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Russia willing to extend New Start treaty – Putin

RT | September 22, 2025

Russia is prepared to continue abiding by the New START treaty on nuclear arms for one year even after it expires next February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Speaking at a meeting with the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council on Monday, Putin said that due to the hostile and destructive steps taken by the West in recent years, the foundations of constructive relations and cooperation between nuclear-armed states have been significantly undermined.

“Step by step, the system of Soviet-American and Russian-American agreements on nuclear missile and strategic defensive arms control was almost completely dismantled,” Putin said. He stressed that the systems of agreements between Russia and the US, who possess the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world, long served as a stabilizing factor and contributed to global stability and international security.

Putin noted that the New START treaty, signed in 2010 by Russia and the US, is the last remaining bilateral agreement limiting nuclear weapons. He warned that allowing it to expire and abandoning its legacy would be “a mistaken and short-sighted step, which, in our view, would also negatively impact the goals of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

The president announced that in order to avoid provoking a strategic arms race and ensuring an “acceptable level of predictability and restraint,” Russia is prepared to continue adhering to the central limitations of the New START Treaty for one year after February 5, 2026.

“Based on our analysis of the situation, we will subsequently make a decision on maintaining these voluntary self-restraints,” he added.

At the same time, Putin stressed that Moscow would implement this measure only if the US “follows suit and does not take steps that undermine or disrupt the existing balance of deterrence potential.”

The president ordered Russia’s relevant agencies to continue closely monitoring US activities in regard to strategic offensive arms arsenals and any plans to expand the strategic components of the US missile defense system. If it is deemed that Washington is taking actions that undermine Moscow’s efforts to maintain the status quo on strategic offensive arms, Russia will “respond accordingly,” Putin said.

September 22, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia Possesses Advanced Weapons Other Than Oreshnik Systems – Ryabkov

Sputnik – 10.08.2025

MOSCOW – In addition to the Oreshnik missile systems, Russia possesses other advanced weaponry, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Sunday.

“There is Oreshnik. But there is more, and we have been wasting no time. I cannot name what I am not authorized to name. But it exists,” Ryabkov said on the Rossiya 1 channel.

Russia has many options in advanced weaponry at its disposal, the deputy foreign minister said, adding that “we never rule anything out for ourselves in advance.”

Ryabkov also made statements on lifting the moratorium on INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces):

  • Russia must use such methods to cool down the heated heads in NATO countries.
  • In today’s realities, it is inappropriate to use the term “détente” in relations between Russia and the US.
  • What we need now is not détente, but political will to begin lowering the temperature in international relations.
  • Everything Moscow does in terms of weapons deployment is a reaction to the steps taken by the Americans and their allies.
  • Apart from the Oreshnik systems, Russia also has other advanced weapons.
  • The first signs of common sense are appearing in Russia-US relations, which were absent for several years before.
  • The risk of nuclear conflict in the world is not decreasing.
  • Russia sees the risk that after the expiration of the New START Treaty, nuclear arms control will be completely absent.

August 10, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US approves new nuclear warhead program despite cost increase

RT | July 9, 2024

The US Department of Defense will continue developing its new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) despite an 81% increase in costs as Washington seeks to update its ‘nuclear triad’.

The Sentinel ICBM program, which is intended to replace aging Minuteman III nuclear missiles, is now expected to cost $140.9 billion – almost double the original estimate of $77.7 billion, the Pentagon said in a statement on Monday.

The ballooning cost of the nuclear warhead program has triggered what is known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which occurs if the cost of developing a new program increases by 25%, and requires a Department of Defense review to justify its continuation. Following this review, the Pentagon has found that there are no viable alternatives to the Sentinel.

William LaPlante, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, said his office was “fully aware of the costs.”

“But we are also aware of the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront,” he added in the statement.

Much of the cost increase has been attributed not only to building the new missile but also to the large-scale modernization of ground-based facilities, including launch control centers, nuclear missile bases, and testing facilities.

The approval of the Sentinel ICBM attracted considerable criticism, prompting more than 700 US scientists representing institutions across the country to send a letter to US President Joe Biden and Congress on Monday. The scientists urged the Pentagon to drop the “expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary” nuclear warhead program.

They argued that “there is no sound technical or strategic rationale for spending tens of billions of dollars building new nuclear weapons.”

