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Moscow – The step of not extending the New START nuclear disarmament treaty with the United States for a period of one year occupies a space for discussion in this period, despite the fact that President Vladimir Putin has expressed his willingness to extend it after its expiration in February. , at a time when experts warn that the last decade of a nuclear treaty will be broken. Unleash a new arms race.
President Donald Trump’s threat to Washington’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was concluded during the Cold War with Russia, is a blow to nuclear weapons control efforts. He accused Moscow in 2018 of violating the treaty in a move that observers saw would increase tensions that could lead to the creation of a dangerous nuclear world that does not follow any controls.
But Putin apparently wants to defuse the tension, as he said on Friday during a video conference with the Security Council in Moscow that the two sides could use the year to conduct “reasonable negotiations on all the details.” The treaty between Washington and Moscow limits strategic nuclear weapons, but so far, negotiators have not reached an agreement to extend it.
The great controversy over Washington’s withdrawal from the aforementioned treaty demands to dwell on the historicity of its signing, since the agreement was signed between Washington and Moscow during the reigns of former US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, that is, during the Cold War period, to be the first treaty between the western and eastern poles in that era.
The treaty, which canceled an entire class of missiles with a range of 500 to 5,000 km, ended a crisis that erupted in the 1980s over the Soviet Union’s deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles, which targeted capital cities. from Western Europe. It forced the two sides to withdraw more than 2,600 conventional, short and medium-range nuclear missiles.
And experts from the American Arms Control Association believed that Washington should extend the START-3 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty for at least one year without preconditions.
“The extension of the treaty is vital for the United States, Russia and international security,” said former Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Thomas Countryman. We strongly urge President Trump to choose ‘yes’ in response to Russia’s proposal to extend ‘START-3’ without conditions, preferably for a period of five years. “
Military observers are counting on Trump’s prudence this time, as losing START 3 would open the door to a more dangerous and costly global nuclear arms race, and such unbridled competition for nuclear arsenals is unacceptable and dangerous for both parties.
The new START treaty limits the number of nuclear ballistic missile launchers to around 800 and operational nuclear warheads to 1550. The treaty is the last major disarmament treaty between the two powers. Without the agreement, there would be no agreement governing strategic nuclear weapons arsenals for the first time in decades.
Although US relations with Russia remain strained, US defense planners are focusing primarily on China due to its increased military spending and increasing efforts to consolidate its influence in disputed waters in Asia.
And the latest reports from the International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm (Sipri) indicate that Russia and the United States still possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons together, as Washington in 2020 has around 5,800 nuclear warheads. and Moscow 6,375 compared to 320 Beijing, 290 Paris and 215. For London.
And while Shannon Kyle, director of the Institute’s Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Program, pointed out that the era of bilateral nuclear arms control agreements between Russia and the United States could end. In early October, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, urged the two countries to extend the new START treaty for five years.
Many experts do not consider that Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement necessarily signifies the outbreak of a nuclear war between East and West, although Trump’s decision has raised fears of an acceleration of the feverish race to develop and produce nuclear weapons in both fields. as well as allies of Washington and Moscow.
