Disarmament in History and at Present: Theory vs. Practice

Without delving into medieval history, one could argue that disarmament issues became an important subject of world politics after World War I and took center stage after World War II. The monstrous destructive power, speed and constant combat readiness of nuclear weapons, capable of wiping out entire countries in a few hours, have fundamentally transformed the dialectic of politics and war. Clausewitz’s sacramental formula—“war is a continuation of policy by other, violent, means”—has now become a two-way street. These violent means have a tangible effect on politics and sometimes dictate the rules of the game. Hence the logic of disarmament: by influencing the means of war through agreements on their limitation and elimination, reduce the likelihood of war, mitigate its devastating effects and cut the economic costs of an arms race. However, experience has proved that these elements of the classical disarmament “triad” do not always complement each other in a harmonious way and often come into conflict. Fundamental disarmament issues remain unresolved to this day or rise anew as the world order changes, and science and technology develop. Worse yet, the system of disarmament treaties, built over decades, is now crumbling, a new arms race is looming large, and there is a possibility that supercomputers may be given control over arms use. At the same time, half a century of disarmament negotiations has shown that, given favorable political conditions, compromises can be reached on the most complex strategic and technical issues—provided there is goodwill of national leaders, the support of political elites and the persistent efforts of military and civilian professionals.

In April 1139, the Second Lateran Council took place in Rome. It was held in the magnificent, albeit dilapidated, Lateran Palace, which had been presented eight centuries earlier by Emperor Constantine the Great to Pope St. Sylvester as the headquarters of the Catholic Church. There were many pressing issues on the agenda: the election of Pope Innocent II, the condemnation of the heretical teachings of Arnold of Brescia and Peter of Bruys, the excommunication of King Roger II of Sicily, and the adoption of new canons of church discipline. However, among them was a special issue of an uncharacteristic nature: the prohibition of crossbows as an excessively violent weapon to use against Christians and especially Catholics. Crossbows were eventually banned, but with the understanding that they could be used against the Saracens. After all, following the successful First Crusade of 1096–1099, skirmishes with Muslims continued in Palestine and plans for a second crusade were under discussion.[1]

This is how the first known arms control agreement came about. However, the Saracen proviso received a “broad interpretation,” and the commitment not to use crossbows was quickly forgotten. Christian warriors continued to break through each other’s armor with crossbow bolts for another 400 years, until the latter were replaced by cannonballs and bullets. The Lateran agreement of 1139 suffered the fate of many subsequent agreements in this field, for a reason that also became a precedent for the future.

Aleksey Arbatov:
Nuclear Metamorphoses

An anti-missile special case

As the next eight and a half centuries passed, peace and war changed dramatically. In May 1972, the Soviet Union and the United States concluded the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to eliminate one of the powerful drivers of the nuclear arms race—the competition between defensive and offensive nuclear missile weapons. This Treaty ushered in a successful half-century of dialogue between the two superpowers and preceded a dozen treaties and agreements to reduce stockpiles of the most destructive weapons in human history.

However, an annex to the Treaty titled “Agreed Statements”, at the insistence of the Soviet side, was supplemented by point D[2] that read: “In order to insure fulfillment of the obligation not to deploy ABM systems and their components except as provided in Article III of the Treaty, the Parties agree that in the event ABM systems based on other physical principles and including components capable of substituting for ABM interceptor missiles, ABM launchers, or ABM radars are created in the future, specific limitations on such systems and their components would be subject to discussion in accordance with Article XIII and agreement in accordance with Article XIV of the Treaty.” [Disarmament and Security... 1987: 202].

The reason for this proviso was that a powerful stationary laser system was being developed and tested at the Soviet test range of Saryshagan in Kazakhstan, with the hope of building an effective missile defense system “based on new physical principles” instead of conventional interceptor missiles. In addition, the head of this project had family ties in the highest echelons of Soviet power.

The laser project eventually failed and fell into oblivion,[3] but Agreed Statement D lived on unnoticed for another decade. Everything changed on March 23, 1983, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to develop a missile defense system with space-based components (“Star Wars”), which aimed to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete”. This proposal translated into a massive scientific and technical effort as well as testing of a wide range of weapons and command-control-information systems.

So long as the results of the program were unclear, the U.S. was in no hurry to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, all the more so because legal restrictions on Soviet offensive strategic weapons (under the SALT I Interim Agreement and SALT II Treaty) were linked to it. This is why the notorious Agreed Statement D of the ABM Treaty was used as a loophole for the SDI development and testing program.

The U.S. administration suggested a so-called broad interpretation of this paragraph, arguing that it allegedly allowed for the “creation” of missile defense systems “based on other physical principles” and only mandated coordination of specific limitations on the deployment of such systems and their components (under Articles XVIII and XIV of the ABM Treaty). It was also contended that the term “creation” implied developing and testing advanced missile defense systems in space if they were intended to be based in orbit. Washington construed its obligation under Agreed Statement D “not to deploy ABM systems and their components except as provided in Article III of the Treaty” only with reference to conventional missile defense systems, since this Article determines how many interceptor launchers, missiles and radars each side could have, and how much space they could take in the authorized ABM system deployment areas.

The Soviet stance was that missile defense systems and components could be developed and tested only if they were fixed land-based (as specified in Article III), since the parties undertook “not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based” (Article V) (ibid.: 197–198).

The “broad interpretation” of Agreed Statement D sparked a heated years-long debate in the expert community and political circles of the United States, the Soviet Union, European nations, international organizations and at the official Soviet-American negotiations in Geneva. At the same time, a powerful boost was given to the race between offensive and defensive capabilities at research and development corporations of the military-industrial complexes of the two superpowers and their allies.

At the peak of its development (1985–1989), the SDI program expended $14.7 billion.[4] (This would amount to some $50 billion at current prices, which is equivalent to Russia's annual national defense budget until 2022, according to official figures). Contrary to the empty assertions of some pundits, SDI was not a “grand bluff” meant only to exhaust the Soviet Union economically in the arms race. These considerations were, as usual, in place, but SDI supporters in the military and corporate circles were serious in their expectation that the program would “nullify” the Soviet Union’s enormous financial and technical investment over the previous 20 years to achieving strategic parity with the U.S.