“These weapons – stored in silos across the Plains states – place a target on communities and increase the risk of nuclear war while offering no meaningful security benefits,” said Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The size of the US nuclear arsenal is currently limited by New START, a treaty negotiated with Russia in 2010. It is set to expire in 2026, with no indications that it might be renewed.

Last year, Russia formally suspended its participation in New START, citing US sanctions over the Ukraine conflict and encouragement of Kiev’s attacks on Russian strategic air bases. However, Moscow has continued to observe the treaty’s provisions, capping its number of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

July 9, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Long Violating Letter, Spirit of New START – Russian Ambassador Antonov

Sputnik – 03.08.2023

WASHINGTON – Russia in February suspended participation in New START, the only bilateral nuclear arms control treaty in place at the time, and conditioned its resumption of participation on an understanding of how NATO’s combined strike capability would be accounted for.

The United States has long been violating the New START Treaty, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said.

“Washington has long been violating the letter and the spirit of the agreement. It has not only abandoned the principles embedded in the Preamble to New START, but also breached the central limits of the Treaty that restrict the number of strategic weapons. It illegitimately removed from accountability under the Treaty about a hundred strategic offensive arms: SLBM launchers and heavy bombers. Russia’s repeated demands to resolve the problem have been ignored,” Antonov told reporters.

He said there was another factor that has led to the current crisis.

“Even more important factor that has led to the current crisis over the agreement is the [US] Administration’s hybrid war against our country aimed at imposing on us a strategic defeat. Washington’s calls for addressing the New START issues separately from the overall geopolitical situation do not stand up to criticism,” Antonov said.

“The real goal of the United States is to gain access to Russia’s nuclear weapons bases in order to obtain information about the development of our strategic arsenal,” he said.

In February, Moscow announced the suspension of its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which was signed by Russia and the US in 2010 and envisaged mutual inspections of the strategic nuclear facilities of the two countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual address to the Russian parliament then that the US had demanded that Russia unconditionally fulfill its obligations under the treaty while itself being arbitrary about its own obligations.

August 3, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | 2 Comments

Russia makes ‘goodwill’ missile pledge to US

RT | March 30, 2023

Russia will continue to inform the US about its ballistic missile launches despite Moscow suspending its participation in the New START treaty, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated.

Russia placed its participation in the New START treaty – the last remaining nuclear accord with Washington – on hold in February.

Explaining the move, President Vladimir Putin said that the 2010 deal had been signed under different circumstances, when Russia and the US did not perceive each other as adversaries. The West had also denied Russian requests to inspect nuclear facilities even though this was allowed for under the treaty, Putin claimed.

Speaking about data sharing between Moscow and Washington on Thursday, Ryabkov stated that “all types of information exchanges, as well as other elements of verification activities in accordance with the New START, have been suspended.”

However, he noted the announcement by Moscow that it will “adhere to the basic quantitative restrictions established in the New START treaty, and will continue to implement the 1988 agreement on the exchange of notifications on missile launches.” Russia will do so “out of good will,” Ryabkov added.

The New START treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by Russia and the US to 1,550. It also confines the two nations to 800 deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, as well as to 700 ICBMs, SLBMs and strategic bombers equipped to carry nuclear armaments.

Ryabkov said that Russia had informed the US of its decision to suspend participation in the New START treaty in both verbal and written form, but that Moscow had not received any such notification from Washington.

This means that the US violated its commitments under the New START treaty when it refused to provide Moscow with a biannual report on nuclear stockpiles earlier this week, Ryabkov argued.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday that Washington was ready to continue exchanging information with Moscow in line with the New START treaty, but only on a reciprocal basis. “Since they [Russia] have refused to be in compliance… we have decided to likewise not share that data,” Kirby said.

March 31, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

Moscow outlines conditions for unfreezing nuclear deal

RT | February 28, 2023

Russia’s decision to suspend New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the US, was the right response to Washington’s anti-Russia policies and its violations of the deal, Moscow’s ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said on Monday.

Commenting on Washington’s criticism of the move, Antonov accused the US of shifting the blame. He noted that “Washington has launched and dragged its European allies into a large-scale hybrid war against Russia,” while openly stating that its goal is “to inflict a strategic defeat on our country.”

“At the same time, as if nothing has happened, it insists on the inspection of our bases, which store strategic nuclear weapons. These are the same bases that have been attacked by Ukraine with the help of the Pentagon,” the envoy stated.

