los sistemas nucleares en condiciones de funcionamiento, pero "no es algo que sugiera que Rusia se está preparando para atacar primero".

“La idea básica aquí es claramente asustar a 'Occidente' para que retroceda. Pero parte [del] peligro aquí es que no me queda claro que Putin tenga en mente un camino claro de desescalada (excepto por la capitulación de Ucrania)”, tuiteó James Acton, codirector del Programa de Política Nuclear en el Fondo para la Paz Internacional de Carnegie.

Lo que la amenaza de Putin de usar armas nucleares también subraya es que las armas nucleares no pueden evitar que los estados con armas nucleares lancen guerras importantes y que aumentan el riesgo de un conflicto armado entre estados con armas nucleares y alianzas con armas nucleares. En lugar de aumentar la seguridad, aumentan el peligro de guerra al fomentar la posibilidad de un error de cálculo y una escalada deliberada o inadvertida.

En el caso de la guerra de Rusia contra Ucrania, Putin está utilizando esencialmente la amenaza de las armas nucleares como una tapadera para su invasión masiva de un estado sin armas nucleares. Funcionarios estadounidenses clave comparten la opinión de que las armas nucleares pueden servir de cobertura para proyectar una fuerza militar convencional. El almirante Charles Richard, jefe del Comando Estratégico de EE. UU., dijo en declaraciones publicadas en febrero de 2021 que "debemos reconocer la naturaleza fundamental de las fuerzas nucleares estratégicas de nuestra nación, ya que crean el 'espacio de maniobra' para que podamos proyectar estratégicamente el poder militar convencional".

¿Han hecho los líderes estadounidenses o rusos alguna amenaza nuclear similar entre sí desde el final de la Guerra Fría?

No. Las amenazas nucleares implícitas públicas de Putin hacia la OTAN y los Estados Unidos y su decisión de elevar el estado de alerta de las fuerzas nucleares de Rusia no tiene precedentes en la era posterior a la Guerra Fría.

Sin embargo, durante la Guerra Fría, entre 1948 y 1961, así como el período entre la Crisis de los Misiles Cubanos de 1962 y mediados de la década de 1970, hubo numerosas amenazas y alertas nucleares diseñadas para cambiar el comportamiento de los adversarios.

Por ejemplo, el presidente Richard Nixon y su asesor de seguridad nacional, Henry Kissinger, desarrollaron lo que él llamó la "teoría del loco", que postulaba que amenazar con niveles masivos, incluso excesivos, de violencia militar, incluidos ataques nucleares, intimidaría a los norvietnamitas y sus patrocinadores en la Unión Soviética a la sumisión en la mesa de negociaciones.

El 9 de octubre de 1969, Nixon y Kissinger ordenaron al Pentágono que pusiera en alerta a las fuerzas nucleares estadounidenses y otras fuerzas militares en todo el mundo, y que lo hiciera en secreto. Durante 18 días en octubre de ese año, el Pentágono llevó a cabo una de las operaciones militares secretas más grandes y extensas en la historia de Estados Unidos. Las fuerzas de bombarderos tácticos y estratégicos y los submarinos armados con misiles Polaris se pusieron en alerta. Esta "Prueba de preparación de los jefes conjuntos" culminó con un vuelo de bombarderos B-52 con armas nucleares sobre el norte de Alaska.

La alerta nuclear secreta de los EE. UU. de 1969, aunque ciertamente notada por los líderes soviéticos, no logró presionarlos para que ayudaran a Nixon a obtener concesiones de Hanoi. Nixon cambió su estrategia de Vietnam de una de intimidación a una de constantes retiradas de tropas y vietnamización, reforzada por el acercamiento a China y la distensión con la Unión Soviética. Al final, salió de Vietnam solo después de negociar un acuerdo de armisticio insatisfactorio.

En el pasado, tácticas nucleares similares no funcionaron según lo previsto. Es poco probable que tales amenazas tengan éxito cuando el lado amenazado posee sus propias capacidades de armas nucleares, cuando un estado no nuclear o un grupo guerrillero o terrorista está presumiblemente bajo la protección de un estado nuclear, o cuando la amenaza nuclear es desproporcionada y, por lo tanto, no es creíble. porque está dirigido a un país pequeño o actor no estatal.

¿Cuántas armas nucleares tienen actualmente Rusia, Estados Unidos y la OTAN?

