New START: The Beginning of Nuclear Abolition

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty between the United States and Russia, has finally taken effect. Between them, the two countries control 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and the treaty will now set significant limits on the total.

Genuine cooperation between the world’s two nuclear superpowers will set the minimum standard of disarmament for every nation that possesses nuclear weapons. The treaty aims to improve relations between the two former Cold War adversaries, and to function as a global security guarantee going forward. While some residual dissatisfaction and antagonism remains on both sides, that an agreement has finally been reached and ratified represents genuine progress.

As North Korea and Iran continue to flout international rules regulating the development of nuclear weapons, the world faces growing new threats of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The U.S. and Russia must seize the opportunity to stand at the forefront and lead the world toward nuclear arms reduction. They must urge international cooperation on non-nuclear proliferation treaties and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Such international cooperation would open the door to a “security framework that does not rely on nuclear weapons” and will go a long way to realizing U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for a “Nuclear-Free World.”

The new treaty states that within seven years, the U.S. and Russia must reduce their deployed strategic nuclear weapons to fewer than 1,550 warheads, and limit their long-range ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and other means of nuclear delivery to 800. In December 2009, the original START treaty lapsed, ending mutual nuclear weapons inspections. The new treaty will restore those inspections and allow the U.S. and Russia to oversee and verify the process of nuclear reduction.

This is the first nuclear arms reduction treaty in nearly 25 years to have the force of a joint U.S.-Russian commitment. But while the treaty should be highly valued in its own right, it is not the ultimate objective. The nuclear weapons that it will eliminate are nothing more than one part of the world’s total nuclear arsenal. Both the U.S. and Russia must see the new treaty as a milestone on the road toward a “Nuclear-Free World.”

They also have a responsibility to reduce their overall nuclear arsenals, including medium-range tactical nuclear weapons. Both nations should present a road map to total nuclear abolition, and to make clear to the rest of the world their goal of nuclear disarmament. If such actions are not taken, the historic significance of the new treaty will be lost.

However, the U.S. and Russia cannot achieve nuclear disarmament alone. The new treaty must be used as leverage to create a multilateral nuclear disarmament system. Equally indispensable is the cooperation of Great Britain, France and China, the other signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who currently deploy nuclear weapons.

The key to the success of the process will be how to deal with China, which continues to rapidly expand its military capabilities. India and Pakistan must also be reined in, given that they both possess nuclear weapons but are not bound by the NPT. Likewise, Japan, Europe and Australia must participate, or else a multilateral nuclear disarmament system will be impossible.

The effects of the New START treaty must not be limited to the United States and Russia. Rather, the international community must work together to make this a starting point to building a “security framework that does not rely on nuclear weapons.”