Episode Notes:

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced recently that Russian negotiators would not meet with their American counterparts in Cairo, postponing a planned meeting of the the Bilateral Consultative Commission — the mechanism to discuss New Start Treaty implementation. While Moscow and Washington agree that both sides are adhering to Treaty limits, inspections have been suspended since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and now face hurdles to being again following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here to discuss the Russian announcement is Andrey Baklitskiy, a Senior Researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. 

[:26] Russia postpones meeting with the United States

[3:27] Reciprocal inspections

[4:57] A future arms control?

[8:33] Russian arguments for more nuclear weapons

[10:41] Arms control as a confidence building mechanism?

Episode Transcript: 

Aaron Stein: My name is Aaron Stein, and I am the Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the Warcast, the members only podcast for what you need to know, now. Today I'm joined by Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Andrey, it's good to have you on the show.

Andrey Baklitskiy: Great to be here.

Aaron Stein: Well, the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is that there's been news about US Russian bilateral arms control agreements. And by that I mean the freezing, or at least the continued freezing of direct contact between the two sides that began during the COVID pandemic and has continued throughout the war in Ukraine.

Can you give the listeners a little bit of an update on what the Russian side has been saying about potential talks between the two sides, about the New START Treaty?

Andrey Baklitskiy: Actually, depending on who you ask, the New START Treaty might be going really well. And if you ask officials on both sides, that's pretty much what they would tell you. The US would say, "Yeah. Russia is in compliance. Annual ABC Report supported that. We have some issues, technicalities, but basically we are good." And the Russian side would tell pretty much the same. "New START Treaty is great, we support it. Generally, relations are bad. Those Americans are doing nasty things, but generally we are fine. We value New START."

But at the same time, as you said, we haven't had inspections under the treaty since, pretty much the COVID pandemic. So it's more than two years now. And we had BCC meetings, which is implementation and problem resolution body of the treaty, well, from time to time. So to say, so we missed ... there normally are two sessions, in spring and in autumn. So we missed the spring one because of war in Ukraine. And then they were trying to get the autumn one together, and then last week Russia said, "No, we're not going."

So it seems to have actually some problems going on, but also both sides seem to at least want this process go further. So now US is trying to say, "Well, as Russia said, it's on the postponed. We are working on figuring out how to move forward." But then again, the biggest question here is why Russia canceled the meeting, or postponed the meeting. And from Russia ... from what Russia was saying, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov. But also Spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, and then Director for Arms Control, Yermakov.

The main takeaway is that relations between Russia and United States are bad. US acts against Russian interests in different spheres. Ukraine was mentioned. So it's not truly possible to have BCC meeting under those conditions. And if that's the case and this is the only way this meeting could happen, then it's not clear when it could happen because it's not obvious that in a month or two or three US stops supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia.

Aaron Stein: For listeners, inspections were stalled, I think for obvious reasons during COVID. But there was an effort to bring them back as people put the COVID pandemic behind them. But if I understand it correctly, the Russian side is saying, basically the sanctions that have been placed against officials in response to the war in Ukraine need to be lifted or they need to be reciprocal actions in order to allow for the resumption of bilateral inspections. Have I summarized essentially what's been going on?

Andrey Baklitskiy: Yeah. Well, there may be some nuances with that. So yeah, the war impacted the inspections and the treaty in two different ways. So the one already mentioned, that relations are bad. So if this country is making you feel bad, you want to make them feel bad. So that could be at play. But the second is a reasonable point, that there being US sanctions imposed in Russia. So for ... well, not only by the United States but the West. So there is no direct flights between Russia and the United States to bring inspectors.

And it's much harder for the Russians to get to United States and vice versa because their military planes cannot really fly through the Western aerospaces. They cannot really stop for refueling because countries would not let them do that. So Russia was saying, "Before we can get back to inspections, we have to figure those technical issues out." And that's quite reasonable. And when you talk to US officials, they were saying, "Yeah, that makes sense. We'll have to do it." But then again, the best place to do it would be Bilateral Consultative Commission, which was just canceled.

Aaron Stein: So I think the backdrop to this, of course, is that New START was extended for five years at the beginning of the Biden administration. And I think we're what, two years? Two years and change away from when it's going to expire. These treaties ... well, these treaties take a long time to negotiate. And so if we are having this problem over the reciprocal visits of inspections and the war expects to continue, where is this going for the future of US Russian arms control?

Andrey Baklitskiy: The short answer is we don't know. The larger answer is another set of questions. So United States has been saying that Russia is implementing the New START Treaty to the letter. There is no problems with it. And that's the only treaty which United States said this about. Because all the others, there are concerns that Russia might be violating. Now this could be seen as a violation of the New START Treaty by Russian Federation. We already seen this from the Republican side. So Marshall Billingslea, on Twitter said, "Yeah. This is a violation of the treaty."

It's not clear if the current administration would want to name this as a violation. They probably wouldn't. They'll try to work behind the stage to make sure these inspections are happening, that this moves forward. But then again, the longer this continues, the more pressure would come from the right in the United States, and frankly, from more and more people, which was saying, "Look, you haven't had inspections for two years, for three years, for four years. How can you be sure that the things that Russia's sending you in the exchange of information are true if you cannot verify them?" So that would be a big problem.

