Opinion START is over. Will a new nuclear arms race between the US and Russia take off?
The dangers of having a weak arms control architecture were most recently illustrated by the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year, which will be seen as a textbook case of conflict fuelled by an arms race
Trump could, at the very least, respond to Putin’s extension proposal with terms of his own on reductions and inspections. The Doomsday Clock inched four seconds closer to midnight (from 89 to 85) in January. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned in its latest annual assessment that the world is now closer to catastrophe than at any other point in history, noting that “Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic.”
As if that were not troubling enough, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia expired on February 4, occurring at a time when Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy requires little elaboration and Vladimir Putin appears increasingly emboldened over Ukraine.
To understand the significance of the New START (New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), signed by then presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, a very brief history of arms reduction under START would help.
The objective of START-I, signed in 1991, was to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the US and the Soviet Union by imposing limits on deployed warheads, launchers, and ballistic missiles, among other offensive machinery. START-II, aiming to intensify arms reduction, never actually came into force because George W Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), which angered Moscow. Post-Cold War arms control efforts peaked under START until the signing of the New START.
The new treaty has also run into difficulties, most recently in 2023, when Russia suspended inspection activities under New START amid its war in Ukraine. In September last year, Vladimir Putin proposed a one-year voluntary extension, but negotiations appear to be far away.
With other long-standing arms control treaties like the ABM and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) having already collapsed, there are now effectively no legally binding limits on the US and Russia expanding their nuclear arsenals. The consequences of such a hollowed-out arms control architecture are dangerous, and three, in particular, warrant close attention.
First, in the absence of limits, and in a world that is more dangerous this year than the last, both sides have incentives to expand their nuclear stockpiles. Basic international relations theory suggests that an increase in arms by one country is likely to provoke a response from its rival, which perceives it as an emerging offensive threat, and the situation becomes what scholars call a security dilemma.
In October last year, Trump announced that he had directed the resumption of nuclear weapons testing in the US for the first time in over three decades. Should Washington follow through on any such programme, it could trigger an arms race that would only raise the probability of war, particularly between nuclear and non-nuclear powers. The dangers were most recently illustrated by the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year, which will be seen as a textbook case of conflict fuelled by an arms race.
The second consequence is what international relations scholar Glenn Snyder termed the stability-instability paradox: While the risk of direct war between nuclear-armed states may be reduced by the fear of nuclear retaliation, the likelihood of low-intensity conflicts and proxy wars may increase.
States assume that as long as they remain below the nuclear threshold, escalation to catastrophic levels can be avoided. Arms control agreements provide transparency; without them, clarity about the size, posture and readiness of each other’s arsenals diminishes. The nuclear threshold becomes harder to read, intensifying the paradox.
The third consequence concerns how other states behave. If the two countries that together account for most of the world’s nuclear weapons abandon arms control altogether, nuclear proliferation elsewhere is bound to thrive.
And even while China undergoes its largest nuclear expansion, nowhere is this more immediately relevant than Iran, whose talks with the US over its nuclear programme are scheduled this week. Should the regime acquire the bomb, others in the region like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will inevitably follow suit. An already dangerous West Asia would then find itself armed with nuclear swords pointed in multiple directions.
Former US president Ronald Reagan wrote in his memoirs that watching the film The Day After, which displayed the potential damage a nuclear exchange can cause, directly influenced his efforts at arms control and the signing of the INF with Mikhail Gorbachev. Indeed, not too long ago, the world’s superpowers agreed that too many nuclear weapons posed a danger to human existence. Recalling this sentiment, Washington and Moscow will hopefully return to the negotiating table.
Trump could, at the very least, respond to Putin’s extension proposal with terms of his own on reductions and inspections. Perhaps they could watch The Day After to be reminded of what is at stake. If nothing else, both states will be talking about nuclear weapons again, giving diplomacy more time and room. But should the arms race prevail, the Doomsday Clock will only move closer and closer to midnight.
The writer is deputy copy editor, The Indian Express, and can be reached at saptarishi.basak@expressindia.com
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