Mutual Interest In Resuming Arms Control Talks Can Speed Up The Ukrainian Peace Process
A new global arms race could follow the expiry of the New START in early 2026 if it’s not renewed or replaced.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin is ready to meet with Trump to discuss ending the Ukrainian Conflict and resuming arms control talks after the American leader told the Davos elite last week that he’d like to do both with his Russian counterpart as soon as possible. Their reference to resuming arms control talks is significant since the New START will expire in February 2026 but the negotiation process has been frozen since 2023. Here are some background briefings on this subject:
* 21 February 2023: “Russia Did The Right Thing At The Right Time By Suspending Participation In The New START”
* 20 January 2024: “Russia Won't Resume Arms Control Talks With The US Till The Ukrainian Conflict Ends”
* 18 October 2024: “Biden’s Interest In Nuclear Talks With Russia Is A Response To Trump’s Recent Rhetoric”
To summarize for the reader’s convenience, global strategic stability is to a large degree dependent on the balance of nuclear and associated forces (like delivery systems) between Russia and the US, the countries with the largest such arsenals by far. They realized near the end of the Old Cold War how dangerous it was to produce so many thousands of nuclear weapons and how financially onerous such programs were for each of them, ergo why they agreed to partial cuts and monitoring mechanisms.
This helped alleviate their security dilemma, which refers to one side’s defensively intended moves (such as building nukes for deterrence purposes) being perceived by their rival as offensively intended (such as preparing for an overwhelming first strike) and thus catalyzing an escalation cycle. Their security dilemma returned though due to NATO’s eastward expansion. It then reached a new dangerous phase with their proxy war in Ukraine and can further worsen if the New START expires without a replacement.
For that reason, Trump decided to make good on his campaign pledge to revive the denuclearization talks with Russia and China that he claimed were on the brink of success before the 2020 election, which explains why he brought this up during his video appearance at Davos. To be sure, he might have exaggerated the chances of reaching a deal had he won back then, especially since China wasn’t receptive to it and Russia demanded (as Peskov reminded Trump) British and French nuke cuts too.
Nevertheless, the importance in explaining this is to show that mutual US-Russian interest in resuming arms control talks could speed up the Ukrainian peace process since the former were suspended by Moscow pending a conclusion of the latter, which can incentivize mutual compromises to this end. It can only be speculated what form that could take, but the some of the proposals at the end of this analysis here and the one that was elaborated on here could be in the cards if both sides have the political will.
The need to resume arms control talks is more urgent than ever not just because the US-Russian security dilemma entered a new dangerous phase three years ago and the New START will soon expire, but also due to the development and deployment of new weapons systems like Russia’s hypersonic Oreshniks. It’s only a matter of time before the US and others catch up, and seeing as how these munitions can be comparable in force to nukes but without the radiation, a new global arms race might soon begin.
The hyper-proliferation of technology since the end of the Old Cold War means that this possibly impending competition wouldn’t just be between the US and Russia like before, but would almost inevitably include all other nuclear powers as well some non-nuclear states like Iran and others too. It’s only through a multilateral pact, with a US-Russian deal at its core, that other key nuclear and/or missile powers can be brought on board to agree to limit these arms and prevent others from obtaining them.
In practice, this could take the form of them also agreeing to authorize UNSC sanctions against any non-signatory state that’s credibly accused of developing or clandestinely deploying these weapons as well as against any signatory that’s credibly accused of stockpiling more of these munitions than agreed upon. What’s basically being proposed in a new international security architecture centered on the non-proliferation of cutting-edge non-nuclear weapons that requires the participation of all major players.
There’s still a long way to go before anything of the sort is agreed to at the proposed level that’s required for this to work, which includes the sensitive nitty-gritty details of monitoring mechanisms, but it’s in every responsible nuclear and missile power’s interests to have this happen. The means to that end is swiftly ending the Ukrainian Conflict through a serious of pragmatic mutual compromises in order for the US-Russian core of the global strategic security system to then begin work on this pronto.
James Baker fooled Russia into dismantling the Warsaw Pact by offering worthless guarantees against Eastward expansion of NATO, something policy moghuls like Kissinger, and figureheads like Medelin Ulbricht had intended to rescind at the first opportunity. Closer to our times, France declined to deliver fully paid for Mistral frigates to Russia and gleefully sat on that money the way proverbial cobra sits on a treasure trove in Asian folklore. Europe tricked Russia into signing an open skies pact, opening up the vast Russian airspace to umpteen European military flights, and once Europe was done with all of its spying over Russia and mapping all the coordinates for potential nuclear strikes, suddenly Spain abrogated the deal and debarred Russian craft before the latter could avail any reciprocal benefits. During Ronald Reagen's Presidency, the Pentagon hoodwinked Russian delegation by convincing its members that the US had acquired unbeatable anti-missile capability, by stage managing a demo wherein a missile was programmed to self detonate its payload in air upon detection of an 'interceptor' that flew past by a proximity sensor hidden in the missile cone. A very huge assortment of over one hundred airplanes in including cutting-edge AWACS and ECM workhorses was blown to bits by Russia at a Siberian hangar in the late 1980's, and the pinch was felt several decades later when Russia faced shortage of ECM planes for saving its aviation from Turkey in Syria, and again when a missile fired from a NATO drone shot down a Beriev AWACS idling over Belarus. If Russia signs another START with the US now in a fit of disarmament piety, then what? Undeniably Russia possesses neither the capabilities, nor the manpower or the stamina to monitor compliance by America and its EU quislings, even as America remains poised to steer just about every one of its lackeys not only in the EU but also in Japan into militarist confrontation with Russia in every possible theatre of conflict. America remains committed to coax and groom every one of its allies into loggerheads with Russia, and has already gone irreversibly forward in just having resurrected and reinstated the NAZI Reich Frankenstein and its RhineMetal. embodiment to that effect. What is the point in trusting the US with any new treaty when the Pentagon is hellbent upon undoing all of the sacrosanct anti-fascist paradigm reached by consensus at the end of World War 2? And now, Tucker Carlson has announced that the US under Biden had been seriously considering assassinating President Putin of Russia. The Zio-oligarchic deep state of America regards Russian civilisation as an illegitimate entity which deserves no right to exist in God's own world. It is only the potential fear of unmitigable consequences from Russia's nuclear arssnal that is driving sane voices in Europe to clamour against hotheaded warmongering of NATO bosses, Stoltenberg, and no one should be under illusions that those voicing such beliefs have been moved to compassion or gotten impressed with Russia's moral high ground. As for the untamed middle east, it is only the language of iron which it has ever understood or ever will for the forseeable future, and its plethora of unprincipled denizens will make a beeline to skin Russia alive under tutelage and patronage of the Pentagon if they were ever to become satisfied that Russian nuclear armaments are no longer adequate to the responsibility of disciplining them. After having already delivered some 10,000 CRV rockets (the best Canada has) to Ukraine as decided in a meeting at Ramsden base in Germany, Canada has now announced it is sending a staggering 80,000 of those rockets to Ukraine with instructions on how to target aircraft hangars and ammunition depots located deep inside Russia in the ongoing Ukrainian incursion inside Kursk. It is high time Russia grow up out of the cocoon of shyly playing by the rule book and code of conduct authored by its collective western enemies, and shake off the creed of slavishness which the west has enunciated solely for baptising Russia without the least sincereity in itself following that sham code of ethics.
What is the point of this? The next President - pulls out of the treaty - again?? Let it be. Trusting treaties signed by the US is a waste of time.