Antonov accused Washington of substantially violating the central provisions of New START. He said the US had “illegitimately” withdrawn submarine-launched ballistic missile systems and heavy bombers from the deal’s counting rules after declaring them incapable of carrying out nuclear missions following “a procedure not agreed upon with Russia.”

“Our inspectors have never been given the opportunity to verify the results of the ‘conversion,’” Antonov explained.

Against this backdrop, the ambassador described the decision to suspend participation in New START as “the only right one under the circumstances,” adding that Moscow still complies with the quantitative limitations imposed by the treaty.

“To create the conditions for a return to full-scale operation of New START, Washington must reconsider its hostile anti-Russian policy,” he asserted.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow had “suspended its membership” of New START, saying the West had denied Moscow’s requests to inspect Western nuclear facilities in accordance with the treaty under formal pretexts.

The president also noted that NATO members were demanding access to Russia’s strategic facilities, despite the fact that the deal was signed only by Moscow and Washington.

New START was originally signed in 2010 by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. It was aimed at halving the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers deployed around the world. Under the treaty, both countries were supposed to allow the other side a limited number of inspections per year to verify compliance with the agreement. Unless extended, the treaty was set to expire in 2026.

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO is de facto at war with Russia – Kremlin

RT | February 28, 2023

The US-led collective West must change its approach to global security and finally take Moscow’s concerns into consideration, before talks on the New START nuclear agreement can be renewed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted.

Speaking to the Izvestia newspaper for an interview published on Tuesday, Peskov said relations with the United States and Europe have “changed radically” since President Vladimir Putin formulated draft security treaties that were sent to Washington, Brussels and Vienna in late 2021, only to hear that “they were not ready to talk about anything with us.”

“If they wanted, they could have sat down at the negotiating table [back then, before the decision to launch a military operation in Ukraine],” he said. “There would have been very complex, positional, sometimes irreconcilable talks, but they would have been under way. But they refused.”

With the failed attempt at dialogue, tensions continued to soar between Moscow and the West in the lead up to the conflict in Ukraine. Peskov argued that NATO is now fully involved in the hostilities, noting “their intelligence is working against us 24 hours a day, their weapons… are supplied to Ukraine for free to shoot at our military, not to mention that they shoot at Ukrainian citizens.”

“The moment when NATO de facto became a participant in the conflict in Ukraine, the situation changed,” the spokesman continued. “In fact, the NATO bloc is no longer acting as our conditional opponent, but as our enemy.”

“President Putin was and remains open to any contacts that can help Russia achieve its goals in one way or another,” Peskov continued. “Preferably peacefully, at the negotiations table, but when this is not possible, also by military means, as we are seeing now.”

Peskov touched on the New START treaty, a US-Russian accord intended to limit both nations’ nuclear stockpiles and allow them to monitor each other’s military facilities to confirm compliance. Amid the conflict in Ukraine, however, Moscow and Washington have accused each other of failing to facilitate such inspections.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow intended to formally suspend its obligations under the pact, with Peskov explaining “the conditions must somehow change.” During the New START negotiations, the nuclear arsenals of France and Great Britain were left out of the equation, even though they are “significant enough for the entire system of European strategic security,” he said.

“These countries – France, Britain, the United States – are members of an organization which is de facto at war with us… you need to call a spade a spade,” Peskov added, noting how Western states nevertheless keep “repeating like a mantra that they do not want to be participants in the conflict.”

Putin has also accused NATO specialists of helping Kiev to launch drone attacks against Russian airfields hosting long-range bombers, which are part of Moscow’s system of nuclear deterrence. He blamed Washington and NATO’s proxy war against Russia for destroying the foundation of trust on which the treaty was initially built.

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin Announces Suspension of New START Treaty, Orders New Strategic Systems Be Put on Combat Duty

Sputnik – 21.02.2023

Russia will be suspending its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction (New START) Treaty, President Vladimir Putin has announced.

The Russian president made the announcement during the course of a major annual address to lawmakers on Tuesday that focused on the security crisis in Ukraine and the broader global tensions between the West and Russia.

“They [the West] seek to inflict a strategic defeat on us and to creep onto our nuclear sites. In connection with this, I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START Treaty. I repeat – not exiting from the treaty, but suspending its participation,” Putin said, speaking to gathered lawmakers in Moscow during his speech to the Federal Assembly.

