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U.S. Stops Sharing Data on Nuclear Forces With Russia [1]

['Michael R. Gordon']

Date: 2023-03

The U.S. has informed Russia that it will no longer exchange key data on its strategic nuclear forces following Moscow’s decision to suspend its participation in the New START treaty cutting long-range nuclear arms, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

“This is the first action we have taken within the treaty in response to Russia’s suspension,” a senior Biden administration official said. “It is our goal to encourage Russia to return to compliance with the treaty.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow would step back from the last remaining major nuclear-arms-control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, heightening concern among experts that a decadeslong era of constraint might be starting to unravel.

The U.S. decision to halt data sharing was conveyed Monday to Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov by Bonnie Jenkins, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

Some former officials said that the move was needed to drive home the costs to Moscow of its decision to step back from the treaty.

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“It’s extremely unfortunate, but entirely predictable and appropriate. Why should Russia continue to benefit from transparency measures when it is denying them to the United States?” said Lynn Rusten, a former senior U.S. official who is now vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization focused on security issues.

Other arms-control proponents expressed concern that it could lead to a gradual weakening of the arms-control framework that has regulated the nuclear competition between Washington and Moscow for decades.

“Withholding this information provides the U.S. with little or no leverage with Russia and further clouds the situation with respect to both countries’ compliance with the treaty,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

Photo illustration: Marina Costa

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The U.S. data that are being withheld include detailed information on the number of bombers, missiles and nuclear warheads that are deployed at specific U.S. bases that is to be exchanged every six months under the New START accord.

Ms. Jenkins proposed continuing those data exchanges in her Monday call with Mr. Ryabkov, U.S. officials said. But after Russia indicated that it wouldn’t be providing data on its forces, the U.S. said it would also refrain from providing such information. The Russian Embassy had no immediate comment. A diplomatic official in Moscow confirmed U.S. officials’ account.

“It gives you the best kind of status update on U.S. nuclear forces,” the senior administration official said of the U.S. data that would be withheld. “I would guess that the people who actually work on these issues in the Russian system are going to be missing this.”

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The U.S. still plans to make public very general information on the overall number of its warheads, deployed missiles and bombers, and nuclear systems that aren’t fully operational.

The Biden administration is also continuing to provide the virtually daily notifications to Russia of the movements of its strategic missiles, bombers and submarines or changes in their operational status, as the treaty requires.

Russia is no longer providing such notifications, which has raised the question of whether the U.S. should follow suit. Biden administration officials are assessing what effect withholding such notifications might have on strategic stability between the two nuclear-armed powers.

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At the beginning of the Biden administration, Washington and Moscow were both interested in preserving the New START treaty, which caps the number of deployed nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550 and includes provisions for on-site inspections to verify the treaty’s limits. President Biden called for a five-year extension of the accord during his first month in office, which was agreed to by Moscow.

Inspections were suspended in March 2020 by mutual agreement after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. When the U.S. sought last year, however, to revive the inspections amid tensions over Ukraine, Russia balked.

In January, the State Department alleged that Russia had violated the accord by refusing to allow the inspections and rebuffing Washington’s requests to meet to discuss its compliance concerns. That was the first time that the U.S. accused Russia of violating the treaty, which entered into force in 2011.

The next month, Mr. Putin said that Moscow was suspending its participation in the accord.

In suspending its participation in New START, Russia hasn’t rejected all limits on its nuclear forces. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow would continue to observe limits on the number of nuclear warheads it can deploy under the treaty “in order to maintain a sufficient degree of predictability and stability in the sphere of nuclear missiles.” Russia would also continue to notify the U.S. when it planned to test launch intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles under a 1988 agreement, the foreign ministry said.

But Russian officials have also indicated that Moscow would continue to reject on-site inspections and wouldn’t meet to discuss compliance issues, in addition to withholding data and notifications about its forces.

Biden administration officials say that Washington still plans to adhere to New START and that the decision to withhold data on U.S. strategic forces is allowed under international law as a way to pressure Moscow to adhere to the treaty.

“We’re entitled under international law to take certain actions as a countermeasure without actually suspending the treaty ourselves,” the senior Biden administration official said. “We’re taking these actions because it’s our goal to encourage Russia to return to compliance with the treaty.”

Some Republican lawmakers complained that the Biden administration’s actions didn’t go far enough. Alabama’s Rep. Mike Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, urged the White House to declare that Russia was in “material breach” of the treaty—a violation considered so serious that it provides a basis for terminating the agreement.

Others experts who favor preserving New START expressed concern that Russia is unlikely to respond positively to the Biden administration’s decision to withhold data on U.S. nuclear forces.

“There is no reason to believe that Russia will be swayed by this,” said Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. “We are watching the gradual destruction of the last remaining nuclear arms limitation treaty.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications

The Federation of American Scientists was incorrectly called the Federal of American Scientists in an earlier version of this article. (Corrected on March 28)

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[1] Url: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/u-s-wont-share-data-on-nuclear-forces-with-russia-46700a50

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