U.S. seeks 5-year extension of nuke treaty with Russia

The Biden administration is proposing to Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty limiting the number of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said Thursday.

What’s happening

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, planned to convey the extension proposal to Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, on Thursday, according to one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter not yet publicly announced by the administration. A second U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the proposal.

Why it matters

The move, providing an early signal of Biden’s intent to pursue arms control, is almost certain to be welcomed by Russia and key American allies. NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday called on the United States and Russia to extend the treaty and to later broaden it.

“We should not end up in a situation with no limitation on nuclear warheads, and New START will expire within days,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

Stoltenberg emphasized that “an extension of the New START is not the end, it’s the beginning of our efforts to further strengthen arms control.”

What it means

The treaty is set to expire Feb. 5 and is the last remaining agreement constraining U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. Signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, it limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads.

Obama won Senate ratification of the treaty with a commitment to move ahead with a vast and enormously expensive recapitalization of the U.S. nuclear force. That program, which some Democrats in Congress call excessive, is likely to be further scrutinized by the Biden administration.

At a projected cost exceeding $1 trillion over the next several decades, the plan is to replace each of the three “legs” of the U.S. nuclear triad — ballistic missile submarines, nuclear-capable bomber aircraft and land-based nuclear missiles.

President Donald Trump had been highly critical of New START, asserting that it put the United States at a disadvantage. His administration waited until last year to engage Russia in substantive talks on the treaty’s future. Trump insisted that China be added to the treaty, but Beijing rejected the idea out of hand.