Item 1 of 3 US President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev exchange pens after signing the START treaty. July 31, 1991 REUTERS/Mal Langsdon DISCLAIMER: The image is presented in its original, uncropped, and untoned state. Due to the age and historical nature of the image, we recommend verifying all associated metadata, which was transferred from the index stored by the Bettmann Archives, and may be truncated./File Photo
LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Even at the height of their Cold War nuclear rivalry, the United States and the Soviet Union thrashed out a series of treaties to keep the arms race from spiralling out of control.
Though they agreed on little else, leaders in Moscow and Washington saw value in talks – from 1969 until long after the Soviet collapse in 1991 – to create a stable and predictable framework limiting the size of their nuclear arsenals.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to deliver a formal response, and Western security analysts are divided about the wisdom of accepting Putin’s offer.
On the one hand, it would buy time to chart a way forward, while sending a political signal that both sides want to preserve a vestige of arms control.
Agreeing to Putin’s proposal, Weaver added, would also send a message to China that the United States would not build up its strategic nuclear forces in response to China’s fast-growing nuclear arsenal.
“This signal would likely undermine the prospects for bringing China to the arms control negotiating table, indicating to China that US forces will remain limited regardless of what China does.”
TRUMP WANTS TALKS WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA, BEIJING SAYS NO
Further complicating the prospects for global arms control, Russia says the nuclear forces of NATO members Britain and France should also be up for negotiation – something those countries reject.
Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian arms negotiator, said in a telephone interview that trying to forge a new multilateral nuclear treaty in this environment was “almost a dead end. It will take forever.”
Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, said one alternative would be for Russia and the U.S. to work out a successor to New START that would include flexible warhead limits to take account of the Chinese build-up.
But a faster and more straightforward course would be for countries to focus on steps to reduce the significant risk of a nuclear war breaking out by accident. Right now, for example, only Russia and the U.S. have a 24/7 hotline for use in a nuclear crisis, whereas “no European capital, not even the NATO headquarters, can actually communicate with Moscow. There is no dedicated line,” Sokov said.
“If parties at the same time also begin negotiations on arms control, that would be great. But you need to understand that the next treaty will be very, very complex… It will take time. So the number one priority is risk reduction and confidence building,” he added.
Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Philippa Fletcher
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