Arms control

Time for a different kind of US-Russian arms control

Strategic arms control is not a popular topic these days. Since the United States and Russia signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010, bilateral efforts have stalled. Though both countries continue to implement the treaty, Russia has refused to accept the Obama administration’s request to negotiate a successor agreement unless it agrees to the participation of smaller nuclear-armed states, legally-binding limits on US missile defenses, or a host of other unrealistic demands. The impasse has caused Carnegie Moscow Center scholar Alexei Arbatov to worry that we have reached “the end of history for nuclear arms control.” He writes that “the current period of disintegration is unprecedented, with literally every channel of negotiation deadlocked and the entire system of existing arms control agreements under threat.”