In response to the U.S. challenge, the Soviet Union in 1985 developed an extensive comprehensive plan consisting of the SK-1000, D-20, and SP-2000. They involved developing anti-satellite weapons to strike SDI space echelons and creating Soviet combat orbital stations. Work also accelerated on the Soviet missile defense system (A-135), on increasing the survivability of offensive missiles and improving their means of overcoming U.S. defenses.[5]

The Reykjavik Summit in October 1986 halted the superpowers’ slide toward confrontation and gave impetus to the nuclear and space arms negotiations that began in 1985. Just one year later, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was concluded, followed three years later by the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and one more year later—by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). However, no agreement was reached on SDI and space. The U.S. side sought to undermine the ABM Treaty through its “broad interpretation,” which gave the green light to space experiments with weapons systems based on new physical principles.

Unable to come to an agreement, the parties resolved the issue in a different way at that time. The Soviet Union made a unilateral declaration that it could withdraw from START I if the U.S. violated the ABM Treaty or walked out of it, thus replacing the legal nexus with a political one. The American side did not deny the right of the Soviet side to withdraw from the Treaty under certain conditions [Nazarkin 2011: 2017], especially since these conditions were stipulated using the standard formula in Article XVII paragraph 3 of the START I Treaty signed in 1991: “Each Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests. It shall give notice of its decision to the other Party six months prior to withdrawal from this Treaty.”[6]

The subsequent history proved the superiority of diplomatic flexibility. The conclusion of START I and other arms control breakthroughs amid a deep détente weakened the position of SDI supporters in the U.S. Technical bottlenecks and cutbacks in program funding led to its curtailment. A Senate committee headed by Senator S. Nunn carefully examined the protocols of the ABM Treaty negotiations and disavowed the legitimacy of its “broad interpretation”. After 1988, the next administration led by George H. W. Bush revised the SDI goals: instead of defense against massive strikes, the program was supposed to protect against limited or accidental missile attacks. The Democratic administration of Bill Clinton after 1992 refocused the missile defense system on protection from non-strategic missiles and preservation of the ABM Treaty in its original form. A special agreement to draw the demarcation line between strategic and theater missile defense systems was signed in 1997 (it obviously made sense only in the presence of the 1972 ABM Treaty).

Yet the missile defense saga did not end there. After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., in 2001, the Republican administration of George W. Bush (Jr.) gave notice of the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which became effective in 2002. That said, there was no recourse to Agreed Statement D or “broad interpretation” anymore. The emotional shock of 9/11 was immense, although even a “Star Wars” system would not have saved U.S. cities from an air attack on September 11. Anyway, over the next 20 years, the U.S. did not deploy strategic missile defenses on a large scale, limiting itself to two bases in the hinterlands.[7]

The special case of Agreed Statement D of the ABM Treaty is not just a unique episode. There are other examples in history where attempts by a party to secure for itself “loopholes” in arms control treaties so as to develop advanced military technologies later turned against its security interests. Even more often, whenever one power focused on shooting ahead in the development of certain weapons systems and refusing to limit them, such systems ultimately gave military advantages to another power [Arbatov 2019].

Worse yet, at this moment, almost 40 years after the debate over SDI and Agreed Statement D, an acute crisis in strategic arms control has emerged, while the threat of an arms race in space has resurfaced, and the entire disarmament system built over many decades is at risk of collapsing.

Zhao Huaheng:
A Dangerous Gamble: The Russia-American Nuclear Game in the Ukraine Crisis

Perennial disarmament issues

Without delving into medieval history, it should be noted that since the beginning of the 20^th century and to an even greater extent after World War II, fundamental disarmament issues have been addressed in multiple legal instruments, extensive specialized literature, and at countless academic conferences. Nevertheless, they remain unresolved or rise anew as the world order changes along with scientific and technological development.

For the first time in modern history, the goal of disarmament was set by President Woodrow Wilson in his Address to the U.S. Congress on January 8, 1918. It outlined 14 points for the peaceful resolution of major international conflicts of that time, with the 4th point stating: “Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety” [System History... 2000: 27–28]. By modern standards, such categories as “the lowest point” and “consistent with domestic safety” clearly look naive and allow for arbitrary (“broad”) interpretation. However, the underlying idea was quite sound: in a future world without wars, there would be no need for large military forces, there would be no arms race, and the saved resources would be used for peaceful needs.

In fulfillment of Wilson’s 4th point, the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed in 1925. Despite some local violations and mutual accusations, it was observed even during World War II and after it. A separate field of disarmament emerged—the prohibition or restricted use of certain types of particularly destructive weapons.[8]

It is quite conceivable that Wilson had an underlying motive of a different kind. The point is that the means of war—military forces and armaments—could themselves increase the threat of war by influencing political leaders’ decisions to initiate hostilities.

World War I provided the first large-scale illustration of this phenomenon in history. The famous Schlieffen Plan,[9] developed by the German General Staff, aimed to avoid a two-front war against the Entente powers [see Tuchman 1962 (1990)]. Such a war would mean significant difficulties for Germany, so the strategy was to preempt and defeat opponents one by one. The plan relied on Germany’s extensive railway network and proceeded from the assumption that it would take Russia much time (two months) to mobilize its army. Therefore, Germany expected to quickly crush France (as in the war of 1871), and then rapidly move the troops to the east to defeat Russia.

When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after the assassination in Sarajevo, and Russia challenged the Austro-Hungarian Empire and began mobilization, Berlin decided that it could not afford any delay, as it would disrupt the meticulously calculated military-railway schedule. The risk associated with striking first (using modern strategic terminology) was considered lesser than that of delaying action and missing the enemy’s first strike. Through the invasion of Belgium, the German offensive against France began. However, Germans got bogged down in the battle of Marne, while the Russian army was mobilized and mounted an offensive in East Prussia, Poland and Galicia. The Schlieffen Plan, perfect on paper and calculated literally to the hour, completely failed in practice.

It was clearly not the casus belli, given that the war had been brewing for many years and took shape of a bipolar stand-off between coalitions of major powers as well as war preparations by large armies and fleets. But the plan described above took away the last remaining chance before the shooting started to reach a diplomatic compromise among ideologically united leaders of Europe, bound by familial and friendly ties. There is a searing dramatic episode described in the literature when, after the guns began devastating Europe, the pre-war German Chancellor, Prince Bernhard von Bülow, asked his successor: “How did it all happen?” “Ah, if only we knew,” was the reply [quoted in Kennedy 1969: 128].

In the terrible and largely pointless four-year massacre, more than 20 million soldiers and civilians died, four empires collapsed, the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, and 15 years later the Nazis became rulers of Germany. The consequences of these developments predetermined World War II, and then the Cold War for almost the entire remaining 20^th century, with distant echoes of those cataclysms still clearly heard today.

