The United States and Russia – the world’s nuclear superpowers – are resolutely turning their backs on one of the greatest achievements of the past generation – verifiable arms control agreements that have worked to lessen the chance of nuclear war. Regarding the threat of climate change, we do not have an international response commensurate with the challenge; on nuclear weapons, we do have a system that has worked but we are about to throw it away.

The United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in August 2019. The ground-breaking INF Treaty, signed in December 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, required the destruction of nuclear and conventional ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. These weapons are particularly dangerous because they can reach their targets in under 10 minutes, greatly raising the prospect of deadly miscalculation.

The treaty led to the destruction of nearly 2,700 missiles on both sides (roughly 1,850 by Russia and 850 by the United States) and included verification procedures useful in subsequent treaties. It was a major milestone in the creation of trust that ended the Cold War. But Russia began to deploy a new missile, the Novator 9M729, which the United States and other NATO countries said contravened the treaty. When Russia would not respond concretely to this charge, the Trump administration withdrew.

Nuclear non-proliferation took the next blow. In 2015, Iran and a group of world powers, including China, signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action whereby Iran would redesign, convert, and reduce its nuclear facilities while allowing rigorous inspections in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons seeks to limit the spread of nuclear weapons (in exchange for the superpowers reducing their nuclear arsenal) and limiting the ability of Iran to “break out” and quickly make a weapon was a major achievement.

In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran had met the agreement’s preliminary requirements by taking thousands of centrifuges offline, selling excess enriched uranium to Russia, and halting work on a heavy water reactor. Despite this, and to the dismay of his allies and the United Nations, in May 2018 Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement (citing Iran’s role in regional wars and its attempt to build a long-range ballistic missile) and re-imposed sanctions. Since the United States unilaterally reneged on its commitments, Iran has announced it is no longer bound by the terms of the agreement either and, in July 2019, Iran exceeded the agreed upon limits to its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Now, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) may be in peril. New START is the only remaining arms control agreement limiting the size of the American and Russian arsenals, but it is due to expire in February 2021. The treaty can be expanded for up to five years (until 2026) if the presidents of the United States and Russia agree to do so (it does not have to go to the U.S. Senate). The Trump administration has so far been silent on the possibility of extension, and Russian officials have accused the United States of “wasting time” while “there is almost no time left” before the treaty expires. The New START caps U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals at 1,550 warheads and 700 missiles and heavy bombers each. The treaty has not only led to significant reductions in weapons to meet the strict caps, but it ensures security by allowing mutual inspections thus improving intelligence and building trust. At the time this article was written, the United States had conducted 14 inspections in Russia, and Russia had carried out the same number in the United States. If the United States allows the treaty to lapse, the two nuclear superpowers would be free to build as many of these weapons as they want. We would return to the bad old days of an “action-reaction” arms buildup.

The danger of having a world with no nuclear arms control has been recognized by many leaders: President of Finland Sauli Niinistö, in a public appearance with Donald Trump, said, “Some of us remember the worst years of the Cold War in [the] 1960s. There was no agreement at all, just Cold War. We can’t let the situation return [to having] no agreement … that is why it is important to try and negotiate new agreements and to continue New START.” The U.S. President did not respond to this, instead he responded to the U.S. Senate passing a massive defence bill of US $738 billion in December 2019 hailing the creation of a Space Force within the Air Force with a Chief of Space Operations as a member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea,” Trump said. “The Space Force will organize, train, and equip warriors to support SPACECOM’s mission. It is not enough to have an American presence in space,” the President declared. “We must have American dominance in space.”

China will be greatly affected by the decisions of the Russians and Americans on the New START. China has far fewer nuclear warheads, numbering in the hundreds, not the thousands (many informed observers put the Chinese nuclear weapon arsenal at 300). Russia and the United States should reduce down to the Chinese figure as the Hiroshima Declaration of the InterAction Council recommends.

The InterAction Council of former world leaders has been preoccupied with the dangers of nuclear weapons and the necessity of arms control since its founding in 1983. Created at the height of the Cold War, the Council has consistently favoured détente and has urged arms control as its positive and practical expression. In Hiroshima in 2010, when optimism about nuclear disarmament was at its height following the election of President Obama, the Council prepared a dedicated roadmap on short-, medium-, and long-term steps that the world should follow to roll back the threat of nuclear annihilation. But in recent times, this momentum has been reversed and the nuclear superpowers are shredding existing agreements instead of extending and deepening them.

At its April 2020 plenary meeting in Malta, the InterAction Council will again return to the subject of arms control and, in this area, it will be encouraged by China not engaging in a nuclear arms race. The Council should examine, too, if a U.S. Space Force would violate the Outer Space Treaty that recognizes “the common interest of all mankind in the progress of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.” The common interest of humankind is the goal of the Outer Space Treaty, not American dominance.

Today’s dangerous regression in arms control must be halted. The militarization of outer space must be stopped before it ever gets underway. Russia and the United States should reduce their nuclear arsenals, not modernize them. Nuclear proliferation must not spread, and countries like Iran should be encouraged to forego the nuclear weapons option as the world tried to do in 2015.

China has shown restraint in nuclear weapons acquisition, and this laudable decision should be contrasted with the two superpowers who are still wedded to the old thinking that more is better. The nuclear threat is real, and it is growing. But the nuclear weapon genie can be put back into the lamp – we have done so before and we can do so again.

___________

THOMAS S. AXWORTHY is secretary general of the InterAction Council.