The United States is unlikely to extend the Treaty on Measures to Further Reduce and Limit Strategic Offensive Arms (START III) if China is not included in arms control negotiations. This was stated by the special envoy of the US President for arms control Marshall Billingsley in an interview with The Washington Times. 

As Billingsley said, before thinking of extending in any way a treaty on limiting nuclear weapons that was concluded ten years ago, Russia should "seat China at the negotiating table."

At the same time, the United States is not interested in “arms control for the sake of control per se,” and START III has “many obvious flaws,” the diplomat emphasized. According to Billingsley, President Trump does not aim to maintain the agreement approved by his predecessor.

  • Marshall Billingsley
  • AFP
  • © CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA

The White House believes that the Barack Obama administration has agreed on a very weak regime for verifying compliance with the agreement and now Moscow is using these loopholes.

When asked whether Donald Trump decided to extend the contract, Billingsley replied: “We want to understand why the Russians are so desperate for a contract extension, and we want them to explain to us why the extension is in our interests.”

According to Billingsley, the new strategic offensive arms control treaty should contain mandatory and verifiable provisions.

“This is very important because we are talking about two countries that are completely unable to comply with the treaties. Russia violated almost all the agreements that we signed with it. China also violated a number of agreements, ”said the special envoy of the US president.

Marshall Billingsley touched on the topic of new weapons that appeared in the arsenal of Russia. We are talking, in particular, about the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, the strategic missile system with the Avangard hypersonic planning winged warhead unit, the Dagger hypersonic missile system, and the Poseidon unmanned submarines.

“We are not going to make concessions to include or exclude (in the strategic arms treaty. - RT ) these systems. They (the Russian authorities. - RT ) simply have to curtail these five new programs and abandon them, ”said Billingsley.

As a member of the Scientific Council under the Security Council of Russia, Doctor of Political Sciences Andrei Manoilo recalled in an interview with RT, the American side is not the first time making demands for new Russian weapons in relation to the extension of START III. According to the expert, the new Russian weapons aroused "great interest" in the American intelligence community.

“They would like to use the START III extension topic in order to get some information about these weapons. Initially, the American side planned to include these weapons in the updated treaty. This would make it possible to obtain a description of it and performance characteristics, because such information is raised during such discussions, ”the expert noted.

"Win-win bidding"

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the American side had not expressed a desire to extend the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty during telephone conversations between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and State Department head Mike Pompeo.

“No, we haven’t heard of such readiness from them,” RIA Novosti quotes Ryabkov’s answer to the question whether the American side responded positively to the Russian Federation’s note on the extension of the START in the course of recent high-level contacts.

At the same time, US President Donald Trump the day before announced the desire of Russia and the United States to reach an agreement on strategic arms control. Commenting on his telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Trump noted that he takes this issue “very seriously”.

  • Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama sign START
  • RIA News
  • © Dmitry Astakhov

The Agreement on Measures to Further Reduce and Limit Strategic Offensive Arms (START III) was signed in 2010 by the presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama.

START II, ​​which preceded this agreement, was concluded by Moscow and Washington in 1993. Under the terms of the agreement, the parties undertook to reduce the number of nuclear warheads on strategic carriers to the level of 3–3.5 thousand units. According to the agreement, countries also had to eliminate all ground-based ballistic missiles equipped with more than one combat unit.

However, after the United States withdrew from the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense (ABM) in 2001, in 2002, Moscow announced the termination of its obligations under START II. 

Instead of START II, ​​which became obsolete in 2002, Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Potential Reduction Treaty (SORT), according to which they pledged to reduce the number of warheads on combat duty to 2.2 thousand on each side.

Under the terms of START III, the parties pledged to reduce the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine ballistic missiles (SLBMs) ​​and heavy bombers to 700 units. The number of warheads on deployed carriers should not exceed 1550. At the same time, the number of deployed and non-deployed launchers should not exceed 800 units.

At the same time, each of the countries participating in the treaty has the right to independently determine the composition and structure of its nuclear forces, as well as to modernize its weapons.

The contract expires at the beginning of 2021, but the parties can prolong the agreement for another five years.

As the Russian side has repeatedly reported earlier, Moscow is ready to start negotiations on the extension of the START III treaty at any time. This, in particular, was reported in an interview with the magazine of the American Arms Control Association by Arms Control Today, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov. 

However, Washington is in no hurry to renew the treaty. As a senior representative of the US State Department stated in March 2020, the US side does not see a “special urgency” in this matter, since the extension of the agreement requires only an exchange of notes between the participating countries.  

As the Pentagon spokesman explained at the end of 2019, a quick U.S. agreement to extend START III would lower the chances of an agreement with the PRC. Beijing rejects such proposals, recalling the enormous difference in the volumes of the nuclear arsenals of the United States, Russia and China - the latter has only 290 warheads. 

  • MiG-31 fighter with dagger missile system
  • RIA News
  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

As a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Blokhin noted in an interview with RT, demanding that Moscow “put China at the negotiating table”, Washington does not even take into account the fact thatThe PRC is a strong sovereign state that independently determines its policy.

“The United States does not think about whether Russia can even influence China, even if such a desire were there. Washington just sets a condition, and it doesn’t matter how it is executed. This is a win-win bid for the White House. If China does not enter into negotiations, Trump will be able to withdraw from START and build up a defense order, supporting his supporters from the arms industry. Well, if suddenly China enters into negotiations, this will also be in the US’s favor, ”the expert explained.

At the same time, the head of the White House, Donald Trump, had already warned that in the absence of existing arms control agreements with Russia and China, the United States will seek to create "the most powerful nuclear forces in the world." 

Loosening strategic stability

It should be noted that in 2019, at the initiative of Washington, another strategic agreement had already broken up - on the elimination of intermediate and shorter-range missiles (INF Treaty). The document, which has been in force since 1988, was canceled after the United States withdrew from the agreement, accusing Russia that the flight range of the Russian 9M729 missile supposedly could exceed 500 km. 

According to experts, the US administration is also trying to emphasize baseless accusations against Russia and China on the issue of extending START III. In his interview, Marshall Billingsley voiced a series of such hints, without specifying what kind of "violations" are in question. According to Andrei Manoilo, this is the usual "rhetorical reception of American officials."

  • Strategic Bomber B-52 Stratofortress
  • © US Air Force

“First, they accuse the negotiating partner of some violations, without citing the facts. This is a tactical technique for raising rates through deliberate exacerbation of the situation at the initial stage of negotiations, ”the expert explained.

In general, the US administration is set to refuse to extend START III, experts say.

“With such ultimatums as voiced by the presidential special representative, the United States forms the background for terminating the contract. A similar situation developed before the demolition of the INF Treaty - baseless accusations and impossible demands sounded as well. It is obvious that Russia will not abandon its latest weapons developments, and China will not participate in arms control negotiations, so such conditions are impossible, ”said Konstantin Blokhin.

According to the expert, the Republican Party of the United States has long formed a negative attitude towards START III. Republicans, who include the current president of the United States, believe that this agreement fetters American capabilities and prevents the projection of American power in the world.

“In essence, we are talking about continuing the course, which was begun by George W. Bush, Jr. Recently, Washington withdrew from the INF Treaty, a logical continuation of this would be a refusal to extend START III, ”the expert said.

A similar point of view is shared by Andrei Manoilo.

“The US administration plans to destroy this treaty because it prevents US defense companies from getting new orders in this area and getting rich. Trump should feed those people who really brought him to power and support him, and these are primarily representatives of the military-industrial complex, ”the expert summed up.