One might wonder whether there is a connection between the gas attacks at Ypres, Wilson’s philosophy and modern intercontinental missiles. However, this connection does exist, and it raises questions for politicians and experts over and over again; their essence has changed very little over the past century.

First, what causes wars—politics or weapons? Second, can the likelihood of war be influenced through agreements on limiting its means—certain types of armaments. Third, how can the principles of such limitations be determined? Fourth, what is the order of priority for various disarmament goals: reducing the likelihood of war; mitigating its devastating effects; cutting the economic costs of an arms race? This classical triad was formulated back in the early 1960s by the patriarchs of nuclear strategy and arms control theory, T. Schelling and M. Halperin [Schelling and Halperin 1961]. However, the decades that followed have shown that these goals do not always complement each other in a harmonious way and often come into conflict.

Andrey Gubin:
U.S. Recent Plans in National Air Defense: The East Asia Dimension

Politics and arms

Obviously, wars are not started by weapons per se, but by national leaders who sanction the use of military force to solve political, economic, or ideological problems (which are often conflated). However, August 1914 clearly demonstrated that as military hardware evolved from crossbows to mass armies and increasingly destructive war technologies, the quantitative and qualitative features of armed forces and weapons can significantly impact political decisions. They are capable of inspiring hope for a quick military success or breeding fear of defeat if the enemy successfully attacks. When both factors are present, with a “start or lose” dilemma at play, the trigger effect of armaments increases exponentially.

The creation of nuclear weapons and their accumulation in great numbers further exacerbated this dilemma. The monstrous destructive power, speed and constant high combat readiness of these weapons, capable of wiping out entire countries in a few hours regardless of the cause of war, have fundamentally transformed Clausewitz’s immortal formula: “War is a continuation of policy by other [violent] means” [Clausewitz 1934]. Now this maxim has become a two-way street as “violent means” influence politics and sometimes dictate the rules of the game.

Russian President Vladimir Putin alluded to this fact during his meeting with soldiers’ mothers in December 2022. Responding to a suggestion to renounce the option of a nuclear first strike, he remarked: “Regarding Russia never using nuclear weapons first under any circumstances… If it does not use them first, then it would not be the second to use them either, because in the case of a nuclear strike at our territory, our capabilities will be significantly limited.[10] This means that besides the essence of a casus belli, the characteristics of the available nuclear capabilities can provoke an exchange of destructive blows. These weapons have themselves become the tangible embodiment of a massive external threat and the cause of animosity among nations.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a terrifying illustration of such an effect. President John F. Kennedy and his staff believed they should not hesitate with an airstrike on the Soviet medium-range missile bases that were stationed in Cuba, as once they were armed with nuclear warheads, a retaliation from the island would destroy the entire eastern part of the U.S. Little did the White House know that some of the Soviet missiles already had nuclear payload, and in the event of a U.S. air attack, the commander of the Soviet task force in Cuba was empowered to decide on his own initiative to launch the missiles [Kennedy 1969; Khrushchev 1994: 356–364]. If Kennedy and Khrushchev had not come to an agreement on October 28, there would have been an airstrike a couple of days later, some of the 40 Soviet medium-range missiles would have been launched, and hundreds of U.S. strategic bombers and ballistic missiles would have delivered 5,000 nuclear warheads and aviation bombs on the Soviet Union, receiving in return a strike of a number of similar munitions [Chernyshev 2021: 118, 132].

Another example of how armaments can influence politics was the planned deployment in Europe since 1983 of more than 600 U.S. high-precision nuclear-capable ballistic missiles Pershing II with a short flight time (about 10 minutes) to the Moscow area, as well as ground-launched Gryphon cruise missiles, which could reach the Urals and were nearly undetectable by air defense radars. As bad luck would have it, NATO was holding the Able Archer military exercise in November 1983, which Moscow perceived as preparation for a nuclear attack. The parties were clearly “sliding” toward a new version of the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the dynamics of nuclear confrontation, although the political conflict level of the situation was no higher than in the previous decade.

At that time, another military-technical factor of a possible war emerged—President Reagan’s SDI program. It focused on missile interception systems in outer space. Theoretically, operating from space in low orbits, these systems were capable of hitting ballistic missiles in the boost phase of their flight, when they were most vulnerable and were yet to dispense independently targetable warheads or missile defense penetration aids. The fuss about SDI was fueled by the very idea of placing weapons in space and the perception of the threat of their use for a lightning strike against targets on Earth. The extension of the arms race to space and the rapidity of advanced weapons systems would require complete automation of command-control-information systems, thereby finally taking the means of war out of the politicians’ control.

Based on this logic of interaction between politics and weapons, disarmament measures have become a separate line of effort to prevent war and reduce international tensions—in parallel to the peaceful resolution of other conflicts between states. The second major thrust of disarmament is about physically limiting the means of war to ease the fears of powers about each other’s military intentions, reduce the devastating effects of a possible war and cut the costs of an arms race.

The first example of physical disarmament in history was the treaty signed in Washington, D.C., back in 1922 to limit naval armaments of the U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy, with the follow-up London treaty of 1930 limiting large ships and submarines of the first three of the above nations. This almost completely forgotten experience is interesting because it was the first time when diplomacy limited specific, and by far the largest, most destructive and most expensive weapons systems of the time.[11]

Dmitry Stefanovich:
A Duo of Strategic Counteraction

Nuclear disarmament

There was a quality leap in awakening to the danger of a nuclear arms race as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet the material and conceptual basis for the physical reduction of nuclear weapons took some time to evolve. The process began by limiting what was a visible effect of the nuclear race and was harmful for the environment. In 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed to prohibit detonations of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater.[12] It was followed in 1967 by the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibited the introduction of weapons of mass destruction in outer space, and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968. The latter two treaties were the third thrust of disarmament, restricting the weapons’ spatial dimension.[13]

The conditions for negotiations on the most powerful nuclear weapons systems were ripe in the late 1960s, when the Soviet Union was close to strategic parity with the U.S. and, concurrently, the possibility of destabilizing the parity by the impact of missile defense systems arose. Negotiations between the Soviet Union and the U.S. on these subjects began in 1969 and three years later, at the 1972 summit, culminated in the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I).