Estados Unidos despliega 1389 ojivas nucleares estratégicas en 665 sistemas de entrega estratégica y Rusia despliega 1458 ojivas nucleares estratégicas en 527 sistemas de entrega estratégica a partir de septiembre de 2021 y de acuerdo con las reglas de conteo establecidas por el Nuevo Tratado de Reducción de Armas Estratégicas de 2010 (Nuevo START). Ambos países están actualmente modernizando sus sistemas de entrega nuclear.

Las ojivas estratégicas se cuentan utilizando las disposiciones del Nuevo START, que Biden y Putin acordaron extender por cinco años en enero de 2021 pero que expirará en 2026. El Nuevo START limita a cada país a 1550 ojivas estratégicas desplegadas en 700 sistemas de lanzamiento, incluidos misiles balísticos intercontinentales ( ICBM), misiles balísticos lanzados desde submarinos (SLBM) y bombarderos pesados ​​asignados a una misión nuclear.

Se estima que el Reino Unido y Francia, también miembros de la OTAN, poseen 225 ojivas nucleares y 290, respectivamente.

Estados Unidos también tiene un estimado de 160 bombas de gravedad nuclear B-61 que están desplegadas en seis bases de la OTAN en cinco países europeos: Italia, Alemania, Turquía, Bélgica y los Países Bajos. La reserva total estimada de B-61 de EE. UU. asciende a 230.

Además, se cree que Rusia tiene un estimado de 1.900 armas nucleares no estratégicas o tácticas, todas las cuales se cree que están en almacenamiento central, no desplegadas en el campo.

Rusia, al igual que Estados Unidos, mantiene sus misiles balísticos intercontinentales terrestres en un alto estado de preparación en todo momento, y se cree que los SLBM de Rusia, al igual que las fuerzas estadounidenses, tienen una postura similar. Las fuerzas de misiles balísticos intercontinentales de ambos países se mantienen en una postura de "lanzamiento bajo ataque", lo que significa que pueden lanzarse a los pocos minutos de una orden de "ir" autorizada por cualquiera de los líderes y pueden llegar a sus objetivos en 20 minutos o menos. Esta postura deja a cada lado con muy poco tiempo para tomar una decisión sobre el lanzamiento de un ataque de represalia si detectan un lanzamiento de armas nucleares estratégicas contra sus fuerzas, lo que crea el riesgo de que una falsa alarma pueda desencadenar una guerra nuclear.

Las armas nucleares estratégicas basadas en el mar, que son extremadamente difíciles de detectar y destruir, pueden dispararse casi tan rápido a sus objetivos dependiendo de su ubicación. Otros sistemas, como las armas estratégicas basadas en bombarderos, tardan relativamente más tiempo en armarse con armas nucleares y llegar a sus puntos de lanzamiento objetivo, pero los bombarderos pueden retirarse durante un período de tiempo después de que se dan las órdenes de lanzamiento.

¿Cuáles son las políticas que rigen el uso nuclear de EE. UU. y Rusia?

Tanto los presidentes de EE. UU. como los de Rusia tienen la autoridad exclusiva para autorizar el uso de armas nucleares, lo que significa que no requieren el consentimiento de sus respectivos asesores militares y de seguridad ni de otros representantes electos del pueblo.

Las estrategias militares actuales de EE. UU. y Rusia reservan la opción de usar armas nucleares primero. En el caso de Rusia, su política militar permite que el presidente ordene el uso de armas nucleares si el estado está en riesgo o posiblemente si Rusia está perdiendo una guerra importante. La teoría es que un uso “limitado” de armas nucleares podría detener los avances de un adversario o incluso inclinar la balanza a favor del bando perdedor.

Algunos funcionarios estadounidenses han abogado por el despliegue de tipos adicionales de armas nucleares de bajo rendimiento "más utilizables" en el arsenal. Sin embargo, incluso las que hoy en día se consideran armas nucleares de bajo rendimiento todavía tienen un poder inmenso. Por ejemplo, se estima que el W76-2 de bajo rendimiento, una nueva ojiva desplegada a fines de 2019 para misiles balísticos lanzados desde submarinos estadounidenses, tiene un rendimiento explosivo de cinco kilotones, aproximadamente un tercio del rendimiento de la bomba que Estados Unidos cayó sobre Hiroshima en 1945.

Pero una vez que se usan armas nucleares en un conflicto que involucra a adversarios con armas nucleares, incluso si en la llamada "escala limitada" que involucra un puñado de bombas "más pequeñas" del tamaño de Hiroshima, no hay garantía de que el conflicto no se intensifique y se convierta en un conflicto. conflagración nuclear mundial.