Putin explained that “at the start of February, the North Atlantic Alliance made a statement factually demanding that Russia ‘return to the implementation of the strategic offensive arms treaty,’ including the admission of inspections to our nuclear and defense facilities.”

“I don’t even know what to call this – some kind of theater of the absurd. We know that the West is involved directly in attempts of the Kiev regime to strike the bases of our strategic aviation,” Putin said, pointing to recent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Engels Air Base, home to part of the airborne contingent of Russia’s nuclear triad.

The drones used in these attacks were “equipped and modernized with the assistance of NATO specialists,” Putin said. “And now they want to inspect our defense facilities. In the current conditions and today’s confrontation, this simply sounds like some kind of nonsense.”

“A week ago, I signed a decree putting new ground-based strategic weapons systems on combat duty. Are they going to stick their nose in there too?” Putin asked.

The Russian president suggested that NATO’s collective statement essentially amounted to an application to join the New START Treaty, and said Moscow would only welcome such a move.

“We agree, please go ahead. Furthermore, we think that such a formulation of the issue is long overdue. After all, NATO contains not just one nuclear power – the USA. Britain and France also have nuclear arsenals, which are being developed and improved, and which are also directed against us, against Russia,” Putin said.

Slamming the US and NATO over the “hypocrisy” of their demands, Putin recalled how the Western bloc has attempted to assure Moscow that “there is no connection between issues related to strategic offensive arms and, say, the conflict in Ukraine, or other hostile actions against our country,” while at the same time seeking to “defeat” Russia militarily.

“This is either the height of hypocrisy and cynicism, or the height of stupidity. You can’t call them idiots, they are not stupid people: they want to inflict a strategic defeat on us,” the president said.

What is New START and Why Is It Important?

The New START Treaty is the last major strategic arms limitation agreement between the nuclear superpowers – Russia and the United States. The agreement, drafted in 2009 and signed by then-Russian and US Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in Prague, Czech Republic in 2010, limits the two countries’ deployed arsenals of strategic weapons and nuke stockpiles, and features a series of measures aimed at increased transparency and trust, including the broadcast of telemetry data, limits to missile testing activities, and the exchange of other information.

The Trump administration threatened to let the clock run out on New START in late 2020 after withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty – a late Cold War-era pact which eliminated Soviet and US ground-based nuclear missiles in the 500-5,500 km range, in 2019. The Biden administration agreed to renew New START for five years in early 2021. Pentagon planners have repeatedly criticized the strategic treaty for its failure to account for the nuclear arsenal of China. Beijing has said that it would be happy to sign a nuclear agreement with Washington if the US reduced the size of its nuclear arsenal to China’s level.

The post-Cold War strategic security order began to be dismantled in late 2001, when the George W. Bush administration announced that it would scrap the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a landmark 1972 agreement designed to limit anti-missile defenses and thus reduce the danger of a global nuclear war. Washington quit the treaty despite proposals by Moscow at the time to establish a joint missile defense system in the Caucasus to eliminate any threats posed to the US or Europe.

February 21, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Absurd US propaganda claims China has more ICBMs than America

By Drago Bosnic | February 8, 2023

Mere days after the United States pompously announced that it has soundly defeated an adrift weather balloon, another absurdity has taken the headlines in the mainstream media. Apparently, China somehow managed to overtake America in the number of ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) launchers. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal on February 7, citing the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. According to WSJ, the commander of the US Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear forces, notified the US Congress about the supposed Chinese advantage.

“The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States,” the commander stated.

The author of the WSJ article himself admitted that the US is currently modernizing its entire nuclear triad (land, sea and air-launched nuclear weapons) and that “it has a much larger nuclear force than China”. The Strategic Command also notified US lawmakers that America still has more land-based ICBMs than China, as well as several times more thermonuclear warheads mounted on those missiles. Worse yet, the report doesn’t even include SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) and strategic bombers that make the US dominance even more pronounced.

But US officials and experts are claiming that “many of China’s land-based launchers still consist of empty silos”, meaning that Beijing “potentially has more launch options”. The lawmakers cited these launchers as “a portent of the scale of China’s longer-range ambitions and are urging the US to expand its own nuclear forces to counter the Russian and Chinese forces”. According to Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, “China is rapidly approaching parity with the United States”.

