Vladimir Putin signaled an end to formal arms control between the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers when he announced on Tuesday that he would suspend Russia’s participation in the New Start Treaty.
At the end of his speech, blaming the West and global “elites” for the war against Ukraine, he made it clear that he would prevent the United States from inspecting sites housing some of the Kremlin’s 5,977 warheads .
Russia boasts the world’s largest nuclear arsenal – inherited from the Soviet Union – and until the COVID pandemic faced constant inspections and controls by the US, a close second.
Senior officials in the Biden administration have insisted Putin’s move will not change the status quo as inspections have not been conducted since 2020. Putin also said he would stick to the ceiling of 1,550 nuclear weapons per side and insisted he would not withdraw from the treaty.
But he made it clear that he wanted to abolish arms control, arguing that the US and the West wanted to inflict a “strategic defeat” and “get on top of our nuclear facilities.”
The treaty expires in 2026 and could herald the start of a Cold War-like era, when nations could build a stockpile capable of wiping out countries in a matter of seconds.
Vladimir Putin signaled an end to formal arms control between the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers when he announced on Tuesday that he would suspend Russia’s participation in the New Start Treaty
William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Portal: “Both sides could immediately go from 1,550 deployed strategic warheads to 4,000 – that could happen overnight.”
Security analysts have also said it could put an end to mutual deterrence and allow other superpowers like China, India and Pakistan to develop their own arsenals.
Putin also claimed US and NATO inspectors would pass information about the nuclear sites to Ukrainians to launch attacks.
“It’s a theater of the absurd,” he said. “We know that the West is directly involved in the Kiev regime’s attempts to attack the bases.”
While the US waits for Russia’s next move, the Biden administration has time to formulate a response.
Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the Armed Services Committee, said it was “no surprise” that Putin suspended attendance and called for a response.
He said the US should deploy additional nuclear forces and speed up planning in case Putin breaches the ceilings.
Marshall Billingslea, Donald Trump’s undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs, told that Russia and China will now deploy more warheads.
“President Biden needs a strong but measured response that includes support for the accelerated deployment of a nuclear-tipped submarine-launched cruise missile and the acquisition of additional B-21 bombers and Columbia submarines,” he added.
Both countries, which have 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, have so far complied with the terms of the treaty by respecting the cap on the number of deployed warheads.
breaks down the extent of firepower available to the United States and Russia – and how that could lead to a buildup of nuclear weapons for both Washington and Moscow.
HOW THE US AND RUSSIA NUCLEAR ARSENALS COULD DECIMATE THE PLANET
Of the 5,977 Russian warheads, about 1,500 are decommissioned (but probably still intact), 2,889 are in reserve and about 1,588 are in service as strategic warheads.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, about 812 are based on land-based ballistic missiles, about 576 on submarine-based ballistic missiles, and about 200 on heavy bomber bases.
The United States has approximately 1,644 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. According to the Federation of American Scientists, China has a total of 350 warheads, France 290 and the UK 225.
This means that both the US and Russia are capable of destroying the world many times over.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union peaked at around 40,000 nuclear warheads, while the US peaked at around 30,000 warheads.
At the end of his speech, blaming the West and global “elites” for the war against Ukraine, he made it clear that he would prevent the United States from inspecting sites housing some of the Kremlin’s 5,977 warheads
The key, however, lies in how to deliver the weapon – the missiles, submarines and bombers that carry the warhead.
Russia appears to have about 400 nuclear-armed ICBMs, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates can carry up to 1,185 warheads.
Russia operates 10 nuclear-armed nuclear submarines that could carry a maximum of 800 warheads. It has about 60 to 70 nuclear bombers.
Russia launched a hypersonic missile, the Zircon, from a submarine last year and has deployed the nuclear-capable Avangard hypersonic missiles since late 2019. The Avangard can travel up to Mach 27 and change course and altitude.
The Russian hypersonic missile Zircon has a range of 621 miles at a speed of 9,800 miles per hour.
But the rocket flies below the atmosphere and uses fuel to propel itself to hypersonic speeds instead of reaching Earth orbit.
It’s one of several hypersonic missiles Russia is deploying, including the 188-ton Sarmat — known in the West as Satan-2 — which will be the largest beast in Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
The US military has a number of hypersonic weapons programs in the Navy, Army and Air Force, but most are still in development and are top secret.
The known programs, however, are all more conventional high-altitude hypersonic weapons, rather than orbital bombing systems, which strike from space, which the Chinese appear to have developed this week.
The only US hypersonic weapon known to have been successfully tested is the Air Force’s GM-183 ARRW, which is designed to be launched from a large bomber aircraft.
It then accelerates to hypersonic speeds of up to 15,345 miles per hour with a supersonic combustion ramjet to hit targets within 1,000 miles. Donald Trump referred to a “super-duper missile” during his tenure, and this is believed to be the AGM-183 ARRW.
