Today marked the two-year anniversary of the entry into force of the New START Treaty. In this blog piece, I am not going to opine on flexibility, missile defense, or non-strategic nuclear weapons (in the last link, at page 111).
Josh Rogin reports that after the 2012 U.S. elections and what might politely be called Russian “selections” have concluded, the United States and Russia will return to the table in 2013 to work on another agreement that will perform “the next step” in U.S.-Russian strategic treaties, reducing nuclear weapons, generally, or something. I suspect a more urgent matter is the expiration of the Nunn-Lugar Umbrella Agreement this summer. Biden did chat up Lavrov at Munich. (Everything always seems to happen on the margins of Munich’s Security Conference–that was where the New START Treaty was, effectively, born.)
While the New START Treaty entered into force in February 2011, the Obama Administration has yet to inform either Moscow or Congress how it intends to meet New START Article II aggregate limits of 1,550 deployed warheads on 700 delivery vehicles and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers. The treaty allowed for that. The United States need not meet or specify how it would meet such limits until seven years after the entry into force of the treaty. But it would be a nice thing to know if a new negotiation is actually getting underway. Particularly since there are likely to be some new kinds of weapons in the future that may or may not count under those limits.
I am going to raise an ambiguity that has never been fully resolved: How future conventional, long-range systems (called conventional, prompt global strike, or CPGS) would or would not count under New START. Bottom line up front: I don’t know.
The article-by-article analysis submitted by the Administration for paragraph 2 of Article V of the New START Treaty stated:
The Parties understand that they may use the Bilateral Consultative Commission [BCC] to discuss whether new kinds of arms are subject to the Treaty. The United States stated during the negotiations its view that not all new kinds of weapon systems of strategic range would be “new kinds of strategic offensive arms” subject to the New START Treaty. Specifically, the United States stated that it would not consider future, strategic range non-nuclear systems that do not otherwise meet the definitions of this Treaty to be “new kinds of strategic offensive arms” for purposes of the Treaty. The Parties understand that, if one Party deploys a new kind of strategic range arm for delivering non-nuclear weapons that it asserts is not a “new kind of strategic offensive arm” subject to the Treaty, and the other Party challenges that assertion, the deploying Party would be obligated to attempt to resolve the issue within the framework of the BCC. There is no requirement in the Treaty for the deploying Party to delay deployment of the new system pending such resolution.
The Administration stated that the treaty did not prohibit the development, testing, or deployment of potential future long-range weapons systems for conventional prompt global strike “that are currently under development.” It also stated that it would not consider such non-nuclear systems that do not otherwise meet the definitions of the treaty to be accountable as “new kinds of strategic offensive arms” for the purposes of the treaty. Later in 2010, the Defense Department issued guidance that stated it would continue to develop such systems whether or not the New START Treaty applied to them. An exchange (at p. 257 in the linked document) between Senator Lugar and Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller was inconclusive regarding the Article-by-Article analysis:
(a) Did the Russian Federation indicate agreement with the U.S. approach to “strategic range non-nuclear systems that do not otherwise meet the definitions of this Treaty?”
(b) If the answer to (a) is yes, is this agreement contained in any of the documents submitted to the Senate with the New START Treaty?
(c) If the answer to (a) is yes, but the answer to (b) is no, please provide a detailed explanation of how Russian agreement on this issue was communicated.
(d) What other issues, if any, prompted U.S. interpretive statements in the negotiations that were not contained in any of the treaty documents before the Senate?
Answer a:
The Russian Federation did not make a definitive statement regarding this matter. The provision on new kinds of strategic offensive arms in the New START Treaty recognizes that, during the life of the Treaty, the Parties could develop new kinds of strategic-range systems not currently in existence and provides a mechanism for the Parties to discuss such systems should they emerge. If such a system does not meet the definitions in the Treaty, a Party could raise the issue of whether the new system should nonetheless be made subject to the Treaty. The United States stated its view (similar to the U.S. view stated during the START negotiations) that it would not consider future, strategic-range non-nuclear systems that do not otherwise meet the definitions of this Treaty to be “new kinds of strategic offensive arms” for purposes of the Treaty.
Answer b: Not applicable.
Answer c: Not applicable.
Answer d: None.
The Russians never clearly agreed with the U.S. view other than that if they had a problem, they’d raise it. They will do so, again and again, as they have a long history of disliking (see multiple Russian arguments over converted bombers and missile defense tests in the links) American capabilities to “mix and match.” It is a unique continuity between the Soviet and Russian diplomatic and legal approach to treaties that they attempt maximum applicability of any treaty’s limits to the other side while being as vague as possible as to the applicability of treaty terms to Russia. That was the fear that many had in 2010: That by bringing into the treaty “new kinds of strategic offensive arms” that are not nuclear and over which the two sides had no clear or common view as to whether they counted under treaty limits we had set in motion either a process for regulating conventional systems under strategic arms control or we had created an unhelpful ambiguity (or both).