Biden y Putin parecen entender que “una guerra nuclear no se puede ganar y nunca se debe librar”, una declaración respaldada originalmente en 1985 por los presidentes Ronald Reagan y Mikhail Gorbachev y reiterada por los cinco países con los mayores arsenales nucleares en enero de 2022.

El exjefe del Comando Estratégico de EE. UU., el general John Hyten, describió en 2018 cómo el comando y control nuclear anual y el entrenamiento de campo del comando siempre terminan. “Termina mal”, dijo. “Y el mal significado de que termina con una guerra nuclear global”.

Sin embargo, tal reconocimiento entre los líderes no significa que no vaya a estallar una guerra nuclear. Después de todo, Putin ha demostrado que es un tomador de riesgos extremo.

Para reducir el riesgo de una guerra nuclear y establecer una fuerte distinción entre las amenazas nucleares irresponsables de Putin y el comportamiento de EE. UU., Biden debería ajustar la política declaratoria de EE. UU. aclarando que el único propósito de las armas nucleares es disuadir a otros de que las usen por primera vez. Una política de propósito único descartaría el uso de armas nucleares en un ataque preventivo o en respuesta a un ataque no nuclear contra los Estados Unidos o sus aliados, aumentaría la estabilidad estratégica y reduciría el riesgo de una guerra nuclear.

De hecho, durante la campaña presidencial de 2020, Biden escribió en Foreign Affairs: “Como dije en 2017, creo que el único propósito del arsenal nuclear de EE. UU. debería ser disuadir y, si es necesario, tomar represalias contra un ataque nuclear. Como presidente, trabajaré para poner en práctica esa creencia, en consulta con el ejército de los EE. UU. y los aliados de los EE. UU.

En última instancia, incluso las mejores intenciones de un lado no pueden garantizar que triunfen los intereses de todos para evitar el uso de armas nucleares. Por lo tanto, la única acción que realmente puede prevenir el uso de armas nucleares es la remoción de estas armas del campo de batalla y su eliminación verificable.

¿Cuáles serían los efectos de un estallido de guerra nuclear?

Más allá de los muchos peligros para los millones de personas inocentes atrapadas en la guerra elegida por Putin contra Ucrania, también existe un mayor riesgo de que la guerra pueda conducir a una escalada aún más grave, aunque involuntaria, en espiral que involucre a las fuerzas de la OTAN y Rusia, las cuales tienen armas nucleares a su disposición.

Los efectos indiscriminados y terribles del uso de armas nucleares están bien establecidos, razón por la cual la gran mayoría de las naciones del mundo consideran que las políticas que amenazan el uso nuclear son peligrosas, inmorales y legalmente injustificables y, en consecuencia, han desarrollado el Tratado sobre la prohibición de armas nucleares de 2017. Armas Nucleares (TPNW).

Si los líderes rusos o de la OTAN optan por usar armas nucleares primero en un conflicto en Europa, el resultado podría ser una rápida escalada de un desastre local a una guerra nuclear europea y luego a una catástrofe global. Millones, quizás decenas de millones, morirían en los primeros 45 minutos.

Un estudio detallado publicado en 2002 evaluó las consecuencias directas de un gran conflicto entre Estados Unidos y Rusia.

El estudio concluyó que si 350 de las ojivas nucleares estratégicas en el arsenal ruso alcanzaran objetivos industriales y militares importantes en los Estados Unidos, se estima que entre 70 y 100 millones de personas morirían en las primeras horas a causa de las explosiones y los incendios.

El presidente de EE. UU. podría tomar represalias rápidamente con hasta 1.350 armas nucleares en misiles y bombarderos de largo alcance y, en consulta con los aliados, otras 160 bombas de gravedad nuclear en cazabombarderos de corto alcance con base en cinco países de la OTAN en Europa.

Muchas más personas estarían expuestas a dosis letales de radiación. Se destruiría toda la infraestructura económica del país: Internet, la red eléctrica, el sistema de distribución de alimentos, el sistema de salud, el sistema bancario y la red de transporte.

En las siguientes semanas y meses, la gran mayoría de los que no murieron en el ataque inicial sucumbirían al hambre, la exposición, el envenenamiento por radiación y las enfermedades epidémicas. Un contraataque de EE. UU. causaría el mismo nivel de destrucción en Rusia, y si las fuerzas de la OTAN estuvieran involucradas en la guerra, Canadá y Europa también sufrirían un destino similar.