The legal recognition of nuclear parity with the U.S. was extremely important for the Soviet Union as the crowning achievement of enormous military-technical efforts and economic expenditures over a quarter of a century since 1945. But it was not just symbolic. The first agreements in this sphere already affected the possibility of a successful attack, thus influencing the probability of war, although this effect was underestimated at the time and was more associated with the general easing of political tensions. Nevertheless, parity reduced the mutual possibility of a disarming nuclear strike, since it required far more single-warhead missiles, which were then in service, than the number of enemy missiles in hardened silo launchers that might be destroyed. Strict limitations on missile defense systems ruled out the possibility of repelling a weakened retaliatory strike.

Yet it was not possible to start arms reduction immediately after their limitation. The U.S. again took the initiative in building up strategic arms and in 1970 began deploying ballistic missiles equipped with multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles or MIRVs, and a few years later introduced radar-eluding long-range nuclear cruise missiles, which flew at low altitudes and could be based in different ways. That move not only led to a sharp increase in the number of nuclear warheads in the strategic forces, but it also created the possibility of hitting several enemy missiles with a single missile, i.e. the threat of a disarming strike despite strategic parity. The Soviet Union was again forced to catch up with the U.S. on a new technological track.

However, the negotiation process was not interrupted, and in 1979 the SALT II Treaty was signed, which fixed parity in different types and kinds of strategic missiles as well as the permitted number of warheads on each of them. This Treaty was the next step in limiting strategic arms (indirectly, in terms of the number of warheads), although it did not provide for their reduction. Moreover, it was not ratified because of the campaign in the West over the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

After navigating through the acute crises of the early 1980s, the parties reached a turning point in disarmament policy in the second half of the decade. Treaties were concluded not only on significant arms reductions but, through these measures, on the genuine mitigation of the threat of a surprise attack that had been looming over the world since World War II. In other words, the impact of the characteristics of armed forces on the political decision to launch hostilities (which can be called the Schlieffen Plan effect) was significantly weakened.

Critics of the arms control practice cannot or do not want to acknowledge this, emphasizing the inadequacy of military parity as a guarantee against armed conflict [Karaganov, Suslov 2019]. Meanwhile, arms control is not only and not so much about parity—the INF Treaty eliminated for the Soviet Union the threat of a “decapitating” and disarming nuclear strike with the shortest attack warning time, which in a crisis could provoke a preemptive strike on its part.

Under the CFE Treaty, armed forces were not just linearly reduced. NATO and Warsaw Pact troops were moved from the contact area in Central Europe to the continent’s periphery and overseas to eliminate the threat of a sudden large-scale attack by aviation and tank armies, as was the case on June 22, 1941.

The START I Treaty not only physically reduced the intercontinental nuclear capabilities of the Soviet Union and the U.S. to equal levels, but it also cut the number of warheads on those delivery systems more than it cut the number of missiles and bombers (by 50% and 25%, respectively[14]). In addition to unprecedented qualitative limitations on different weapons systems, an extensive regime of transparency and predictability in the development of strategic forces was agreed upon. The Treaty thus reduced, through structural restrictions, the mutual possibility of a first (disarming) nuclear strike, having laid the foundation for strategic stability for many years to come.

This was a testament to the great intellectual contribution of the START I negotiations: within its framework, in 1990, the concept of strategic stability, enshrined in the Joint Statement of the Soviet Union and the U.S. [Soviet–United States Joint Statement... 1990: 197–199], was agreed upon. Its essence was laid down as “removing incentives for a nuclear first strike”, and the measures to ensure strategic stability included “stabilizing reductions,” taking into account the relationship between offensive and defensive (missile defense) weapons, through reducing the concentration of warheads on delivery vehicles and by putting emphasis on the highly survivable systems.

It should be recognized that these provisions fundamentally contradict the conventional military thinking, which is why the Joint Statement of 1990 has not been accepted by all professionals from different countries, and its status as an agreed concept of strategic stability has been once and again called into question. For centuries, military thinking has been rooted in the uncontested goal of achieving victory in war, for which an effective first strike is considered essential. Similarly, recognizing the enemy’s right to retaliate, as well as consciously reducing one’s first-strike capability through treaties, is still met with resistance from military specialists, with rare exceptions. As strange as it may seem, they may acknowledge the realities of mutual deterrence for peacetime but adhere to the immutable laws of war when it comes to starting and conducting hostilities. This principle is often formulated as “if a fight is inevitable, you have to throw the first punch.” But a questions remain: isn’t it the first strike that makes the “fight” inevitable, and what advantage does it give if it triggers a devastating response? Such topics, however, are usually delegated by the military to politicians.

Shortly after the landmark arms control treaties of 1987–1991, the Soviet Union and world politics saw tectonic changes. But “after” is by no means equivalent to “because of.” Soviet politics prioritized the struggle for peace and the end of the arms race, and the external threat and nuclear rivalry were never recognized as conditions for preserving the political system. Without the treaties cited above, the processes of 1991–1993 would have been more destructive for the country’s security and the rest of the world.

In the meantime, internal events of those years eroded the nation’s position in negotiations with other countries. The decade that followed saw a series of rather tumultuous nuclear arms reductions under the START II Treaty (1993), the START III Framework Agreement (1997) and the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). Those agreements quickly succeeded one other, often without being ratified, or were ratified in different versions in the U.S. and Russia (START II), or were ratified without the necessary finalization of key components (SORT lacked counting rules and verification measures). This patchwork of legal instruments ended with the New START Treaty, signed in 2010 and ratified in 2011.

Recall that the New START Treaty limited the number of strategic arms of Russia and the U.S. to 1,550 warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems for these warheads, with an aggregate limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. These caps reduced the strategic nuclear forces of the two parties roughly by seven times in terms of warheads and by three times in terms of delivery systems compared to what existed in 1990.

However, the significance of the New START lies not only and not so much in quantitative reductions of strategic arms, but in strengthening strategic stability in accordance with the criteria cited above. The current strategic balance between Russia and the U.S. precludes the possibility, and therefore the incentives, for a nuclear first strike, since it cannot significantly reduce the power of a retaliation and would therefore be suicidal for the initiator of the war. The Treaty’s verification system, which made it possible to check its implementation, ensuring transparency and predictability in the development of strategic relations for many years to come, is extremely important as well.[15]

The main question considering the subject at hand is whether the New START Treaty and the quantitative and qualitative changes in the military arsenals of the parties to this agreement reduced the likelihood of nuclear war.

The answer is unequivocally positive, but with a serious caveat: the likelihood of war cannot entirely depend on a single treaty covering only one, albeit very important, aspect of state relations. Other aspects—contradictions and conflicts of an international political, economic, territorial, ideological or military nature in areas not covered by agreements—can increase the likelihood of war, despite strategic arms reduction treaties in place.

