Senior U.S. State Department officials said this week that despite Russia’s withdrawal from the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit and political challenges that have prevented the current administration from developing a strategic partnership with the country, a return to negotiations is inevitable and joint nonproliferation work continues.
Frank Rose, assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance, said Tuesday at the Wilson Center that the U.S. relationship with Russia has changed since 2009, when President Barack Obama took office. At the time, “we had hopes of developing a strategic partnership with Russia. I think those hopes are no longer there,” Rose said, attributing this change in part to Russian officials’ “increasingly harsh rhetoric with regard to nuclear policy” and what the State Department says is Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Rose said the U.S. determined two years ago that Russia conducted ground-launched cruise missile tests prohibited by the treaty and that U.S. officials are still trying to bring the Russians back into compliance. Although he did not outline specific efforts to this end, the administration has proposed diplomatic, economic, and military responses, including sanctions and research and development of military options. Rose also noted that over the last 25 years, U.S. defense strategy has reduced the role of nuclear weapons, while “the exact opposite has been the case for Russia.” Rose said this is due to Russia’s challenging strategic situation: “They have few, if any, allies” and the nation’s conventional capabilities “are not on par with the United States or our allies.” Meanwhile, according to Rose, Russia is “losing several hundred thousand people a year in population” and does not have a “modern, 21st century economy.”
“Given that strategic situation, what do they have to maintain their security? I would argue, nuclear weapons,” Rose said, concluding that “despite all the challenges in our relationship, at some point we will come back to the table and talk about strategic stability with Russia.” Strategic stability would presumably involve further reductions in both countries’ nuclear weapon arsenals, something U.S. officials consider not immediately feasible given the tension in bilateral relations.
Rose also highlighted progress in U.S.-Russian arms control measures through the New START pact signed in 2010 that limits both countries’ number of deployed and non-deployed strategic nuclear weapons and launchers. Implementation of the treaty continues to go well, including the on-site inspections and the exchange of notifications on the movement of strategic forces. Russia did not sign the treaty “because they believe in a world free of nuclear weapons,” Rose noted, but rather to maintain strategic parity with the United States, and because, like the U.S., “they valued the verification and predictability.”
Bonnie Jenkins, coordinator for the State Department’s threat reduction programs, said Monday during a conference call with reporters that despite the reduction in U.S.-Russian nonproliferation activities and the Kremlin’s decision not to participate in the summit being held in Washington, D.C., this week, some joint activities continue. Jenkins noted as an example the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, an international partnership co-chaired by the U.S. and Russia that conducts multilateral activities on nuclear security and detection. Through this type of forum, “we believe that in the future . . . we will continue to work with Russia,” Jenkins said.
Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said during the press conference that “Russia, which possesses a large amount of the material we’re concerned about – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – has steadily and greatly improved its controls, its internal security, both before and since the first summit [in 2010]. And this is a concrete result of our cooperation.”
The upcoming summit is the Obama administration’s last in its current format. However, “we cannot say that this is the last summit,” Jenkins said, noting that the next administration could hold similar events. Russia withdrew from this year’s summit due to political disagreements on the action plans being developed to guide the work of international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. These guidelines would “impose the opinion of a limited group of states” on global bodies “in circumvention of their own political decision-making mechanisms,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this year. “We consider the creation of a precedent for outside interference in the planning of the work of international organizations . . . to be unacceptable.”
Former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), co-chairman of the nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative, said Wednesday in a keynote speech at the Nuclear Industry Summit that despite Russia’s withdrawal from the summit, “they are here as observers” and “deserve our appreciation for the role they played since the end of the Cold War in securing nuclear materials in their own country and in helping secure nuclear materials brought back from other countries around the globe.” Nunn suggested Presidents Obama and Vladimir Putin establish a joint working group to focus on an area of shared concern: the terrorist threats facing both their countries. “This group would include and probably be led by energy departments, intelligence agencies, and other defense departments,” he said, with the goal of preventing terror groups from acquiring material for weapons of mass destruction.
Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said Tuesday on a White House press call with reporters that Russia’s decision to withdraw from the summit “is a missed opportunity for Russia, above all.” Noting that Russia “benefited in the past” through U.S.-Russian nuclear security efforts, Rhodes said, “Frankly all they’re doing is isolating themselves.”
