Who’s Afraid of Arms Control?

The United States acknowledges that it is now in “great power competition” with both Russia and China. This view was first enshrined in the December 2017 National Security Strategy released by the Trump administration and provided a considerable update to the less stark terms in which the Obama administration had viewed both these countries. More than two years into the Trump administration’s tenure, while competitive dynamics are manifesting in multiple ways, one of the most important challenges pertains to arms control. On August 2, for instance, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty expired after 32 years as the United States’ withdrawal took effect. Washington pulled out of the treaty, citing a longstanding Russian violation that Moscow failed to own up to.

Even with INF now in the rear-view mirror, arms control is not off the administration’s plate. Approaching quickly is the 2021 expiration of the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. Concluded by the Obama administration in better times for U.S.-Russia relations, New START is the main limiting factor on the strategic nuclear forces of both countries. It was ratified as a treaty by the U.S. Senate in 2011, becoming the last non-trade-related treaty to be ratified in the United States. The treaty limits deployed nuclear warheads for both countries at 1,550, and limits deployed strategic delivery vehicles, including intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers. If it is allowed to expire in February 2021, for the first time in decades, neither Moscow nor Washington would face any limits on the size of their deployed nuclear forces. The treaty provides for a potential five-year extension.

The Trump administration and the Russian government are not making the matter of New START’s extension a foregone conclusion. Moscow has expressed concerns about American behavior over the course of the treaty’s lifespan to date, suggesting that certain matters would have to be addressed in the extension conversation. Meanwhile, the United States is drifting toward a different direction. Administration officials – including President Donald Trump himself – have expressed interest in bringing China into the strategic arms control tent with the United States and Russia. This impulse is seemingly born of the National Security Strategy’s treatment of both Beijing and Moscow as equals in the realm of great power competition. Obviously then, it would follow that arms control efforts between these great powers include both China and Russia, no?

In early May, Trump told reporters – falsely – that he had spoken to Chinese officials already about a trilateral arrangement and that “they very much would like to be a part of that deal.” Beijing swiftly denied that just days later, noting that China “will not take part in any trilateral negotiations on a nuclear disarmament agreement.” (The denial followed earlier Chinese official pushback on suggestions that Beijing join a trilateralized INF Treaty.) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did concede that bringing China on board might be “too ambitious” in an interview in May and suggested extension might make more sense. David Trachtenberg, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, however, said in a hearing that same month that “China should accept the responsibilities of a major power in the world today” by “engaging with respect to its nuclear arsenal.” Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have introduced legislation in both chambers of the U.S. Congress proposing limitations on funding for a New START extension that excludes China.

The idea of Chinese participation in New START is not only a nonstarter politically given Beijing’s already stated interests, but doesn’t quite make sense given the divergences between the Chinese nuclear force and the forces of the United States and Russia. Even after nearly three post-Cold War decades of nuclear arms reductions, Moscow and Washington maintain control of an overwhelming amount of the world’s nuclear weapons – approximately 93 percent of the world total. The total inventory of deployed, nondeployed, reserve, and stockpiled warheads between these two longstanding nuclear powers numbers in excess of 12,000. China, meanwhile, is thought to have hardly 300 warheads, putting its force size two orders of magnitude below that of the two superpowers.

Another hitch is the New START principle of focusing limits on deployed nuclear warheads. These refer to warheads that are mated to missiles and/or ready for delivery by heavy bombers. Given that neither the United States nor Russia have ruled out the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, they maintain hundreds of these weapons within the 1,550 limits imposed by New START. China, by contrast, has maintained a “no first use” posture for its nuclear forces since 1964. While many in the United States have long seen that as an empty pledge, Beijing sought to make its commitment to that pledge clear in one important technical manner: by storing its nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles separately. The introduction of a new canisterized, solid-propellant, road-mobile intercontinental-range ballistic missile has raised some questions about possibly mated warheads in peacetime, but, in all likelihood, China’s deployed warhead numbers under a New START-like regime would be zero or a very small number.

These details are inconvenient and lay bare why mapping the “great power competition” concerns on to the future of arms control at this juncture aren’t helpful. Insistence on Chinese participation in New START is likely meant to serve as a poison pill for the nonrenewal of the agreement. Already, the administration has several opponents of arms control in prominent positions. National Security Adviser John Bolton, for instance, is famously averse to arms control arrangements. Similarly, with the June departure of Fiona Hill from the U.S. National Security Council as the senior director for Russia, the prospects for New START’s extension appear more remote – even with the difficulties posed by adding China to the treaty. Hill’s replacement, Tim Morrison, is unlikely to view the treaty’s extension favorably. Morrison, during the Obama administration’s efforts to have New START ratified, was a staffer for the treaty’s most prominent Senate opponent, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican. Speaking in May in his prior capacity as senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense at the NSC, Morrison remarked that Trump’s final call on New START extension would come “at some point next year.”

If the administration is serious about arms control with China – be it in the realm of strategic weaponry or intermediate-range missiles in the aftermath of the INF Treaty – it must understand that countries tend to enter these sorts of arrangements for reasons of mutual interest. In their classic 1961 work, Strategy and Arms Control, Thomas Schelling and Morton Halperin wrote that arms control made sense between two countries toward the following ends: “...the avoidance of a war that neither side wants, in minimizing the costs and risks of the arms competition, and in curtailing the scope and violence of war in the event it occurs.” It may be possible for Washington and Beijing to discover the conditions for a productive dialogue on arms control. China has certain measures it might request of Washington pertaining to deployed missile defense systems and supporting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets in the Asia-Pacific, for instance. But that’s not the lens through which the Trump administration is approaching the prospect of drawing China into the world of great power arms control.

The day may soon come when Beijing is ready for a dialogue, but it’s not likely to materialize in the next few years. New START should be extended between the United States and Russia, and Washington should work toward opening the doors for a broader dialogue on arms reduction measures with China.