This is exactly the case with the conflict in and around Ukraine, now in its third year, which has become the epicenter of an extraordinary escalation of international tensions. For only the fourth time in history, Western nations are collectively opposing Russia[16] and indirectly (so far) participating in the conflict, waging war on Russia through large-scale deliveries of arms and military equipment to Kiev, sending advisers and mercenaries, supporting it with communications and intelligence systems, and through unprecedented economic and political sanctions. The continuation of the Ukrainian conflict, including missile and drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, is fraught with the risk of nuclear escalation, especially since some prominent figures, for the first time in Russian history, are openly advocating the preventive use of nuclear weapons to ensure the success of the special military operation in Ukraine.[17]

Russian official doctrinal documents and statements of the top leadership so far do not suggest that nuclear weapons may be used in this way. However, the Foreign Ministry’s statement dated May 6, 2024,[18] regarding military exercises to practise the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons was a response to hawkish statements by NATO leaders, plans to hand over long-range weapons systems to Ukraine for possible strikes on Russia, and threats to bring NATO troops into the theater of war. An exercise and the actual use of weapons are two vastly different things, but said activities imply such a possibility and openly pursue the goal of political leverage against the opponent. Therefore, in this case it is a question of clarifying the functions of nuclear deterrence, which have been so far confined to a nuclear response to a nuclear attack or nuclear use to counter non-nuclear aggression that poses a threat to “the very existence of the state.”[19]

The current crisis, unlike the events of 1962 and 1983 mentioned above, was not directly provoked by a nuclear confrontation between nations. Among its causes are NATO’s eastward expansion in defiance of Moscow’s objections over the past quarter-century, the alleged unwillingness of the U.S. and its allies to build relations with Russia on the principles of equality and indivisible security, their desire to change regimes in other countries at will and to destroy their sovereignty and territorial integrity by force (as in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria).

Nevertheless, the current crisis has quite a tangible link to arms control. It is no coincidence that it was preceded and then fueled by the collapse of the disarmament system. In 2019, the U.S. denounced the crucial Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), and in 2020 withdrew from the Treaty on Open Skies. In 2023, in response to U.S. policy toward Ukraine and for a variety of other reasons, Russia suspended its participation in the New START Treaty, denounced the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and revoked its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in a tit-for-tat move against the U.S., which signed the treaty in 1996 but never ratified it. The ultimate collapse of the CTBT is quite possible and would undermine the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which is closely linked to the CTBT both legally and politically.

All this demonstrates the close relationship between disarmament, international politics and military threats. If disarmament did not deter conflict and did nothing to reduce the threat of war, nations would not opt out of such agreements, coming head-to-head with each other, envisioning armed confrontation. This is because the process and regimes of arms control reduce the threat of war between participating countries. However, they cannot by themselves dictate their entire foreign policy, which is shaped by many other factors.

Nonetheless, even amid violent conflicts between states, arms control has a certain stabilizing effect on the confrontation. It is worth noting that despite the severity of the Ukrainian crisis and the widespread discussion of a possible nuclear escalation in Russia and abroad, U.S. and Russian strategic forces are left out of this discourse. The discussion is only about tactical nuclear weapons and limited nuclear strikes. This stands in contrast with the situation during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1983 Euromissile Crisis, when the public attention was focused on the expectation of massive nuclear strikes with strategic weapons and medium-range systems. In the former case it was the U.S. and in the latter case the Soviet Union that faced the threat of a strategic nuclear strike with a short flight time. Since then, the INF Treaty and a series of agreements capped by the New START have effectively eliminated such threats, although the former was denounced in 2019, while the latter was “suspended” in 2023.

There is no doubt that the current situation would be far more dangerous if not for the six preceding decades of generally successful arms control. Recall that 350 ICBMs and 84 heavy bombers were removed from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan as part of the reductions under the START I Treaty. These countries became parties to the START I Treaty in 1994 and Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Furthermore, in 1991–1992, thanks to the positive influence of the INF Treaty and the CFE Treaty, parallel politically binding measures were taken by Moscow and Washington to drastically reduce tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). A commitment was made that each side would reduce its arsenals of this type of nuclear systems (with a range of up to 500 kilometers) by eight to ten times. The INF Treaty, START I, and TNW measures, among other things, facilitated the removal of all nuclear weapons from the territory of the Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics to Russia, which took the nuclear factor out of subsequent conflicts in Eastern Europe.

Dmitry Stefanovich:
Intermediate-Anxiety Missiles

Reducing damage, cutting costs

At first glance, these two matters seem to logically fit into the system of disarmament priorities. But the situation is much more complicated. When it comes to the use of more than a few dozen warheads, given the sheer destructive power of nuclear weapons, the consequences depend not only on the number but also on the yield of warheads, the type of explosions (ground or air) and, most importantly, on the targeting plans.

A targeted strike on cities, even with a relatively small number of warheads and medium-power bombs used, would cause irreparable damage to any large country, especially given the fires, radioactive contamination and destruction of transport and utility infrastructure. The U.S. has nine cities with a population of over 1 million people and 59 cities with a population between 300,000 and 1 million, while Russia has 16 “million-plus” cities and 57 cities with a population between 250,000 and 1 million people. The modern strategic forces of Russia and the U.S., after half a century of their reduction, have about 1,500 nuclear warheads, and there is no doubt that even a small part of them (10–15%) can cause unacceptable damage to administrative and industrial centers both in a first and retaliatory strikes [Wilkening 2014: 123–140].

The overwhelming majority of the superpowers’ strategic weapons have flight programs to attack the sites of strategic forces and other military targets of each other, as well as industrial and infrastructure facilities.[20] However, it is obvious that even strikes on military facilities (and even more so on industrial clusters) would entail huge “collateral damage” due to their location near cities and the dispersion of radioactive fallout with air currents.

Declassified Pentagon papers revealed the estimates of the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC), which in 1960 targeted its bombers mainly at the cities of the Soviet Union, China and their allies [Kaplan 1983: 269]. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had a combined total of about 22,000 nuclear warheads [Chernyshev 2021: 132]. SAC projected that the immediate and delayed effects of massive strikes would have left some 800 million people dead [Ellsberg 2017: 100–104].

