America and Russia Must Agree to Avoid a New Arms Race
Lily Wojtowicz
Security, Eurasia
Public opinion has played a critical role in pushing leaders to negotiate nuclear agreements in the past. But will that remain true in the future?
America and Russia Must Agree to Avoid a New Arms Race
A decade ago this month, President Barack Obama stood before a cheering crowd in Prague and said, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Today, however, we are on the cusp of a world with more nuclear weapons, not fewer.
The future of U.S.-Russian arms control—a tradition of bilateral frameworks to reduce the threat of two superpowers instigating nuclear war dating back to Nixon and Brezhnev—looks dim. Once both countries officially leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August, there will remain only one formal agreement between the two nuclear possessors limiting the size and scope of their nuclear arsenals, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). And if that wasn’t enough, New START is due to expire in February 2021.
