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The Economist May 5th 2018 21
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SINCE 1972, when the first Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks ( SALT I) agreement was
signed, there have always been negotiated
constraints on the nuclear arsenals con-
trolled from Washington and Moscow. In
three years, if nothing is done, that half-
century of strategic arms control will be
over. In 2021 the curbs on warhead num-
bers and the protocols for exchanging in-
formation provided by the New START
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) of 2011
will lapse unless it is extended. The conse-
quence of the treaty’s demise could be a
dangerous and expensive newarms race.
It far from the only reason for such nuc-
lear worries. Both President Donald
Trump and Vladimir Putin, the president
ofRussia, revel in a formof nuclear bragga-
docio that would have been anathema to
their predecessors. Mr Trump boasts about
the size of his nuclear button and promises
to return America’s nuclear arsenal to “the
top of the pack”. Mr Putinmade the central
set-piece speech of his recent re-election
campaign an extended riff on Dr Strange-
love, gloating over a slew of novel, blood-
curdling weapons, including one that ap-
pears to boast the most powerful warhead
ever created, the better to drench coastal
citieswith irradiated tsunami.
The deal that constrains Iran’s develop-
ment of nuclear weapons is being system-
atically undermined by the Trump admin-
istration. Summitry with North Korea is
more likely to result in grudging recogni-
tion of it as a nuclear-weapon state than to
lead to the dismantling of its arsenal of
missiles. If the talks breakdown the penin-
sula could become even more unstable.
The main bulwark against the spread of
nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Non-Prolif-
eration Treaty, is holding up; but it is in
worse shape than at any time since it en-
tered into force in1970.
You can’t fight in here
It seems a long time since Barack Obama’s
Prague speech, in which he talked about
working towards a world free of nuclear
weapons. In 2010, a year after setting out
that goal, Mr Obama’s administration ne-
gotiated the New START agreement with
Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Putin’s more emol-
lient sidekick and placeholder. The treaty
obliged both sides to field no more than
1,550 strategic nuclear warheads with no
more than 800 missiles and bombers to
carry them. LikeSALT I andmost arms-con-
trol deals since, New START contained
detailed verification and monitoring ar-
rangements. These not only ensured that
the two parties were doing what they had
said. They also provided insights into
how they ran their nuclear forces which
improved confidence on both sides.
Since then things have got steadily
worse. To get New START ratified by the
Senate, Mr Obama had to show that the
limited number of nukes it allowedwould
be of tip-top quality. Thus he embraced a
sweeping modernisation programme
which calls for the refurbishment of war-
heads and new intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs), submarines and bom-
bers; the Congressional Budget Office ex-
pects it to cost about $1.2trn over the 30
years from 2016. The Russians began their
own ambitious nuclear upgrades, too. Bob
Einhorn, a former arms-control negotiator
now at the Brookings Institution, a think-
tank, fears that “the dynamics of nuclear
modernisation” could lead to new tech-
nologies and therefore new strategic un-
certainties which increase risks even if the
limits ofNew START are adhered to.
If all this were going on during a period
when relations between Russia and Amer-
ica allowed for the conduct ofnormal busi-
ness, including follow-on arms-control
agreements, there might not be too much
to worry about, other than the expense.
They aren’t. In 2013 Mr Obama floated the
possibility of the two countries cutting the
number of their deployed nuclear war-
heads bya further third. ButMr Putinmade
it clear, according to Mr Einhorn, that he
had “zero interest” in the proposal. For Mr
Putin, nuclear weapons are not just the ul-
timate guarantor of Russia’s security but a
symbol of national pride that demands re-
spect (and fear) fromadversaries.
Just a few months after Mr Putin’s re-
buff, in January 2014, Rose Gottemoeller,
then under-secretary for arms control at
the State Department and nowdeputy sec-
A farewell to arms control
Old deals to limit nuclearweapons are fraying. Both politics and technological
changemake their refurbishment or replacement unlikely
Briefing Global security
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