THE US PRESSURE FOR MODERNIZED NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The United States said in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review that Russia and China are expanding and modernizing their nuclear forces, and that Washington will adopt an arms-control-based approach to avert costly arms races.
Putin said he has information that the United States is developing new types of nuclear weapons.
Russia has modernized its nuclear weapons.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last in 1992, China and France last in 1996, India and Pakistan last in 1998, and North Korea last in 2017.
The Soviet Union was last tested in 1990.
President Joe Biden was greeted with a hero’s reception at the grounds of Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Tuesday night to mark the anniversary of the war in Ukraine
WHAT IS THE RUSSIA-US NUCLEAR TREATY?
New START, officially known as The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, was signed by the Obama administration in 2010 and took effect in February 2011 as a 10th year treaty.
The treaty required both Russia and the US to commit to regular communication on the status of their nuclear arsenals, allow regular on-site inspections, and adhere to caps on the number of deployed and undeployed warheads each would keep.
These ceilings include: 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed nuclear bombers; 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and deployed bombers; 800 deployed and undeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and bombers.
Both sides have since respected the ceilings, but the moratorium on inspections opens the possibility of increased use of nuclear weapons.
Hours after Putin’s speech, Russia’s foreign ministry said Russia will respect nuclear weapons ceilings, even though Putin suspended participation in the pact.
Russia will also continue to share information on ballistic missile test launches under previous agreements with the United States, the State Department said.
Russia launched a hypersonic missile, the Zircon, from a submarine last year and has deployed the nuclear-capable Avangard hypersonic missiles since late 2019. The Avangard can travel up to Mach 27 and change course and altitude
WHAT DOES THE SUSPENSION MEAN FOR NUCLEAR INSPECTION AND INFORMATION EXCHANGE?
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday that “the entire arms control architecture has been dismantled,” adding, “I strongly encourage Russia to reconsider its decision.”
Since signing New START, Russia and the US have allowed each other’s compliance teams to conduct 328 on-site inspections of their stockpiles.
The two nations have provided data sharing and 25,311 notifications on the status of their programs, the State Department said.
Putin’s announcement and subsequent clarification from the State Department seemed to indicate that inspections are permanently suspended – but left unclear what data sharing and notifications might continue.
The US will receive its first clues on March 1, the day both parties are scheduled to exchange data on the total number of their nuclear forces, said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear intelligence project at the Federation of American Scientists.
The US and Russia have also shared daily news of movements and exercises, which has helped both nuclear powers be clear about each other’s actions, both Kristensen and William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, called.
“There are notifications every day,” Alberque said. On the US side, these formatted computer messages are processed by a military-civilian team at the State Department’s National and Nuclear Risk Reduction Center.
If Russia decides not to provide the alerts, “we will immediately start leaking data to be able to track exactly how many strategic weapons they have and whether they are in the place where they should be or not, and if they’re behaving the way they’re supposed to,” Alberque said.
Stunning photos of the launch showed the rocket sweeping a huge bright arc across the night sky
WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE PUTIN’S ANNOUNCEMENT? CONTROL BREAK DURING THE PANDEMIC
New START inspections of US and Russian military sites were suspended by both sides in March 2020 due to the spread of the coronavirus. The US-Russia Commission, which oversees the treaty’s implementation, last met in October 2021, but Russia then unilaterally stopped cooperating with the treaty’s inspection provisions in August 2022 to protest US support for Ukraine.
Those talks were supposed to have resumed in Egypt in late November, but Russia abruptly called them off with no reason, according to US officials.
In late January, the Biden administration reported to Congress that Russia was not honoring the terms of the deal, refusing to allow inspections on its territory and refusing to agree to new talks to resume those inspections.
At the time, the State Department said “Russia has a clear path to returning to full compliance” and all it had to do was agree to new inspections.
HOW WILL THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION REACT? WILL IT LEAD TO A DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS?
Now it’s up to the Biden administration to decide how to respond — whether to continue honoring the treaty.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken described the Russian move as “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible”.
“We will closely monitor what Russia is actually doing,” he said. “We will of course make sure that in any case we are adequately positioned for the security of our own country and that of our allies.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry also hinted on Tuesday that the decision was “reversible,” suggesting that “Washington must show political will, diligently seek general de-escalation, and create conditions for the treaty to resume full functioning and, accordingly, to fully ensure their viability”.
Last month, the State Department reported it could not confirm Russia’s compliance with New START because it refused to allow inspectors on the ground last year.
Now that the treaty has been completely rejected by Russia, there is a risk of rearmament.
“Both the US and Russia have meticulously planned their respective nuclear modernization programs based on the assumption that neither country will exceed the strength currently dictated by New START,” the Federation of American Scientists said in a February report dealing with two sides concerned with the risks failed to renew the contract.
“Without a deal after 2026, that assumption immediately disappears; both sides would likely descend into mutual distrust in the face of fewer verifiable data points, and our discourse would be dominated by worst-case considerations of how both countries’ arsenals would grow going forward.”