The Donald Trump administration still has not decided whether to extend beyond 2021 a pivotal arms control treaty that limits the number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia may deploy, a senior official with the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday in a Senate hearing.
“A decision has not been made at this time,” Andrea Thompson, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said in prepared testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in February in Helsinki but did not, as far as anyone within or outside the administration has reported, agree to extend the treaty or even discuss an extension. Under the treaty’s language, Russia and the U.S. may extend the accord to 2026.
The Trump administration has complained that Russia’s moves to modernize its force of tactical-sized nuclear weapons ― relatively small, but still potentially city-crippling weapons ― has forced the U.S. to consider whether extending New START is in its national security interest.
“Any decision on extending the Treaty will, and should be, based on a realistic assessment of whether the New START Treaty remains in our national security interest, in light of overall Russian arms control behavior,” David Trachtenberg, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said in his written statement to the committee for the hearing on U.S.-Russian arms control efforts.
To check Russia’s tactical nuclear threats, the Trump administration as part of its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review ordered the Department of Energy to start building a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, and to contemplate a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile. A spending bill on Trump’s desk would provide $65 million for the ballistic-missile warhead in 2019.
“We have opened the door to future arms control discussions with Russia by stating that we would consider forgoing development of the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile if Russia is willing to engage in meaningful discussion on non-strategic nuclear arms control,” Trachtenberg said Wednesday in his prepared remarks.
Then-U.S. President Barack Obama signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Putin’s successor and predecessor, then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in 2010. New START limits both sides to 700 deployed intercontinental- and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers; 1,550 fielded strategic warheads; and 800 deployed and nondeployed long-range launchers.
Both states have reached their New START weapons limits. The treaty remains in force until Feb. 5, 2021. The treaty is a successor to the START treaty signed in 1991 by then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush and then-Soviet-President Mikhail Gorbachev.