“We cannot allow that to happen. The time for us to adjust our force posture and increase capabilities to meet this threat is now,” Rogers stated.

He then criticized America’s compliance with the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), claiming this is “inhibiting the US from building up its arsenal to deter Russia and China”. And while China isn’t included in the treaty (set to expire in 2026), Russia is, meaning that Moscow is also “inhibited” by it, making the assertion all the more illogical. On the other hand, many US experts are now claiming that it’s in the US interest to preserve treaty limits with Russia and to also attempt to draw Beijing into it, while still continuing with constant modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal.

Rose Gottemoeller, a US arms control expert who took part in negotiating the New START, stated: “It’s in our national interest to keep the Russians under the New START limits. We need to complete our nuclear modernization according to plan, not pile on new requirements.”

The WSJ report posits that the US is now trying to deal with Russia and China by using a mix of arms control treaties and upgraded nuclear forces. The Pentagon’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review identified both superpowers as strategic rivals, stating that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.”

However, while claiming that it wants to preserve the New START, the troubled Biden administration seems to be working towards eliminating it. Just last week, the US accused Russia of violating the treaty by refusing to allow on-site inspections, although the US itself is doing the same, meaning Moscow is simply responding in kind. Such actions indicate that Washington DC might be trying to sabotage the New START because it’s frustrated that China isn’t included in it.

The Pentagon claims that Beijing will increase its current arsenal of 400 warheads to 1,500 by 2035. At present, China’s nuclear arsenal includes an unspecified number of mobile ICBM launchers, while the US military claims that the Asian giant also operates approximately 20 liquid-fueled, silo-based ICBMs, but that it’s also building three ICBM silo fields intended to house approximately 300 modern solid-fueled missiles. For comparison, the US fields 5,428 warheads, with at least 400 land-based ICBMs. In other words, the current American nuclear arsenal is over 13 times larger than China’s, while its land-based ICBMs outnumber Beijing’s by more than 20 times.

US experts are often debating what China plans to do with the aforementioned silos it’s now allegedly building. Some claim that, while Beijing currently doesn’t have enough nuclear-tipped ICBMs to fill all silos, it might leave some empty or install conventionally armed missiles. Still, the sheer magnitude of the mental gymnastics used by the US political establishment to present itself as the “party in jeopardy” in this case is ludicrous for anyone familiar with the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. Even with the assertion that China will have 1,500 nuclear weapons in 2035, including 400 land-based ICBMs, the US would still have a 3:1 advantage, making the accusations against Beijing a moot point.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

February 8, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

Russia reacts to Biden’s remarks on nuclear talks

Samizdat | August 6, 2022

Russia has not received any concrete proposals to resume talks on replacing the landmark New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), despite recent remarks by US President Joe Biden on the matter, a senior Russian diplomat said on Friday. He also signaled that the negotiations should be held without any preconditions.

“Saying that you’re ready doesn’t mean you are,” the deputy head of Moscow’s delegation to the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Andrey Belousov, told reporters.

According to the diplomat, a real commitment to resume dialogue with Russia “should be supported by concrete proposals, concrete signals” that Moscow could view as a firm decision on the part of the US to “resume close cooperation with Russia on a wide range of issues of strategic stability.”

“At the moment, we are not receiving such signals, except for these declarative statements, including those coming from the highest level,” he added.

Belousov noted that the timing of the US statements on arms control should also be taken into account.

“It is clear that the timing was chosen on purpose. The statement by the US president was made before the Conference [on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] intentionally to show that the US is still a state you can cooperate with and which is ready to engage in dialogue,” the Russian representative said.

According to Belousov, Moscow does not think that the US is ready for constructive talks on the New START treaty that would accommodate the interests of all parties, at least not at this stage. He also noted that Russia views the preliminary conditions for the dialogue set by Washington as “unacceptable.”

“The statement by the US president, which, as we believe, reflects a softening of the US stance on resuming dialogue with Russia on a wide range of issues of strategic stability, is linked to some sort of a preliminary condition,” Belousov said, adding that it has not been formulated in black and white, but rather looks like a hint.

The high-ranking diplomat recalled that previous statements on the matter were “more specific and understandable.”