And then of course, if there is new Republican administration, they had no love with New START from the beginning. This would be a huge incentive for them to just ditch the treaty altogether. But also we have another problem, that we've seen Russian approach to the treaty getting harder and harder as the hesitation unfolded and as relationships are getting worse. We can ask a question if Russia can just leave altogether because of the same reasons that it's getting tougher on the treaty. Well, my gut feeling is that probably nobody would want to withdraw and to give this ... the other side the opportunity to say, "Look, this is the other side that withdrew. We are perfectly fine with this treaty."

And also, it doesn't seem that US or Russia want to have strategic nuclear weapons arms race, because that's expensive and both have other ways to spend their money. But we've seen treaties to fall before, starting from implementation issues. And in the process you just find out that neither side was that committed to the treaty, and then the treaty just falls down. Again, if the treaty disappears, I would imagine the sides would try to stick to the limits because as I said, nobody needs extra thousand ICBMs or something. We are balanced at the moment.

But then again, the fear is that if there's no treaty and the times go by, there are voices in each country who would say, "Look, we might be better off if we build something. Maybe not a lot, but maybe something." There are voices in the United States who are saying, "Look, we have to face two peer competitors. We have China now. So if we're not bound by the treaty, maybe we should increase."

Aaron Stein: I'm curious, for listeners too, how these debates are playing out in Russia as well. I mean, are there voices as well, prominent ones with influence? Because you certainly see them in the US, that are calling for a buildup of forces. In the absence of this treaty, as these issues with inspection continue to compound, is there an argument being made that it may be in Russian interests to build up forces? I know personally you don't believe that, but are there people in the country who make this argument and do you see that becoming more salient in the debate?

Andrey Baklitskiy: Not yet. I wouldn't say so. There is still modernization going. So for example, the older Voyevoda missiles, the head ones are being replaced by Sarmat missiles. And then the older Topols are being replaced by Yars. So it's not like nothing is happening with Russian strategic forces. They're being modernized. You have Avangards, they're those glide hypersonic vehicles mounted on them. So there was this little bit of quality change. So people maybe not that interested in quantitive, but then again, it could easily change.

And again, strategic missile forces were always one of the top priorities. So even during the 90s when Russian military was not in the best shape, those were the places where you still spent money because you wanted to have deterrence with the United States, great power status, you name it. So if there is no treaty and if US is building something, or even there are rumors that US building something or US might be building something, you would hear those voices more and more and louder and louder from the industry. And from the circles of patriotic military bloggers who got more and more prominence now in the Russian society. And yeah, probably not now, but if there is no treaty, nothing is stopping you, why not?

Aaron Stein: So final question as we wrap up here is, I think it's no secret that relations between Russia and the United States are terrible. Maybe the worst that they've been since the 1950s, or maybe the worst ever. A lot of people will want to view arms control as a way to of wall off areas of cooperation, is that we can still work together on this area because we have shared interests.

What is your prognosis for that, given the likelihood that sanctions on Russian officials will continue? They'll be very difficult to lift in the US domestic political debate. And sanctions have emerged as one of the central pillars of the Russian dissatisfaction, or at least of the Russian narrative about why they want to continue to hold off on bilateral inspections. At least one of the pillars. So what are your thoughts on that?

Andrey Baklitskiy: I think it's worse than sanctions, really. I think we are at the point ... and as you said, there is a wish among the people who maybe deal with this that those things would be stonewalled, but this is not happening. They're not stonewalled anymore. So if Russia or Russian leadership see this fight as existential for Russia and they see that US is trying to take Russia down, then that sense continuing cooperation with the United States on anything could be seen as a no go. Why would you cooperate with your enemy? And especially if you believe that US would only cooperate with you on things US wants. So then you know that this is something US wants, so why would we give them that?

And that's really powerful incentive and it's hard to see how you can go past it. I would imagine that some broader relationship could or should be defined as at least having possibility of non-zero-sum so that we are not competing to destroy each other. And maybe if we can still cooperate in some of these things. Because obviously it is in both countries' interests ... it has been since 1970s. To have some kind of rules of the game. But then if you believe that you are losing under the rules of the game, maybe you just decide that you always throw out those roles.

Again, a lot of this could be more of a symbolic things, not real live things. So if for example, having treaty with US, having inspections with US, and sitting at the same table is seen as unacceptable, but you can still not want to have nuclear arms race. So if basically you just say, "Okay, we are leaving in this treaty, we are not having any contact with you. But we are not increasing in any way. And we're also making sure that the other side sees that we're not increasing." And some of those things you can see, like silos building or fueling different missiles and so on, so forth.

So I think that would definitely stick. I just don't see why would anybody need getting to the levels of the Cold War. So there are, I would say, levels of despair to which we can fall still, but you still feel that we are not going all the way down to all out nuclear arms race because eventually, it's in nobody's interest.

Aaron Stein: Well, let's hope that you're right on that. Or maybe some listeners will hope that you're wrong on that. But with that, Andrey, thank you for joining the Warcast. And just a reminder for listeners, Andrey is speaking just for himself here. All the opinions expressed are his alone and not that of the United Nations. So with that, thank you again for listening.