Since then, nuclear weapons and military doctrines have changed, détente has come and gone, and global nuclear stockpiles have dropped to about 13,000 warheads, including about 8,000 in the U.S. and Russia together. However, calculations by independent experts show that even now an exchange of nuclear strikes would result in 90 million direct casualties split between the U.S., Russia and their allies.[21]

Setting damage reduction in the event of a nuclear war as a disarmament aim is a noble but highly questionable idea. Today, the goal of disarmament is not to reduce hypothetical damage in the event of nuclear war, but to make war less likely through “stabilizing reductions” [Soviet–United States Joint Statement... 1990] of armaments, i.e., removing incentives for a nuclear first strike by reducing the concentration of warheads on delivery vehicles and shifting forces to highly survivable systems. Given the existing number of nuclear weapons of the superpowers and the small number of large cities on their soil, strategic arms reductions will primarily decrease the possibility of strikes on military targets rather than on administrative and industrial centers.

To realistically minimize hypothetical civilian casualties, existing nuclear arsenals need to be reduced by at least two orders of magnitude, with all nuclear-armed states involved. This goal seems unattainable for the foreseeable future, since it would require abandoning the logic of mutual assured destruction and switching to a different principle of strategic relations: for example, mutual assured survival based on the expansion of defensive systems (preferably integrated) in parallel to advanced reductions in offensive weapons.

Worse yet, the fundamentally humane idea of reducing nuclear damage often masks dangerous strategic concepts. First, there is a theory that has emerged in recent years that after the reduction of nuclear weapons over the past 30 years, “nuclear war will not destroy humanity,” and that it can be fought and won.[22] This challenges the maxim formulated 40 years ago—“there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought”—and opens the door to an arms race and policies of nuclear blackmail.

Second, there are concepts of limited nuclear warfare, retargeting of strategic forces exclusively on military assets (the counterforce strategy) and selective use of nuclear weapons, which supposedly will not escalate to massive strikes.[23] This also includes development of low-yield and high-precision warheads, along with strikes on the enemy’s information and control systems. The high-precision conventional long-range weapons and their integration with nuclear means[24] in operational plans, weapons on new physical principles, advanced missile defenses and space weapons are developing in the same direction. In other words, in a nuclear world of paradoxes, even the good idea of disarmament for the sake of mitigating the devastating impact of war can turn into its opposite and make such a war more likely without really affecting its catastrophic consequences.

The matter of cost savings through disarmament is not so paradoxical, but also quite ambiguous. This topic deserves a separate study, but here a general comment is worthwhile. The breakdown of military budgets of the leading powers is rather opaque, and in Russia such information has recently become even more classified.[25]

More is known about the U.S. military budget. According to open-source information, $886 billion[26] has been allocated for U.S. national defense, including related expenditures, in fiscal year 2024. Of this amount, about 38% is usually spent on operating costs, 24% on wages of personnel and employees, 18% on the purchase of weapons and military equipment, and 14% on research and development. If nuclear weapons spending is separated out across all these categories, its total share in the military budget reaches about 8/2–8.5%.[27] It is this portion of spending that nuclear disarmament agreements can affect.

The bulk of spending on strategic forces is for “research, development, test and evaluation” and “production, procurement and combat deployment.” Since these funds have already been spent on existing nuclear forces, arms reduction treaties would not produce any savings. The implementation of arms reduction agreements will save money on the “operation and maintenance” of military equipment, base infrastructure, operational deployment and personnel pay. For strategic forces, this is a relatively small part of the costs, and in the U.S. case, the main spending is on aviation, followed by sea-based forces, and least of all, ground-based missile forces.

Meanwhile, the reduction and disposal of deployed strategic forces, including nuclear warheads, and the mothballing of their sites are costly. The cost assessment is adjusted only by the fact that the reduction mainly covers outdated systems and types of weapons that would have to be eliminated anyway. However, reductions under treaties may incur extra costs because these often involve certain verifiable technical procedures. In addition, inspection regimes, in turn, entail additional costs for both the inspecting and the inspected parties.

Thus, expecting clear and quick savings from strategic arms reduction agreements would be a simplistic approach. Such treaties mainly involve hypothetical savings, i.e., cost estimates compared to those that would have been incurred in the absence of such agreements through procuring and deploying a greater number and variety of weapons. Even more significant savings come from abolishing the development and procurement of additional weapons systems that are no longer needed. For example, under the provisions of the SALT II and START I treaties, the Soviet Union scrapped development programs for and removed from operational use fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS) and abandoned air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBMs) [Chernyshev 2021: 121,137].[28] In the context of the START I Treaty, the U.S. canceled the project of the extremely expensive Midgetman mobile land-based ICBM system [Newhouse 1989: 358–359].

An immeasurably greater economic benefit came from the U.S. decision not to continue the SDI program and the Soviet Union’s cancellation of several projects aimed at countering it. Yet even these benefits were hypothetical and, moreover, conditional not on specific agreements, but on indirect factors: the treaties of the late 1980s and early 1990s on deep reductions in offensive nuclear weapons, general détente, technical problems of the SDI, and growing domestic opposition to it in the U.S.

The ongoing program to modernize U.S. strategic triad over the next quarter-century is expected to cost between $1.2 trillion and $1.7 trillion, including $93 billion for a new land-based Sentinel ICBM system, $112 billion for Columbia-class missile submarines, and $203 billion for B-21 Raider heavy bombers. At least $28–37 billion will be spent on new nuclear warheads, depending on the choice of their types and production rates [Kristensen, Korda 2023; Weiner 2024]. The New START Treaty, even if its limits are not exceeded after 2026, will have no effect on these costs, since the modernization program was fitted to the provisions of this Treaty.

If all limits are abolished and exceeded, the U.S. strategic forces development program would be significantly expanded and accelerated (taking into account, among other things, the growing strategic confrontation with China). This will raise the costs by $440 billion or more.[29] Conversely, in the event of positive changes in U.S. relations with Russia and China as well as the conclusion of new strategic arms limitation treaties, one could expect a reduction in funding for the U.S. modernization program by about $100 billion over 10–15 years (for example, by scrapping the controversial new Sentinel ICBM system).

The above provisions are of course relevant to nuclear arms reductions, while the picture is different for conventional forces, where the share of operating costs is much higher (including personnel pay). At the same time, the cost and timeframe for developing and procuring new equipment is relatively shorter. Therefore, a significant reduction in conventional armed forces yields large savings rather quickly—after the initial “investment” in their redeployment, dismissal and accommodation of officers and contract personnel, dismantling of surplus and mothballing of combat equipment. Then comes a “bonus” due to lower costs of troop maintenance, military exercises and serial procurement of weapons and military equipment.

