Two senior Democrats on Tuesday requested that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office evaluate the potential costs to the United States from expiration of the New START nuclear arms control treaty.
The 2011 accord prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads on a maximum of 700 fielded long-range delivery systems. It is scheduled to expire in February 2021, but can be extended for five years with the assent of both parties.
The Trump administration has been skeptical about sustaining the treaty. It says it prefers an arms-control deal that also encompasses China and addresses additional weapons such as tactical nuclear missiles.
In a letter to CBO Director Phillip Swagel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said New START’s expiration would leave no restrictions on U.S. or Russian nuclear stockpiles for the first time in a quarter-century. It would also eliminate the bilateral verification regime put in place by the treaty.
“We request that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provide an analysis of this topic, in particular looking at the costs that the United States could incur if the New START Treaty is allowed to expire,” Smith and Menendez wrote.
The analysis should be submitted to Congress by next April, ahead of consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2021. That budget year begins on Oct. 1, 2020.
Scenarios in the CBO analysis would include the United States growing its strategic nuclear arsenal, either as Russia does the same or in expectation of such a potential move by the Kremlin.
“Those scenarios should include: increasing the number of deployed warheads by uploading only (that is, loading more warheads on fielded delivery systems that currently carry fewer warheads than their full capacity would allow); increasing the number of warheads up to the limits of the Moscow Treaty by increasing the number of delivery systems; and increasing the number of warheads and delivery systems to the limits that had been negotiated for the START II Treaty or START Treaty,” the letter says.
