Cutting Back Capacity: The US Is Ready to Unilaterally Reduce Its Amount of Nuclear Weapons

President Barack Obama intends to urge Congress to continue reductions in the U.S.’s arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons. Russia may consent to join the program, in order to cut down the nuclear capacities of both countries to around 1,000 units. However, experts think that this proposition will be unfavorable to Moscow.

In his annual speech to Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama intends to call on members of Congress regarding a far-reaching reduction in the number of strategic nuclear weapons.

As The New York Times reported on Monday, citing a source in the White House, the head of state has already reached an agreement with the Pentagon on reducing the quantity of strategic nuclear warheads by about a third. “[The president] believes that we can make pretty radical reductions — and save a lot of money — without compromising American security in the second term,” said the source.

At this time, the U.S. has an arsenal of 1,700 nuclear warheads. In accordance with the New START treaty of Apr. 8, 2010, which was signed by the presidents of both Russia and the U.S., both countries intend to reduce their total number of warheads to 1,550 and 800 for deployed and non-deployed strategic delivery vehicles over the course of seven years. Now Washington believes that the number of warheads could be reduced to 1,000 units, says RIA Novosti.

The U.S. hopes that its initiative will find support in Moscow. In any case, as Kommersant has confirmed via its sources, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller* will arrive in Russia on Tuesday with the intention of proposing further reductions in the nuclear arsenals of both countries.

Sources in the U.S. administration confirm that this idea was already announced by Vice President Joe Biden to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in Munich on Feb. 2. And the idea was not received warmly.

“Russia is concerned that such a move would cause outrage among the military and the defense industry, which have been promised money for the creation of the heavy ballistic missile SS-27,” claimed the publication.

However, according to the newspaper, the American delegation will try to convince Moscow that the new reductions will allow the U.S. and Russia to save up to $8 billion dollars. Otherwise, Washington is prepared to act unilaterally. “For us, the advantages of this move are obvious. If Moscow refuses to accept this proposition, the White House may try to enlist the support of two thirds of the senators and begin to unilaterally reduce the number of weapons,” said one source.**

Observers, however, see no benefit to Moscow with further disarmament. Thus, in an interview with Vzglyad, Vice President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Vladimir Anokhin, called the U.S.’s proposals “inadequate” for the situation. “Especially at a time when Russia is surrounded on every side by American missile defense systems,” he added.

Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center of Military Forecasting, believes that Moscow is very unlikely to agree to Washington’s proposal. “The recent agreement that was signed between Medvedev and Obama was in our, Russia’s, interests. First, American soldiers no longer control our Votkinsk plant, and were forced to leave within half a year. Second, it needs to be understood that all of our “Voevoda” intercontinental ballistic missiles, which make up a large part of our rockets, are fairly old, and even if the treaty had not been signed we would have gotten rid of them anyway. Third, a large part of the world’s nuclear weapons — around 90 percent — are located in the territories of Russia and the USA, and the other five states do not own such a large quantity of nuclear weapons,” Tsyganok informed the newspaper.

In his opinion, if Russia were to agree to reduce its nuclear arsenal, then other states would not follow this example. “The British would not follow, because they are frighteningly dependent on America. France has its own nuclear politics and says that until Russia reduces its nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads, it will not reduce its own. Pakistan, which has around 500 weapons, India, with around 800 weapons and Israel, which has 120 weapons, also will not follow. It is not known how many weapons China possesses. Some believe that there are 800 weapons there, and some think that the figure is 1,600, but all the same they won’t reduce their arsenal,” he added.

According to him, what is most important at the given time is not reducing nuclear arsenals, but increasing the number of nuclear countries. “Why? The situation has changed, and the agreements between the USSR and the U.S. in 1972 need to be changed. We need to change our approach toward nuclear security in general,” the expert concluded.

Especially since the reduction of nuclear weapons has not de facto made the world a safer place. Thus, experts from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) stated last year that disarmament only led to an improvement in the remaining arsenal. The five officially recognized nuclear powers (China, France, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S.), as noted in the report, have either deployed new nuclear delivery systems or have announced similar programs. “In spite of the world’s revived interest in disarmament efforts, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states shows more than a rhetorical willingness to give up their nuclear arsenals just yet,” stated Shannon Kile, one of the authors of the report.

*Editor’s note: Rose Gottemoeller is Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security and Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, not Deputy Secretary of State.

**Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.