Alexander Yermakov:
Don’t Trust and Don’t Verify. New Normality for New START

Multilateral nuclear disarmament

The Strategic Stability Dialogue in Geneva, which began in the summer of 2021 and was interrupted by the U.S. after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, addressed the thorny issues of future negotiations. Some time has passed, and the agenda expanded even further. Russia suggested that the nuclear forces of the UK and France should also be factored in, turning the failure to do so into one of its arguments for suspending the participation in the New START[30] Treaty in February 2023.

The same year, the U.S. put limiting China’s nuclear capabilities on the future agenda. As early as 2021, projections were released suggesting that China’s strategic forces will likely grow to 1,500 warheads by 2035 (i.e., to the current New START limits)[31] [Kristensen, Korda, and Reynolds 2023]. In response to this challenge, the U.S. Congress proposes to reorient the national doctrine and weapons modernization programs toward simultaneous confrontation two nuclear superpowers, Russia and China.[32] The Democratic administration has not yet accepted these proposals but has set the goal of engaging China in arms control negotiations and agreements.[33]

The common position of the UK, France and China is that the U.S. and Russia should reduce their nuclear stockpiles closer to the level of the other three countries as a prerequisite for five-party agreements. The “Big Two”, however, have traditionally conditioned further significant cuts in their arsenals on firm assurances that other nuclear-armed states will join the process and keep their nuclear forces at a certain predictable level. The long discussions on this issue resemble the chicken and egg dilemma.

For such complex issues, “simple” solutions are not suitable; non-trivial approaches are needed. For example, one could consider the option of setting equal caps on a separate component of strategic forces for Russia on the one hand, and for the UK and France combined on the other hand. The U.S. and China could discuss the same approach in a bilateral format.

For possible future U.S.–Russian START negotiations, the consideration of third countries creates new difficulties, including the U.S. plan to deploy intermediate-range missiles in the Asia–Pacific, which Washington views as a means of deterring China at the regional level.

Zhao Huasheng, Andrey Kortunov:
Prepare for the Worst and Strive for the Best. Russia’s and China’s Perceptions of Developments in International Security

Innovative systems and disruptive technologies

At the short-lived consultations in Geneva that took place over the summer and fall of 2021, the main disagreement between the parties was that the U.S. proposed reducing both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons [Pifer 2020; Gottemoeller 2020: 139–159], while Russia raised the issue of limiting both nuclear and non-nuclear offensive and defensive strategic weapons alike, in keeping with its new “security equation” concept.[34]

However, these difficulties pale in comparison with the challenge posed to disarmament by the latest disruptive technologies that can significantly affect global and regional military balances. These include means and methods of cyber warfare, space-based strike systems, autonomous long-range weapons, ultra-sensitive monitoring systems for land, sea and deep ocean combined with quantum computers for big data analysis, not to mention the application of artificial intelligence at various levels of command-control and information systems to implement the use of nuclear and other weapons.

Analysis of these problems requires a separate study. However, even without it, one thing is clear: although it is very difficult to encompass these military and dual-use technologies in disarmament efforts, it is impossible to do so without drawing on strategic nuclear arms limitations as the bedrock and the concept of strategic stability as a guidebook. Without them, it is impossible to objectively assess the impact of certain weapons or technologies on global security (apart from the general reaction like “Help!”).

For example, the impact of artificial intelligence on the likelihood of an inadvertent war is determined by the available decision-making time for a nuclear response, which depends on the warning time of an attack along with the vulnerability of one’s own command-control systems and deterrence capabilities against a disarming enemy strike. This factor cannot be considered outside of analyzing and predicting the sustainability of strategic balance within the arms control and restriction mechanisms or without them. Unless disruptive technologies are evaluated in an adequate system of conceptual coordinates, it is impossible to discuss the possibility of their containment or management through legal instruments.

Despite the complexity of the problems mentioned above, half a century of disarmament negotiations and treaties has shown that compromises on the most complex strategic and technical issues are achievable with the goodwill and persistence of national leaders, the support of political elites and the tireless efforts of military and civilian professionals.

***

Over the past 60 years, nuclear arms control has become an integral feature of international relations and global security. A large package of agreements on other weapons of mass destruction and conventional arms has evolved around it.

The world order that has emerged over the past decades is now fundamentally changing, as is the situation within many leading powers. These changes inevitably affect the established system of treaties and the practice of dialogue on various aspects of disarmament, especially since it has many ideological and opportunistic opponents. In restructuring the outgoing world order, as stated in Russia’s latest Foreign Policy Concept, Moscow seeks to eliminate “...vestiges of domination by the US and other unfriendly states in global affairs, create conditions to enable any state to renounce neo-colonial or hegemonic ambitions; improve international mechanisms for ensuring security and development at the global and regional levels.”[35] Russia’s partners in this effort are China, India, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and many other nations of the Global South (however vague this term may be).

At the same time, according to the Concept, the new world order is expected to pay much attention to “...strengthening and developing international political foundations (arrangements) for maintaining strategic stability, regimes of arms control and non-proliferation of all types of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery ... preventing an arms race and precluding its transfer to new environments, creating conditions for further phased reduction of nuclear potentials ... strengthening nuclear safety and security at the global level and preventing acts of nuclear terrorism.”[36]

A security strategy of this kind is quite reasonable, since nuclear chaos will ensue without it, with the resumption of full-scale testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater and in space, their acquisition by terrorists and radical regimes, limited or massive use of these arms in conflicts and major wars. Still this strategy in no small measure involves constructive interaction with the U.S., its allies and partners, as well as with China, India and other nations.

The unbroken combination of these two tracks for reorganizing international relations is a truly monumental goal set before Russia’s foreign policy.

Arbatov, A.G. (2024). Disarmament in history and at present: theory vs. practice. Polis. Political Studies, 5, 24-45. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2024.05.03

The research was financed by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 224-28-20253, https://rscf.ru/en/project/24-28-20253/

References

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Ellsberg, D. (2017). The doomsday machine. Confessions of a nuclear war planner. New York: Bloomsbury.

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Kennedy, R. (1969). Thirteen days. A memoir of the Cuban Missile crisis. New York: Norton and Company.

Kristensen, H.M., & Korda, M. (2023). United States nuclear weapons. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 79(1), 28-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2022.2156686

Kristensen, H.M., Korda, M. & Reynolds, E. (2023). Nuclear notebook: Chinese nuclear weapons.

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1 Monte S. Turner. The Not So Diabolical Crossbow: A Re-Examination of Innocent II’s Supposed Ban оf the Crossbow at the Second Lateran Council. Second Lateran Council. Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913.

