The US-Russia nuclear arms control negotiations have a long way to go

Shortly after the heads of state of the United States and Russia met to reach a consensus on maintaining strategic stability between the two countries and reducing the risk of nuclear conflict between the two countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it would withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty on December 18 this year. From the unilateral withdrawal of the Treaty by the United States last year to the forced withdrawal of Russia today, the international treaty system in the field of arms control has once again suffered a strong impact. Against the backdrop of the unoptimistic prospects for the arms control posture between the United States and Russia, nuclear weapons are playing an increasingly important role in the confrontational and competitive situation between the United States and Russia. As the two major nuclear powers in the first echelon of the world's nuclear pattern, the interactive game between the United States and Russia around nuclear weapons has always been the focus of the world's attention. Although the strategic tension between the two countries has been eased to a certain extent after the Biden administration took office, the only arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, the New Start of Strategic Arms Treaty, has been eased to a certain extent, but in the long run, the United States and Russia will not improve their strategic relations because of the extension of the treaty. In February, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken said the United States would use the five-year extension of the New Start of Strategic Arms Treaty to seek an arms control agreement with Russia involving all of Russia's nuclear weapons. The implication is that, in addition to the treaty, the United States seeks to broker a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia. However, the two countries still face a series of challenges in reaching a new nuclear arms control treaty. Technological developments have increased the difficulty of nuclear arms control. At present, the complexity of strategic offensive and defensive technologies has been much higher than that of the Cold War period, which has become an important challenge for the United States and Russia in future nuclear arms control negotiations. During the Cold War, the Nuclear Arms Control Negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union mainly revolved around the "Trinity" nuclear forces, and even though multiple warheads, anti-missiles, and other technologies affecting strategic offensive and defensive forces appeared in the middle and late period of the Cold War, the main line of the nuclear arms control objectives of the United States and the Soviet Union did not change. But now, the military application of non-nuclear technologies such as outer space technology, artificial intelligence technology, and network technology has an increasing impact on the field of nuclear strategy. For example, in the case of outer space technology, the 2019 US Missile Defense Assessment Report focused on the expression of anti-missile capabilities in outer space, mentioning the construction of directed energy weapon systems, the deployment of space-based interceptors, etc. Outer space has become an important area affecting a country's strategic deterrence capabilities. At the same time, hypersonic technology is also an area of particular concern for the United States and Russia in recent years. Russia is the leader in hypersonic weapons, with "vanguard", "zircon" and "dagger" land, sea and air three hypersonic weapons. Not to be outdone, the United States continues to increase the research and development of hypersonic weapons such as the Air Force's AGM-183A hypersonic weapon system and the Army's general hypersonic projectile. Mike White, head of hypersonic weapons research at the U.S. Department of Defense, recently said, "The Biden administration's fiscal year 2022 budget is a milestone in U.S. investment in hypersonic weapons, and the United States needs to accelerate investment and development to promote the high-supersonic weapons of the army, navy, and air force into actual combat as soon as possible." The lack of mutual trust and the intensification of strategic competition are another challenges facing the United States and Russia in reaching a new phase of nuclear arms control treaties in the future. After the end of the Cold War, geopolitical conflicts and differences in perceptions of the international and regional patterns continued to affect U.S.-Russia relations, and after the Crimean incident, U.S.-Russia relations fell into a continuous freezing point. Although the current US-Russia summit reached a limited consensus, and on the nuclear-related issue, the statement after the meeting reiterated the principle that "nuclear war cannot be won and cannot be fought", this statement actually drew the bottom line for the confrontation and competition between the two countries, and did not fundamentally change or alleviate the situation of struggle between the two countries, and the deep-seated contradictions between the two sides have not eased. Strategic confrontation has intensified, and both the United States and Russia are adjusting their nuclear forces to cope with competition. On June 14, data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden showed an increase in the number of nuclear weapons deployed in combat forces around the world, mainly in the United States and Russia. The United States and Russia have also stepped up their investment in tactical nuclear weapons. In August last year, the US military conducted an F-35A fighter jet to drop the B61-12 new nuclear bomb at the Tonopah Test Site in Nevada, which is also an important step in the us military's road to nuclear miniaturization and actual combat. Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are projected through cruise missiles and tactical missiles. The increased investment in tactical nuclear weapons by the United States and Russia has strengthened the diversity, flexibility and battlefield adaptability of their respective nuclear forces, added a third option for tactical nuclear weapons among strategic nuclear weapons and conventional weapons, and increased the ability of "actual combat deterrence". Therefore, under the lack of mutual trust, the competition to expand nuclear arsenals, and the continuous heating up of all-round confrontation, the road for the United States and Russia to carry out a new round of nuclear arms control negotiations in the future is full of bumps. If, after the extension of the New START Treaty expires, the United States and Russia still do not reach an agreement on a new treaty, it is very likely that the nuclear arms control treaty will be "in disjointed." (The author is an assistant researcher at the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University)