The United States has stopped sharing with Russia certain information required under the New START nuclear arms treaty, implementing so-called “countermeasures” to Moscow’s suspension of its participation in the bilateral agreement, according to the State Department.
Four specific measures, all of which are reversible, are now in effect to mirror Russia’s refusal to abide by the information-sharing agreements outlined under the treaty, the State Department said in a statement published Thursday. The “lawful countermeasures” were taken “in response to the Russian Federation’s ongoing violations of the New START Treaty,” the State Department said.
“U.S. countermeasures are fully consistent with international law,” the statement said. “They are proportionate, reversible, and meet all other legal requirements. International law permits such measures in order to induce a state to return to compliance with its international obligations.”
Under the treaty, the U.S. and Russia are required to swap data each March and September on treaty-accountable facilities and nuclear forces, including numbers of deployed warheads and delivery vehicles. The U.S. did not provide the required databases to Russia but did publicly release aggregate data on its warheads and delivery systems in May. That information is only a small portion of what is required by the treaty. The rest of the information was withheld, the State Department said.
New START limits Washington and Moscow to 1,500 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. A heavy bomber counts as a single launcher under the treaty, which sought to halve the number of warheads the superpowers had and thereby reduce the chances of nuclear war.
Starting Thursday, the U.S. began withholding some notifications required under the treaty, including updates on the status or location of treaty-accountable items such as missiles and launchers. The U.S. also will no longer host inspections on its territory “specifically by revoking existing visas issued to Russian New START Treaty inspectors and aircrew members, denying pending applications for such visas, and by revoking the standing diplomatic clearance numbers issued for Russian New START Treaty inspection airplanes,” the State Department said.
Russia will no longer receive telemetric data on launches of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), as of June 1. The U.S. will still notify Russia of ICBM and SLBM launches in accordance with the 1988 Ballistic Missile Launch Notifications Agreement, and to provide notifications of exercises in accordance with the 1989 Agreement on Reciprocal Notification of Major Strategic Exercises.
“The United States notified Russia of the countermeasures in advance, and conveyed the United States’ desire and readiness to reverse the countermeasures and fully implement the treaty if Russia returns to compliance. The United States remains ready to work constructively with Russia on resuming implementation of the New START Treaty,” the State Department said. “The fundamental purpose of the majority of notifications is to improve each side’s ability to verify the other’s compliance with the treaty, especially in combination with on-site inspections.”