2 It corresponds to paragraph E in the English text of this annex.

3 Its distant “descendant”, namely the land-based mobile combat laser system Peresvet, was unveiled in 2018 and deployed for tasks still kept secret.

4 Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. https://ota.fas.org/reports/8504.pdf; SDI: Technology, Survivability, and Software, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988. https://ota.fas.org/reports/8837.pdf; Report to the Congress on the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 13.03.1989 (accessed 05.06.2024).

5 It was then that the development of hypersonic glide vehicles (“Albatros”) and long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (“Status-6”), which were unveiled 35 years later by Russian President Vladimir Putin and named “Avangard” and “Poseidon” systems, was launched to evade the SDI space frontier.

6 The Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the START Treaty), 31.07.1991. STAR Site https://www.armscontrol.ru/start/rus/docs/start-14.htm (accessed 07.07.2024).

7 They were stationed in Alaska and California and consist of 44 strategic interceptors with partial use of the SDI program’s technologies (hit-to-kill warheads with infrared homing). Moreover, the ABM Treaty allowed the deployment of 200 interceptors, while the 1974 protocol lowered the limit to 100. Aegis ballistic missile defense systems were also deployed on warships and at two bases in Europe.

8 The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1983), the Biological Weapons Convention (1972), the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993), the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention (1997), and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008) have all developed this trend further.

9 Alfred von Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Empire.

10 Council for Civil Society and Human Rights meeting. Official website of the Russian President, 07.12.2022. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70046 (accessed 05.07.2024).

11 Soviet Historical Encyclopedia in 16 Volumes. Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1973–1982, vol. 2. Washington: BAAL, 1962.

12 This Treaty was soon supplemented by the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET) and finally by the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

13 These agreements included the 1971 Seabed Arms Control Treaty banning the emplacement of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction on the ocean floor and the treaties on five nuclear-weapon-free zones in Antarctica (1959), Latin America (1967), the South Pacific (1985), Southeast Asia (1995), Africa (1996) and Central Asia (2006).

14 The limits under the Treaty were 1,600 delivery means and 6,000 warheads, of which no more than 4,900 could be on ICBMs and SLBMs, including 1,100 warheads on mobile ICBMs and 1,540 warheads on heavy ICBMs.

15 Since the New START Treaty was implemented, in addition to monitoring by national technical means (NTM) such as reconnaissance satellites, variously based radio-electronic systems, and HUMINT sources, the parties have conducted over 330 on-site inspections at strategic nuclear weapons bases and exchanged more than 25,000 notifications of military activities in this field, while the Bilateral Consultative Commission held 19 meetings to resolve contentious issues.

16 Such unity of the West could be observed during the Livonian War in the second half of the 16th century, the Crimean War of 1853–1856, and during the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979–1989. In the wars of the 17th and 18th century, Napoleonic era, 20th century, World War I and World War II, Russia/Soviet Union fought the enemy one-on-one or in alliance with some states of the West and the East against others.

17 See: Karaganov S.A. 2024. An Age of Wars? Article Two. What Is to Be Done. Russia in Global Affairs. No. 2 March–April. 10.31278/1810-6439-2024-22-2-37-52 https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/vek-vojn-chto-delat/. p. 52

18 Foreign Ministry statement on the Russian Armed Forces’ exercises held to practice for the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 06.05.2024. 1/0840-06-05-2024 https://www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/1948486/ (accessed 07.07.2024).

19 On Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation. Decree of the Russian President. Moscow, Kremlin. № 355. Official publication of legal acts. 02.06.2020. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202006020040?index=2&rangeSize=1 (accessed 07.07.2024).

20 In 1994, Russia, the U.S. and the UK made a commitment not to target each other with their strategic forces, and there is a similar commitment between Russia and China. This obligation seems to be honored, although there are no means of verification and it could technically be revised within minutes.

21 New Study on US–Russia Nuclear War. ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons). 18.09.2019. https://www.icanw.org/new_study_on_us_russia_nuclear_war?locale=en (accessed 07.07.2024).

22 Timokhin A. Boil the ocean with Poseidon? No, that’s fantasy, Military Review 27.05.2023; Sivkov K. Backup Perimeter. Voenno-promyshlennyi kur'er. No. 1, 15(21), 01, 2019, p. 4.; Alekseev V. The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence, RIAC 15.03.2019. https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/columns/military-and-security/mif-yadernogo-sderzhi...

23] Nuclear Posture Review. Office of the Secretary of Defense. February 2018, Washington, D.C. https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PD... (accessed 08.07.2024).

24] National Defense Strategy 2022. U.S. Department of Defense. Washington D.C. pp. 8-9. https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF (accessed 07.07.2024).

25 Russia’s spending on national defense in 2024 will be around 10.8 trillion rubles, or 29% of all budget expenditures, and this is almost all that it known.

26 Bugos, Sh. Congress Endorses New Nuclear Weapon. Arms Control Today. January/February 2024. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-02/news/congress-endorses-new-nuclear-weapon (accessed 05.06.2024).

27 MacDonald, E. The Sky’s the Limit on Nuclear Weapons Spending, But What Does It Really Get Us? The Equation. The Union of Concerned Scientists. 02.08.2023. https://blog.ucsusa.org/emacdonald/the-skys-the-limit-on-nuclear-weapons-spending-but-what-does-it-r...

28 Russia later revisited those projects with ICBM Sarmat and ALBM Kinzhal.

29 MacDonald, E. Op. cit. https://blog.ucsusa.org/emacdonald/the-skys-the-limit-on-nuclear-weapons-spending-but-what-does-it-r...

30] Presidential Address to Federal Assembly. Official website of the Russian President. 21.02.2023. http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565 (accessed 05.06.2024).

31 Military and security developments involving the Peoples’ Republics of China, 2021. Annual Report to Congress. Office of the Secretary of Defense. Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000. Washington, D.C. p. 48.

32 America’s Strategic Posture. The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Washington, D.C. October 2023. p. 40–48.

33 Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan for the Arms Control Association (ACA) Annual Forum. The White House, National Press Club, 02.06.2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/06/02/remarks-by-national-security-ad... (accessed 05.06.2024).

34 Ryabkov: Russia invites the U.S. to include non-nuclear weapons in the strategic agenda. TASS. 27.01.2021. https://tass.ru/politika/10557045 (accessed 05.07.2024).

35 Executive Order approving Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept. Vladimir Putin signed Executive Order “On Approving the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation.” par. 11. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70811 (accessed 05.07.2024).

36 Ibid.