A charitable view of these treaty provisions and answers was that U.S. planning and programming was at an early stage for such systems in 2010 and negotiators had little clarity on what may actually be deployed in a decade. In any case, the Senate sought to protect CPGS by adding Understanding (3) to its resolution of ratification regarding such systems. That, again, was a U.S. view, and it was not very popular in Russia at the time. The Russian Federal Law on ratification of the New START Treaty took the strong position that there was a burden on the United States to demonstrate inapplicability of the treaty to such systems “prior to the deployment of such new kind of strategic-range offensive arms.” Recall that the article-by-article analysis said that “There is no requirement in the Treaty for the deploying Party to delay deployment of the new system pending such resolution.” Thus, there is a degree of tension present in the differing views over paragraph 2 of Article V.
You might just think this is no big deal–if they disagree, they’ll work it out, and if Russia really keeps spinning things out only to delay deployment of a system that the United States thinks it needs, we’ll see it for what it is and move on. You might also note that Russia has had little to say about the matter since 2010 and may have bigger fish to fry with the United States. Let’s hope that’s all true. The United States rather successfully defended its views during previous treaties as to whether or not conventional systems counted under nuclear limits the Soviets tried to make applicable to them (see Secretary Baker’s letter on Tacit Rainbow). Let’s also hope the Administration will make clear to Moscow that the New START Treaty cannot delay deployment of such systems, if and when the issue arises.
When and how long it would take to demonstrate to Russia that such systems don’t count under the treaty depends greatly on things still unknown: I can’t say now how we would go about demonstrating to Moscow that the treaty did not apply to a system that does not yet exist (even if I did, I couldn’t say much about it here). But it is important to recall New START’s new kind of ambiguity on a new kind of weapon over which there is still much attention and discussion, and continued commitment in the Defense Department.
Why? Well, because there is open and active debate as to whether such weapons could ever substitute for nuclear weapons. And because such weapons may be relevant and needed in the future, for starters.
Mark Gubrud | February 5, 2013
Hi Thomas. Good to see you’re still in action.
“You might just think this is no big deal–if they disagree, they’ll work it out”
Took the words right out of my fingers, although to the fragment just quoted I would add “…or not.” Because it seems to me that Russian concerns about the possible capability of hypothetical “CPGS” to attack Russian nuclear forces can’t dismissed as completely unreasonable as long as anybody is worried about anybody attacking anybody’s nuclear forces; as evidence I would cite the Mark Stokes from 2049 article you link at the end, which describes PGS as a means of “targeting missile assets inside China with intercontinental ballistic missiles” armed with conventional or nuclear warheads.
Whether anybody should take this seriously I don’t know, but if I were a Russian negotiator I might want to reserve space within a strategic arms treaty regime for raising the issue without having to go ahead and abrogate the treaty just to get the other side’s attention.
Because, you know, the flip side of Russia’s “long history” of “disliking” American moves that don’t obviously violate the letter of treaties is America’s long history of ignoring Russia’s dislikes, missile defense being the most salient example in recent and current and (I’m expecting) future events.
And frankly, I’m all for Russia making a stink over anybody’s pipe dreams of overturning nuclear deterrence (vis a vis China, Russia, or anybody) using non-nuclear weapons, be they conventional ICBMs, rods from the gods, drones and robots, cyberweapons, nanobots or whatever.
These ugly delusions are dangerous, not because they stand a chance of working, in the sense of making the world safe again for major power war, but because they are steadily eroding the already dubious safety of the nuclear stalemate, and propelling us into a resurgent arms race that nobody wants except those who stand to make money or careers out of them.
So I say, let the Siberian wolves howl, and let it be within the New Start or Next Start or How About We Just Plain Stop Treaty regime, so that we have to at least sit at the table thumbing our smartphones while they do it, and at the end of the day, at least we’ll have to face the fact that if you ask for trouble, you will get it.
Regards,
Mark
Vince Manzo | February 6, 2013
The Obama administration has said that New START would not capture CPGS systems that use boost-glide vehicles. In theory, such systems would not meet New START’s official definition of a ballistic missile because they would travel along a ballistic trajectory for less than half of their flight paths. Conventional ballistic missiles, such as the Conventional Trident concept, would count against New START’s limits. The NPR report stated that the force structure analysis that informed U.S. negotiating positions assumed the United States would deploy a small number of non-nuclear treaty-accountable systems. In other words, the limits leave room for the deployment of a sufficient number of CTMs during the life of the Treaty in addition to the nuclear force levels senior officials judged as necessary to meet existing requirements. Of course, there doesn’t appear to be much interest in the CTM concept in the United States anymore.
thomas | February 6, 2013
Vince,
You are correct, but the situation is, to put it mildly, a lot more complicated. At the time, as in this answer from Jim Miller, they said: “DOD is also exploring the potential of conventionally armed long-range systems that fly a non-ballistic trajec- tory; for example, boost-glide systems. We are confident that such non-nuclear systems, which do not otherwise meet the definitions for the New START Treaty, would not be accountable as, ‘new kinds of strategic offensive arms,’ for the purposes of the treaty.”
