Preventing Nuclear War and Proliferation (excerpt) By Alexandra Bell Via Russia Matters Editors’ note: With a change of guard in the White House, the new U.S. administration has a chance to commission a review of U.S. domestic and foreign policies. […]
Preventing Nuclear War and Proliferation (excerpt)
By Alexandra Bell
Editors’ note: With a change of guard in the White House, the new U.S. administration has a chance to commission a review of U.S. domestic and foreign policies. This primer is the fourth in a series designed to facilitate such a review by detailing the impact Russia does or can have on each of five vital U.S. national interests as defined by a task force co-chaired by Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill. Some of the authors offer recommendations on how to best advance these interests in 2021-2024. The interests are: (1) maintaining a balance of power in Europe and Asia; (2) ensuring energy security; (3) preventing the use and slowing the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, securing nuclear weapons and materials and preventing proliferation of intermediate and long-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons, addressed below; (4) preventing large-scale or sustained terrorist attacks on the American homeland; and (5) assuring the stability of the international economy.
Executive Summary
Understanding the potentially apocalyptic consequences of nuclear war, it is clearly in the national security interest of the United States to reduce nuclear risks. This necessitates a multilayered effort to slow the spread of nuclear weapons and technologies, reduce nuclear stockpiles, secure nuclear materials and prevent the proliferation of delivery systems for nuclear weapons. None of these efforts can be truly successful without the help and cooperation of the Russian Federation. Indeed, the Russian impact on U.S. nuclear risk reduction goals cannot be overstated. Russia’s arsenal constitutes over 45 percent of the global nuclear stockpile. Those weapons are coupled with delivery systems that could reach American soil in about 30 minutes, meaning Russia presents a clear and ever-present existential nuclear threat to the United States. U.S.-Russian bilateral nuclear risk reduction efforts have produced successes in the past, but those efforts are now fading and failing. Should the United States want to continue to reduce nuclear threats in the 21st century, it has no choice but to engage in a reinvigoration of nuclear policy dialogue and cooperative activities with Russia.
Nuclear tensions between the United States and Russia, and around the world, are now at the highest levels seen since the end of the Cold War. These conditions mandate that the United States take a leadership role in stabilizing the situation. That will require some immediate actions, including extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and managing the aftermath of the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
There are also longer-term steps the United States can take to facilitate cooperation and dialogue with Russia that will aid in its goal of reducing nuclear threats. Washington, working with Moscow, will need to rebuild teams capable of producing a new generation of arms control and nonproliferation agreements. It will also be necessary to restart dialogues and deal with longstanding grievances, including treaty compliance, confusion about each other’s doctrines relating to nuclear use and missile defense. These interactions should be regularized and protected from broader challenges the United States faces from Russia. Beyond that, substantive discussions over nuclear issues need to be reinvigorated and broadened to include emerging threats like hypersonic weapons and the incorporation of artificial intelligence into strategic command systems. These discussions cannot be sporadic fora in which to enumerate past grievances; rather they should encourage bold and creative thinking about the future of both arms control and nonproliferation.
Beyond nuclear arms control and nonproliferation discussions, the United States should press Russia to expand cooperation to contend with conventional arms control challenges like the very likely collapse of the Open Skies Treaty, from which the U.S. and Russia have now both withdrawn, as well as the continuing threat of nuclear terrorism and the need for nuclear security cooperation. The United States should also see if Russia has any interest in working together to expand all these efforts into multilateral formats.
Incoming U.S. President Joe Biden has long supported nuclear risk reduction measures and it is likely that his team has already considered the initial pressing challenges and how to confront them. All of the new U.S. administration’s policy goals in this space will unavoidably be impacted by Russia. Through its nuclear assets, nuclear posture and political choices, Moscow affects how Washington plans and implements its own nuclear policies in arms control, nonproliferation and nuclear security. The same, of course, is true in the reverse. It is for those reasons that the two countries are “doomed to cooperate.”
With a renewed acknowledgement of the stakes, a stabilization of remaining structures and a commitment to substantive dialogue and adequate resources, the United States, working with Russia, can achieve its goal of reducing nuclear risks for themselves and the world….
Conclusion
The size and scope of the Russian nuclear arsenal and infrastructure present an existential threat to the United States. For that reason, Russia can and will continue to impact U.S. plans and policies regarding arms control, nonproliferation and nuclear security goals. Of course, there is no sense in mincing words: The United States does not trust Russia and it is easy to understand why. The feeling is undoubtedly mutual. Dealing with Moscow, especially in the wake of unprecedented cyberattacks directed at U.S. federal agencies, will be politically fraught for the new administration. That does not change the fact that the United States and Russia are still just a few bad decisions away from the end of the world. Scientific experts estimate that a U.S,-Russian nuclear exchange based on current understandings of force postures would result in more than 90 million casualties within hours, not to mention the longer-term damage to health, property and climate. That is why the United States can and should engage Russia to deal with immediate nuclear threats, while also working to enhance and expand dialogues on nuclear risks in a regularized fashion. It will also be necessary to assess and process both long-standing complaints and new and emerging challenges. (The latter category includes cyber threats, considered briefly in Appendix 3.)
There is no other rational course of action. As has been outlined by scholars in vivid detail, the United States was lucky to escape the Cold War without a nuclear conflagration. There is no guarantee that luck will last forever and the nuclear threat from Russia remains. If the reduction of nuclear dangers and the prevention of nuclear war is a priority for leaders in Washington, then partnering with Moscow is essential—and unavoidable.