Estudios científicos más recientes indican que el polvo y el hollín producidos por un intercambio nuclear de 100 a 200 detonaciones crearían efectos climáticos duraderos y potencialmente catastróficos que devastarían la producción de alimentos y conducirían a la hambruna en muchas partes del mundo.

¿Cuáles son los tratados de control de armas pasados ​​y presentes que han limitado las armas nucleares estadounidenses y soviéticas/rusas? ¿Cuál es el estatus de esos tratados?

Durante la Guerra Fría y después, los acuerdos de control de armas ayudaron a ganar y mantener la paz.

Sin embargo, ha habido una creciente desconfianza entre Rusia y Occidente en los últimos años, lo que ha provocado y alimentado la pérdida de tratados fundamentales de control de armas nucleares y convencionales y/o reducción de riesgos por negligencia, incumplimiento o retiro total.

Algunos de estos tratados, que han actuado como barandillas para prevenir el estallido de guerras nucleares y convencionales catastróficas, incluyen:

  • El Tratado sobre Misiles Antibalísticos (ABM) de 1972, que fue diseñado para prevenir una carrera armamentista ofensiva-defensiva sin restricciones;
  • El Tratado sobre Fuerzas Nucleares de Alcance Intermedio (INF) de 1987, que redujo el peligro de una guerra nuclear en Europa al eliminar toda una clase de misiles;
  • El Tratado sobre Fuerzas Armadas Convencionales en Europa (FACE) de 1990, que fue diseñado para prevenir grandes acumulaciones de armas y fuerzas convencionales en el continente europeo; y
  • El Tratado de Cielos Abiertos de 1992, que brindó transparencia sobre las capacidades y movimientos militares.

En ausencia de estos acuerdos, la cooperación entre las partes se ha erosionado, ha aumentado la preocupación por las capacidades militares y se ha disparado el riesgo de errores de cálculo.

Cabe destacar también el Tratado de Prohibición Completa de los Ensayos Nucleares (CTBT) de 1996, que prohíbe las explosiones de pruebas nucleares y estableció una red global de monitoreo y verificación. El tratado tiene 185 signatarios, incluidos China, Rusia y Estados Unidos. Durante el transcurso de la era nuclear, al menos ocho estados llevaron a cabo más de 2000 explosiones de prueba de armas nucleares en la superficie, bajo tierra y bajo el agua. El Tratado de prohibición completa de los ensayos nucleares ha detenido de forma eficaz las explosiones de ensayos nucleares. Sin embargo, el tratado aún no está en vigor debido a que ocho estados no lo ratificaron, lo que deja entreabierta la puerta a las pruebas nucleares en el futuro.

Además, Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética, y más tarde Rusia, negociaron una serie de tratados que limitaron y finalmente revirtieron la carrera de armamentos nucleares. Estos incluyeron:

  • El Tratado sobre la Limitación de Armas Estratégicas de 1972 (SALT I): aunque importante como el primer tratado de este tipo, sólo frenó el crecimiento de los arsenales nucleares de largo alcance de los dos países. Ignoró a los bombarderos estratégicos con armas nucleares y no limitó el número de ojivas, dejando a ambos lados libres para ampliar sus fuerzas mediante el despliegue de múltiples ojivas en sus misiles y aumentando sus fuerzas basadas en bombarderos.
  • El SALT II de 1979: este tratado nunca fue ratificado formalmente porque la Unión Soviética invadió Afganistán más tarde ese año, pero Reagan acordó respetar sus límites.
  • El Tratado de Reducción de Armas Estratégicas de 1991 (START I): este acuerdo, que expiró en diciembre de 2009, fue el primero en exigir a los Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética que redujeran sus arsenales estratégicos desplegados y destruyeran los sistemas de entrega en exceso a través de una verificación intrusiva que involucraba en- inspecciones del sitio, el intercambio regular de información y el uso de medios técnicos nacionales (es decir, satélites). START I se retrasó varios años debido al colapso de la Unión Soviética y los esfuerzos subsiguientes para desnuclearizar Ucrania, Kazajstán y Bielorrusia al devolver sus armas nucleares a Rusia y convertirlos en estados sin armas nucleares en virtud del Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear (TNP) de 1968. y partes de START I.
  • El START II de 1993: este tratado pedía más recortes en los arsenales estratégicos desplegados y prohibía el despliegue de misiles terrestres desestabilizadores de cabezas múltiples. Sin embargo, nunca entró en vigor debido a la retirada de Estados Unidos en 2002 del Tratado ABM.
  • Marco START III de 1997: este marco para un tercer START incluía una reducción de las ojivas estratégicas desplegadas a 2000-2500. Significativamente, además de requerir la destrucción de los vehículos de entrega, las negociaciones de START III debían abordar "la destrucción de ojivas nucleares estratégicas... para promover la irreversibilidad de las reducciones profundas, incluida la prevención de un rápido aumento en la cantidad de ojivas". Se suponía que las negociaciones comenzarían después de que START II entrara en vigor, lo que nunca sucedió.
  • El Tratado de Reducciones de Ofensivas Estratégicas de 2002 (SORT o Tratado de Moscú): Este tratado requería que Estados Unidos y Rusia redujeran sus arsenales estratégicos a 1.700-2.200 ojivas cada uno. Desafortunadamente, no incluía un régimen de verificación y monitoreo específico del tratado. SORT fue reemplazado por New START el 5 de febrero de 2011.
  • El Nuevo Tratado de Reducción de Armas Estratégicas de 2010 (Nuevo START): este acuerdo legalmente vinculante y verificable limita a cada parte a 1550 ojivas nucleares estratégicas desplegadas en 700 ICBM estratégicos, SLBM y bombarderos pesados ​​asignados a una misión nuclear. El tratado tiene un fuerte régimen de verificación. Estados Unidos y Rusia acordaron el 3 de febrero de 2021 extender el Nuevo START por cinco años, según lo permite el texto del tratado, hasta el 5 de febrero de 2026.