“There were specific conditions under which the United States would agree to resume this dialogue with us,” he said. “But in any case, no matter how these preconditions are phrased, we deem them unacceptable.”

The diplomat echoed comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said on Wednesday that the US had not made any “requests on reopening this negotiating process.” The West, he said at the time, “has developed a habit of making announcements on the microphone and then forgetting about them.”

Earlier this month, Biden revealed that Washington was ready to negotiate “a new arms control framework” with Russia that could potentially replace the New START treaty when it expires in 2026. The landmark document, which entered into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 after Biden’s inauguration, puts caps on the number of strategic nuclear missiles and warheads held by Russia and the US.

August 6, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia Laments Washington’s Failure to Strictly Adhere to New START Treaty Provisions

By Henry Batyaev – Sputnik – 26.05.2021

Russia is calling on the United States to keep their end of the bargain with respect to the New START Treaty after Moscow found that the United States had converted some of its strategic offensive arms, making it impossible to verify whether they can be now used to carry nuclear weapons.

The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said on Wednesday that Moscow will continue to demand that Washington comply with the terms of the treaty.

She added that Moscow is closely monitoring US efforts to modernise its strategic offensive arms, including through the increase of funding.

According to the New START Treaty, the sides must notify each other on the elimination of treaty‑accountable systems or conversion to non‑nuclear or non‑accountable status.

In February, Russia and the United States agreed to extend the New START treaty for five more years without renegotiating any of its terms. The treaty, now set to expire on February 5, 2026, is the only arms control agreement between two countries that is still in force.

May 27, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US must choose: new ICBMs & nightmare of nuclear deterrence OR meaningful disarmament through arms control

By Scott Ritter | RT | February 21, 2021

The US wants Russia and China to rein in their respective strategic nuclear arsenals while it modernizes its own nuclear defenses at the same time. When it comes to strategic nukes, the US can’t have its cake and eat it too.

The US Senate recently passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), allocating some $1.5 billion for research and development of a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

The funding of the GBSD occurred despite pressure to divert some or all of the current allocation to support emergency Covid-19 contingencies. One of the major factors behind the decision was a concerted effort on the part of the US Air Force and the commander of US Strategic Command to convince Congress that a failure to fund the GBSD would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament, given that the current US ICBM force, comprised of Minuteman III missiles, will begin “aging out” as the missiles reach their operational expiration dates.

The proponents of the GBSD, however, have a major policy hurdle before them – namely the desire on the part of President Joe Biden to undertake a review of the current US nuclear posture with the view of breathing new life into strategic arms control negotiations that could potentially reduce the size of the US nuclear arsenal.

Many arms control advocates believe that the logical choice for any significant reduction in the US strategic nuclear arsenal would be to do away with ICBMs altogether, eliminating the need for the GBSD. The supporters of the GBSD believe such a move would put the US in danger by increasing the risk of a nuclear attack by limiting the number of targets any potential nuclear foe would need to strike in an effort to preemptively neutralize the US nuclear deterrent.

There is an urgency in this debate driven by two hard-wired calendar dates. The first is the expiration of the recently extended New START treaty.

While the US and Russia agreed to extend this treaty by five years, the fact is this treaty will expire for good come February 2026, leaving the two nations a scant five years to negotiate a follow-on agreement. The other hard date is in 2030, when the Minuteman III ICBM force will begin aging out.

The current GBSD funding authorization envisions the deployment of a fully operational replacement missile by 2029, but this is contingent upon continued funding at ever-increasing levels in the years to come. If a commitment is made to continue fully funding the GBSD with an eye on operational deployment by 2029, it will handicap US arms control negotiators who will have zero flexibility when it comes to devising a negotiating strategy capable of convincing their Russian, and possibly Chinese, counterparts to agree to meaningful cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals.

ICBMs role as ‘warhead sponge’

Land-based ICBMs have been a critical part of the nuclear Triad that has underpinned the US nuclear deterrence posture since the 1960s (the other two components being manned bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, SLBMs.)

Today the US maintains a force of 450 hardened missile silos containing 400 Minuteman III ICBMs scattered across Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. This force has been designed to respond on short notice to any nuclear attack. But its most important characteristic today is its role as a warhead “sponge”. Any potential nuclear-armed foe would need to allocate at least two nuclear warheads to each silo to have any chance of destroying the Minuteman III force. The only nation capable of carrying out such an attack today is Russia, which would have to allocate 900 of its 1,600 deployed warheads to have any chance of taking out the US ICBM leg of the nuclear Triad.

