The End of Arms Control?

Abstract: The fifty years of experience in formal treaty-based efforts to control nuclear weapons through bilateral US-Soviet and then US-Russian arms control have been central pillars of the international nuclear order since the 1970s. From the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), to the Moscow Treaty and New START, this bilateral process first managed the arms race and then ended it in the aftermath of the Cold War, with significant reductions in strategic and some nonstrategic arms. Today, the bilateral U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Russian arms control architecture is under challenge and could come to an end before or after the end of New START's extension in 2026. Have we reached the end of a half century of progress in nuclear arms control? Negotiations on a follow-on to New START or any other reductions are not possible while the war in Ukraine continues. If an agreement becomes possible in the future, the war will likely impact its scope, verification requirements and other terms. Beyond these impacts, Russian noncompliance with the INF treaty, the Open Skies treaty and other agreements, China's refusal to engage in any arms control and the potential impacts of emerging and disruptive technologies on the practice and aims of traditional arms control already darkened prospects for the future of formal arms control, as well as the prospects for Senate ratification of any agreement that might be negotiated in the future.

Bio: Joseph F. Pilat is a Program Manager in the Office of National Security and International Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he co-directs the Nonproliferation Forum. He served as Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Fourth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and as senior adviser to the US Delegation at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. Dr. Pilat also served as representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Open Skies negotiations. He has held positions in the Pentagon and the Congressional Research Service, and has taught at Cornell University, Georgetown University and the College of William and Mary. He is the co-editor of the Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation and Policy (Routledge, 2015), the co-author of The Politics of Weapons Inspections (Stanford University Press, 2017) and the editor of The International Atomic Energy Agency: Historical reflections, Current Challenges and Future Prospects (Routledge, 2021).