Why an expensive nuclear arms race looms

After the recent death of the treaty covering intermediate-range missiles, a new arms race appears to be taking shape, drawing in more players, more money and more weapons at a time of increased global instability and anxiety about nuclear proliferation.

Fresh concerns about an arms race

The arms control architecture of the Cold War, involving tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, was laboriously designed over years of hardfought negotiations between two superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union. The elaborate treaties helped keep the world from nuclear annihilation.

Today, those treaties are being abandoned by the United States and Russia just as new strategic competitors not covered by the Cold War accords — like China, North Korea and Iran — are asserting themselves as regional powers and challenging U.S. hegemony.

The dismantling of “arms control,” a Cold War mantra, is now heightening the risks of a new era when nuclear powers like India and Pakistan are clashing over Kashmir, and when nuclear Israel feels threatened by Iran, North Korea is testing new missiles, and other countries like Saudi Arabia are thought to have access to nuclear weapons or be capable of building them.

The consequence, experts say, is likely to be a more dangerous and unstable environment, even in the near term, that could precipitate unwanted conflicts and demand vast new military spending among the world’s biggest powers, including the United States.

“If there’s not nuclear disarmament, there will be proliferation,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear analyst and president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. “If big powers race to build up their arsenals, smaller powers will follow.”

Where does China stand?

For Washington, China is seen as a rising strategic rival and competitor. And the United States is moving to increase its military presence and missile deployments in Asia, as a deterrent against a more aggressive Beijing, which has vastly expanded and modernized its stock of medium-range missiles that can hit U.S. ships, as well as Taiwan.

At the same time, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, has talked about letting the last strategic-arms control treaty, New START, die in February 2021, without extending it another five years, as foreseen in the accord, which was signed under President Barack Obama.

With no limits on nuclear weapons, and no system of on-site verification or information exchange, a very expensive new arms race seems almost inevitable with Moscow — and would probably accelerate another with Beijing.

Free of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Trump administration is testing, and wants to deploy, a new generation of land-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. As it does, Trump’s stated desire to pull China into three-way arms talks seems further away than ever.

Why is the outlook so grim?

Richard Burt helped negotiate the INF treaty and directed the negotiations that led to a more sweeping Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I, under President George Bush. Without New START, he said, “there will no longer be any on-site inspections or transparency, so you’re back to assuming the worst of what your adversary is doing.’’

‘‘In the 1970s and ’80s, even decision-makers will say the U.S. and Soviet buildup was insane — both sides overbuilt without predictability, and that’s where we’re headed,” Burt said.

Add China to the mix, Burt said, and “we could be spending huge amounts of money soon.’’

“We’re talking of modernizing the whole U.S. triad, with new ICBMs, subs and bombers,” he said. “That will be in excess of a trillion dollars and doesn’t include medium-range or hypersonic missiles.”

U.S.-Russia situation

Even after decades of reducing arsenals, the United States and Russia still possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons — more than 8,000 warheads, enough to destroy the world several times over. New START limited the number of deployed nuclear warheads on each side to around 1,550, a cut of about two-thirds from START I.

But when President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke to Trump about renewing New START in their first telephone conversation in February 2017, Trump attacked the treaty, claiming it favored Russia and was “one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration.”

In June, Bolton — who has made no secret of his view that international pacts are unenforceable and constrain the United States — said New START was unlikely to be extended, in part because it does not cover tactical nuclear weapons.

What’s next?

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said with the INF treaty now dead, he would like to begin deploying U.S. landbased intermediate-range missiles in Asia “sooner rather than later,” even “within months.”

China responded immediately, warning any such deployment would “clearly be extremely offensive in nature.” Fu Cong, China’s top arms-control official, said Beijing “would take countermeasures” and emphasized China had “no interest” in Trump’s call for three-way arms control talks.

Thomas Countryman, former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said China, with a small nuclear arsenal of about 300 warheads and a different strategic theory, had little incentive to join such talks.

Whereas arms control treaties between Washington and Moscow depended on inspections and transparency, “China sees those as eroding the few advantages they have,” Countryman said.