Como resultado de estos acuerdos, las reservas totales de los dos países se han reducido de sus picos a mediados de la década de 1980 en casi 70.000 armas nucleares a alrededor de 10.000 armas nucleares estadounidenses y rusas en la actualidad. Además, ya no vivimos en un mundo en el que los estados con armas nucleares están detonando explosiones de prueba nucleares para perfeccionar tipos nuevos y más mortíferos de armas nucleares.

Sin embargo, Estados Unidos y Rusia todavía poseen muchas más armas nucleares de las necesarias para destruirse mutuamente muchas veces y más que suficientes para disuadir un ataque nuclear del otro.

En consecuencia, Estados Unidos y Rusia deberían reducir aún más sus reservas nucleares y trabajar para involucrar a otros países con armas nucleares en el proceso y eventualmente en los acuerdos. En 2013, por ejemplo, la administración Obama descubrió que Estados Unidos podía reducir aún más su arsenal nuclear desplegado a unas 1000 sin sacrificar la seguridad de Estados Unidos o de sus aliados.

A menos que Washington y Moscú reanuden las conversaciones para llegar a un nuevo acuerdo que reemplace el Nuevo START antes de su vencimiento, no habrá límites para los dos arsenales nucleares más grandes del mundo por primera vez desde 1972, y corremos el riesgo de una carrera armamentista nuclear total una vez más.

Es cierto, sin embargo, que la guerra destructiva e indefendible de Putin contra Ucrania hará que esa tarea sea mucho más difícil.

¿Cómo deberían responder Estados Unidos y la OTAN a la amenaza de Putin y minimizar el riesgo de un estallido de guerra nuclear?

El peligro de error de cálculo y escalada, incluso al nivel nuclear, entre los adversarios es real y alto.

Aunque Rusia aún tiene que ubicar fuerzas militares a lo largo de la frontera entre Ucrania y Polonia, por ejemplo, existe la posibilidad de que las fuerzas rusas y de la OTAN se enfrenten militarmente, lo que provocaría que la situación se descontrolara rápidamente.

También existe la posibilidad de encuentros militares cercanos en otros lugares que involucren aviones, buques de guerra y submarinos de EE. UU./OTAN y Rusia.

En los días, semanas y meses venideros, los líderes en Moscú, Washington y Europa, así como los comandantes militares en el campo, deben tener cuidado de evitar despliegues militares nuevos y desestabilizadores, encuentros peligrosos entre las fuerzas rusas y de la OTAN y la introducción de nuevos tipos de armas convencionales o nucleares que socavan los intereses de seguridad compartidos.

Por ejemplo, la oferta del estado cliente de Rusia, Bielorrusia, de albergar armas nucleares tácticas rusas, si Putin la persigue, socavaría aún más la seguridad rusa y europea y aumentaría el riesgo de una guerra nuclear. Desafortunadamente, Bielorrusia votó el 27 de febrero en un referéndum para abandonar su condición de estado no nuclear.

¿Cómo pueden Estados Unidos y Rusia volver a encarrilar los esfuerzos de reducción de armas nucleares?

