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Now that the New START treaty has been extended for five years, it's fair to ask what the Biden Administration plans to do with that time. (A thread.)
What follows are the high points of an article I wrote on this topic in late December 2020. It appeared in January in the bilingual journal of the Korean Nuclear Policy Society, which is sponsored by @MOFAkr_eng.
The first question to ask is, what can the U.S. and Russia agree to concerning their strategic nuclear arsenals? The second is, what sort of agreement can survive the cauldron of American politics?
1) The U.S. would surely like to limit or eliminate Russia's new and anticipated nuclear-armed wonder weapons, which are designed to beat U.S. missile defenses. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208662/hypersonic-glide-vehicles-what-are-they-good-for/
But if the U.S. isn't willing to do the same for those defenses, it's hard to see how more than a modest, incremental sort of agreement can be reached.
2) Have you seen the U.S. Senate lately? It's unlikely that any arms-control treaty negotiated by a Democratic president can get the required 67 of 100 votes. (New START barely squeaked through back in 2010.) But there are still options. I count four of them.
a) unilateral action (e.g., 1991 PNIs)
b) executive agreement (e.g., US-DPRK Agreed Framework, Iran Deal)
c) Congressional-executive agreement (e.g., SALT interim agreement)
d) treaty signed but not ratified (e.g., SALT II, CTBT)
b) executive agreement (e.g., US-DPRK Agreed Framework, Iran Deal)
c) Congressional-executive agreement (e.g., SALT interim agreement)
d) treaty signed but not ratified (e.g., SALT II, CTBT)
None of these are entirely satisfactory, although I'm tempted to argue that the Congressional-executive agreement, adopted by a simple majority of both houses of Congress, should become standard for everything. It already is for trade agreements.
But I assume that if two red-state Democratic senators insist on preserving the filibuster, they'll also want to preserve the 2/3rds standard for the Senate's "advice and consent." Fewer tough votes that way.
My suggestion, therefore, would be to negotiate and sign a treaty, if a suitable agreement can be reached. It almost certainly won't be ratified, but that's a double-edged sword.
Ironically, it seems that it's harder to get out of an unratified treaty than a ratified one. Despite the agitation of opponents to some "unsign" the CTBT, it has outlasted other treaties, undone via their convenient "supreme national interest" clauses.
The CTBT has one of these, too... but until the treaty enters into force, it appears that it can't be used. In the meantime, the signatories are committed to "refrain to from acts which would defeat [its] object and purpose."
Unfortunately, the CTBT's inspections provisions are also in abeyance. Until the treaty enters into force, verification measures are limited to the International Monitoring System. Which is actually pretty good!
An unratified New START successor would face similar problems. Verification would probably be limited to "national technical means" only, without inspections. That's far from ideal, but perhaps a treaty can be negotiated with this shortcoming in mind.
We have entered an era of post-consensus politics; just ask the late Sen. Dick Lugar. If Washington were a twin-engine jet, it would flying on just a single engine. That's the reality. Let's make the most of our circumstances. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/richard-lugar-loses-primary-nomination-to-conservative-challenger-richard-mourdock/2012/05/08/gIQANcJjBU_story.html
The full article appears here, in a special issue on the Biden Administration's choices in nuclear policy. Enjoy. http://koreanuclearpolicysociety.org/green_mobile_board/pub/view.php?code=NTC_pub_GAL&pano=0&folder=jeoneol&design=&gotopage=1&s=&q=&seq=20