Supporters of the current nuclear Triad contend that without the land-based ICBM “sponge”, any potential foe would only need to focus on attacking five targets in the US—three strategic bomber bases, and two submarine bases. These same experts note that the pressure on the most survivable and lethal component of the Triad – the SLBM – will increase as force restructuring limits the number of submarines that are on patrol at any given time, and as new possible technologies emerge that can detect submarines more easily, increasing the chances that some or all of the deployed SLBM-carrying submarines could be preemptively targeted. Only by retaining the land-based ICBM, these experts argue, can the US guarantee a high degree of certainty that any nuclear attack against the US or its allies would result in a massive retaliation that no aggressor could hope to survive.

The Minuteman III missile has been in service for more than 50 years, despite being designed to last ten. It has achieved this level of longevity through a series of service life extension programs (SLEP) which, in their aggregate, have resulted in a missile very different from the one originally deployed, possessing upgraded booster rockets, new avionics and guidance systems, and more modern nuclear warheads. But the current fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs will begin to expire beginning in 2029, when many of the upgraded rocket boosters expire, followed by the guidance systems, which will begin to expire in 2031. If nothing is done to extend the life of the Minuteman III missiles, the arsenal of operational missiles will be reduced to 350 by 2033, and less than 100 by 2037.

All-or-nothing approach

Proponents of the GBSD argue that the fifty-year lifecycle costs associated with fielding a new ICBM, estimated at $159.2 billion, are actually cheaper than the fifty-year lifecycle cost of a new Minuteman III SLEP, with a baseline cost of $160.3 billion. They also point out that the GBSD costs go beyond simply putting a new missile in the ground, but also incorporate silo refurbishment and other ground infrastructure improvements, including a new nuclear command and control system designed to survive in a modern environment where cyber attacks are a real possibility. The new GBSD also incorporates a modular design that allows for rapid-retargeting, and flexibility when it comes to the payload carried, allowing for the introduction of new, improved delivery systems.

The scenario painted by the supporters of the GBSD is based upon an all-or-nothing approach—either spend the money of a new ICBM or lose the ground-based leg of the nuclear Triad forever. This logic mitigates both against the loss of ICBMs, and for a newer, more capable missile (the GBSD.) But it also ties the hands of arms control negotiators trying to come up with a formula that would result in the reduction of Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. By keeping the US nuclear Triad intact, and by deploying a new, more capable ICBM in the form of the GBSD, the US would eliminate any incentive on the part of either Russia or China to reduce the size and capability of their respective nuclear arsenals. Indeed, the exact opposite would happen—Russia would continue its current nuclear modernization programs, and China would have every reason to invest in enlarging their own ICBM force.

Moreover, there is virtually no chance that the US would unilaterally disarm its ICBM force by allowing the Minuteman III ICBM to age out without a replacement. The solution to this quandary is how to best manage the US ICBM force in a manner that retains the potential for viable force retention while keeping the door open for the possibility of elimination through new arms control agreements. In this light, the GBSD is the least favorable option, as its funding cycle calls for the production of some 650 new missiles sustained over the course of fifty years. Once this production level is funded and underway, it will be virtually impossible to stop it from reaching completion.

However, the US could seek to extend the life of the existing Minuteman III ICBM force, and then use arms control negotiations as a way to leverage their continued existence as a means of getting the Russians to agree to meaningful reductions in their own arsenal—the heavy Sarmat ICBM comes to mind.

Similar trade-offs could be negotiated with the Chinese, with a reduction/elimination of the US ICBM arsenal offered up in exchange for China agreeing not to field any new generation ICBMs. These negotiations, if they are to have any chance of success, must be concluded in the next five years—a very short time frame when it comes to arms control negotiations. The flexibility afforded by a Minuteman III SLEP would enable and enhance these negotiations, while an irreversible commitment to fund and deploy the GBSD would guarantee their failure. Seen in this light, there really isn’t much of a debate. The key question is who will prevail in the future internal US debate over nuclear force posture—the advocates for a continuation of the nightmare of nuclear deterrence predicated on mutually assured destruction (a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one), or the proponents of meaningful nuclear disarmament through viable and verifiable arms control agreements.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

February 20, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

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