![]() ![]() The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was the third in a series of Russian-American agreements to reduce both nations' gargantuan late Cold War-time nuclear arsenals and bolster mutual trust. And it will likely continue using this lack of nuclear transparency for rendering pressure upon the West, including on things like Western support of Ukraine in the war. or even claim nuclear buildup, increasing the risk of a new nuclear arms race. and the international community still have ways to get estimated data on the state of the Russian stockpile.īut behind this opaqueness, the Kremlin can go on imitating parity with the U.S. But admitting this decline is impossible for the Kremlin, which puts nuclear weapons at the center of its intimidation efforts and war propaganda, both domestic and international.ĭue to the lack of on-site inspections, there’s little certainty regarding how much of the nuclear power that Russia claims as deployed is actually operational. And today's production of new missiles, strategic bombers, or nuclear-carrying submarine systems is not strong enough to compensate for the reduction.Īccording to experts, the decommissioning of Russian nuclear weapons started and will continue until at least the 2030s. Older delivery systems and warheads produced decades ago are naturally running out of their operational lifetime. The Russian nuclear stockpile has been gradually dwindling for years. ![]() And the reason behind that is likely not Moscow's eagerness to bolster nuclear power but rather the opposite – hiding the scale of its nuclear arsenal’s reduction. In the last three years, Russia has been seeking to keep American inspectors away. The suspension of the deal has effectively given the Kremlin just one thing: a quasi-legitimate reason to terminate mutual inspections of nuclear stockpiles, an essential part of the New START signed in 2010. The announcement once again allowed the Kremlin to promote the notion that the West’s support of Ukraine is pushing the world towards a nuclear holocaust.īut despite all the noise, this threat from Russia has had little to no effect on the global nuclear posture. That’s what the Kremlin did two months ago, when Vladimir Putin announced Russia would "suspend" its participation in the New START, the only remaining U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. The main rule of Russia's power diplomacy says: If something goes wrong with their war effort in Ukraine, reach for the nuclear intimidation card. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |