Multilateral Turn in Nuclear Disarmament? How to Engage Other Nuclear-Armed States in Post-New START Cuts
Abstract
In his speech in Berlin last year, President Obama envisaged further nuclear arms reductions that would go beyond provisions agreed in 2010 New START treaty. In particular, he proposed up to one-third reduction of operationally deployed warheads as well as substantive cuts in tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of both the United States and Russia.
The subsequent reaction from Moscow, however, was less than enthusiastic. In line with their earlier remarks on this subject, Russian representatives once again noted that New START may have been the last bilaterally negotiated arms control treaty.
Future reductions in nuclear stockpiles should be, in their view, pursued in a multilateral format. Interestingly, they explicitly noted that this format would include not only the remaining three of P-5 (United Kingdom, France and China), but also other nuclear-armed states that are not signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
While the threshold beyond which other nuclear states would be willing to coordinate their arsenals' reductions with the U.S. and Russia may still lay far ahead in the future, there is a number of reasons why a comprehensive debate on this issue - both on national and international levels - should take place already at this stage as many outstanding issues would need to be resolved to increase the chances the talks would succeed.