Debido a la invasión de Ucrania por parte de Rusia, el régimen de Putin deberá enfrentar las consecuencias y sufrir el aislamiento internacional impuesto a través de un frente fuerte y unificado.

Por el momento, este aislamiento incluye la suspensión del diálogo de estabilidad estratégica bilateral entre Estados Unidos y Rusia, que Biden y Putin reanudaron en junio de 2021 y convocaron por última vez a principios de enero de 2022.

La subsecretaria de Estado, Wendy Sherman, confirmó el 26 de febrero que Washington no continuará con el diálogo en las circunstancias actuales y dijo que “no ve razón” para hacerlo. El día anterior, el portavoz del Departamento de Estado, Ned Price, dijo que si bien “el control de armas es algo que seguirá siendo de nuestro interés para la seguridad nacional… no tenemos planeada otra iteración del Diálogo de Estabilidad Estratégica”.

Eventualmente, sin embargo, los líderes de EE. UU. y Rusia deben buscar reanudar las conversaciones a través de su diálogo de seguridad estratégica bilateral para evitar tensiones aún mayores entre la OTAN y Rusia y mantener medidas de control de armas y reducción de riesgos de sentido común.

La propuesta rusa sobre garantías de seguridad de diciembre de 2021 y la contrapropuesta de EE. UU. (así como la OTAN) de enero de 2022 contienen áreas de superposición, lo que demuestra que hay espacio para negociaciones para resolver preocupaciones de seguridad mutua. Las áreas más prometedoras están relacionadas con la elaboración de un nuevo acuerdo similar al ya desaparecido Tratado INF; negociar una continuación del Nuevo START; acordar reducir los grandes ejercicios militares; y establecer medidas de reducción de riesgos y transparencia, como líneas telefónicas de atención.

Washington debe probar si Moscú se toma en serio tales opciones y, si es posible, reiniciar el diálogo de estabilidad estratégica, y debe intentar hacerlo antes de que el Nuevo START expire a principios de 2026, de lo contrario, el próximo enfrentamiento será aún más riesgoso.

A la larga, los líderes estadounidenses, rusos y europeos —y su pueblo— no pueden perder de vista el hecho de que la guerra y la amenaza de una guerra nuclear son enemigos comunes. Rusia y Occidente tienen un interés compartido en llegar a acuerdos que reduzcan aún más las fuerzas nucleares estratégicas infladas, regulen los arsenales nucleares de "campo de batalla" de corto alcance y establezcan límites en las defensas de misiles de largo alcance.

¿Ucrania debería haber mantenido sus armas nucleares que heredó de la Unión Soviética? ¿Ucrania buscará tener armas nucleares una vez más?

La invasión de Crimea por parte de Putin en 2014 y la invasión actual violan el Memorando de Budapest de 1994 sobre garantías de seguridad.

En 1994, Estados Unidos, Rusia y el Reino Unido firmaron este importante acuerdo, que amplió las garantías de seguridad contra la amenaza o el uso de la fuerza contra el territorio de Ucrania o su independencia política. A cambio, la recién independizada Ucrania se adhirió al Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear (TNP) de 1968 como un estado sin armas nucleares y renunció a las 1.900 ojivas nucleares que heredó de la Unión Soviética.

Ucrania no tenía el control operativo de esas armas nucleares y no podía haberlas mantenido en condiciones de seguridad. Cualquier intento de Kiev de mantener estas armas nucleares solo habría resultado en un mayor peligro para Ucrania, Europa y el mundo.

Los argumentos de que una Ucrania con armas nucleares sería más segura hoy en día son falacias, al igual que cualquier afirmación de que Kiev busca construir u obtener armas nucleares. Las armas nucleares no hacen que nadie esté más seguro y, en cambio, representan una amenaza existencial para todos nosotros.

La toma de Crimea por parte de Putin en 2014 y esta nueva invasión masiva en 2022 sirven para socavar el TNP y reforzar la desafortunada impresión de que los estados con armas nucleares pueden intimidar a los estados no nucleares, reduciendo así los incentivos para el desarme nuclear y haciendo que sea más difícil de prevenir una proliferación nuclear.

Description: 

Si bien el régimen de Putin debe sufrir el aislamiento internacional ahora, los líderes de EE. UU. y Rusia deben buscar eventualmente reanudar las conversaciones a través de su estancado diálogo de seguridad estratégica para calmar las tensiones más amplias entre la OTAN y Rusia y mantener medidas de control de armas de sentido común para evitar una carrera armamentista total.

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