More worrisome complications as START treaty set to expire

On Feb. 5, the New START treaty, which sets the number of nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia can deploy at 1,550 each, will expire.

The treaty, which came into force in 2011, allowed for one extension, which occurred in 2021, days after President Biden took the oath of office, hard up against the deadline. The treaty does not allow future extensions because it was assumed that a new treaty would succeed the old.

However, Russia suspended cooperation in 2023. While the numerical limits still hold, the verification regime no longer functions. The U.S. has charged that Russia has violated the treaty.

This past September, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that the U.S. and Russia just keep abiding by the current limits for another year. Russia is in the last stages of a modernization program while the U.S. is in the middle of a trillion-dollar modernization that will span decades.

This says nothing of China, which is steadily building up its arsenal of nuclear weapons, though it will not reach U.S. and Russian levels anytime soon. In his first term, President Trump broached the idea of expanding New START to include China, which was rejected by China’s President Xi. President Biden received the same response.

There are voices in the American national security community — especially among the America First crowd in the current administration — arguing that America must soon expand the number of launchers and weapons to meet growing threats.

Writing for the Arms Control Association a year ago, Mike Albertson, a deputy director at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, argued that what will be lost from the treaty are the intangibles — primarily the exchanged data, which will create uncertainties, as well as the people-to-people contacts among treaty implementers, inspection teams, and technical experts.

However, Albertson believed higher numbers of weapons are inevitable when New START expires raising questions about how much is enough, but that the United States should be prepared to take the lead in offering a way forward to a new legally binding framework that includes not only the U.S., Russia, and China, but the U.K. and France as well.

He argued that the Congress should be involved from the beginning. However, with discussions with Russia held hostage by the war in Ukraine, nothing will happen soon. Ultimately, an ongoing process would help all define priorities, including new systems not covered by the treaty, and manage whatever buildup might occur.

Yet, what a difference a year makes.

We find ourselves at a moment when allies who have sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella for generations are now not only questioning if they can depend on American protection, but if they need their own weapons or might have to defend themselves against an America gone rogue.

For his part, President Trump has said that President Putin’s idea is “good,” but not responded formerly. He has also recently told the New York Times “if it expires, it expires” and promised “a better agreement” though, as usual, there are no details and no ongoing negotiations.

The President is putting a great deal of stock in his proposed “Golden Dome” anti-missile shield to protect America, though the required technologies do not yet exist. Pray that he does not believe that such a system would make arms control — or allies — unnecessary.

The uncertainties of our era should worry all. Writing in the Atlantic, Robert Kagan warned that Americans are entering the “most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post-Cold War world like paradise.”

The expiration of New START is another brick along that dangerous path.

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.