The Growing Threat of Nuclear War The United States finds itself wandering in a wilderness of indecision when it comes to arms control policy. The situation regarding the status of the last existing nuclear arms control treaty with Russia-- the New START treaty--is dire. Implementation is currently frozen after Russia suspended its participation in protest to a stated U.S. policy objective of seeking the strategic defeat of Russia, something Russia finds incompatible with opening its strategic nuclear deterrent (which exists precisely to prevent Russia's strategic defeat) to inspection by U.S. officials. The U.

S. is not talking with Russia about the future of arms control once New START expires in February 2026. Moreover, fallout from the U.S. policy of seeking strategic defeat of Russia has seen Moscow radically alter its position regarding future arms control treaties. Any future agreement must, from the Russian perspective, include missile defense; the French and British nuclear arsenals, as well as the U.S.-supplied NATO nuclear deterrent.

Russia has further complicated any future negotiations by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to its Baltic enclave in Kaliningrad, as well as extending its Russian-controlled nuclear umbrella to Belarus where it has mirrored the NATO nuclear umbrella. The state of play today regarding strategic arms control between the U.S. and Russia can best be likened to a patient on life support whom no one is trying to revive. Russia is in the process of finalizing a major modernization of its strategic nuclear forces, built around the new Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and the Avangard hypersonic reentry vehicle. The United States is on the cusp of initiating its own multi-billion- dollar upgrade to the U.S. nuclear Triad consisting of the B-21 stealth bomber, the Columbia class missile submarine and the new Sentinel ICBM.

If no treaty vehicle exists designed to verifiably limit the deployment of these new weapons, once New START expires, the U.S. and Russia will find themselves engaged in an unconstrained nuclear arms race that dramatically increases the probability of unintended nuclear conflict. When viewed in this light, the future of global security hinges on the ability of Russia and the U.S. to return to the negotiating table and resuscitate arms control from its present moribund state. Key to this will be the willingness of Washington to incorporate Russian concerns into U.S.

nuclear posture.