The governing criteria in the treaty would be whether or not it is a listed system in Article III (i.e., Trident), whether or not it is a weapon-delivery vehicle and whether its trajectory is ballistic over most of its flight path.
But there is no process under the treaty distinguishing between a future CPGS weapon and present weapons that may simply look like a weapon-delivery vehicle other than through notifications between the parties, provision of telemetric data, inspections, and the BCC. I mentioned Tacit Rainbow on purpose because there was a view held by the Soviets that it should have counted under START I. START I had a process for making distinctions between nuclear and non-nuclear ALCMs. There really isn’t any such process in New START for “new kinds,” other than taking the matter up in the BCC.
Condition 7 of the resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the New START Treaty, as amended in the Senate and agreed to on a yea-nay vote of 71-26 on December 22, 2010, required that in implementing Article IX of the New START Treaty, Part Seven of the Protocol, and the Annex on Telemetric Information to the Protocol, prior to agreeing to provide to the Russian Federation any amount of telemetric information on a United States test launch of a conventionally armed prompt global strike system, the President shall certify to the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed Services of the Senate that the provision of United States telemetric information—
“(i) consists of data that demonstrate that such system is not subject to the limits in Article II of the New START Treaty; or (ii) would be provided in exchange for significant telemetric information regarding a weapon system not listed in paragraph 8 of Article III of the New START Treaty, or a system not deployed by the Russian Federation prior to December 5, 2009[.]” The Russian Federal Law on Ratification of the New START Treaty states in Article 2.8 that Russia will implement the treaty subject to the condition that Russia will provide the United States with telemetric information on test launches of Russian ICBMs and SLBMs “only prior to the time of separation of the self-contained dispensing mechanism or the payload from the last stage of the intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the Russian Federation and not provid[e] to the United States of America telemetric information about launches of new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the Russian Federation.”
Further, Article IX states that “telemetric information on launches of ICBMs and SLBMs shall be exchanged on a parity basis.”
Since the Parties will have already conducted relevant flight tests, if and when telemetry is exchanged, if the Russian Federation is only willing to provide telemetric information on an existing type of ICBM or SLBM, and only booster telemetry, then presumably the position of the United States would be that, particularly for a CPGS test launch, or for any tests of ICBMs and SLBMs, generally, we would only provide booster telemetry under the principle of parity enshrined in Article IX. This may be easily done for the current U.S. Air Force concept for near-term CPGS because it will use Minotaur IV boosters, which are basically Peacekeeper boosters—boosters for which telemetric information has already been provided to Moscow under START I.
But the issue remains whether something that uses a different booster, or a different mode of delivery (i.e. a bomber), would count as a new kind of strategic offensive arm under the Treaty’s numerical limits, and given the Russian Federal Law on ratification, whether it will be in our interest to provide telemetric information on CPGS systems we decide will not count under New START Treaty limits to demonstrate inapplicability based on what Russia would provide in return.
There may be a novel approach under a Type One inspection or an exhibition, but I doubt that will satisfy Moscow.
Mark Gubrud | February 6, 2013
If the word “strategic” in “strategic offensive arms” means anything, the latter category surely includes anything that could be used to preemptively neutralize other “strategic offensive arms.” If the “new kind” of weapon in question were Russian, Americans would surely view it that way, and we should expect nothing else from Russians when the weapons are American.
All these details of this annex to that protocol and so-and-so’s statement in testimony have the character of corporate lawyers’ pettifogging arguments in patent infringement and contract cases. They are utterly inappropriate when what is at stake is human survival and whether we build a peaceful world or spiral down in a race to oblivion. And they are utterly irrelevant when the final right of the High Contracting Parties is to walk away from the table and meet you on the battlefield, whether in cold confrontation or nuclear cataclysm.
The Russians have surely not agreed that the United States may build whatever threatening new weapons it likes and that they will stick to the terms of any treaty that does not allow them to respond, if need be, to secure their own supreme interests.
Even Thomas seems to admit it is not clear that one can determine from sorting through fine print whether the Russians have a right under New Start to howl about CPGS (whether it flies ballistically or walks like a big doggie). It is not clear, and it is not important.
If the Russkies seem to have a serious problem with whatever we’re up to, we’d best be willing to listen and talk about that.
Vince Manzo | February 6, 2013
Thomas,
Thanks for your follow-on post and analysis; you’ve laid out a lot of issues to explore.