When it comes to the future of arms control in a multipolar, post-New START world, are multilateral arms treaties even possible? International security expert Dmitry Stefanovich weighs in. connect.thebulletin.org/lt.php?x=4lZy~GDKVaPLEH4q-Q~NV.WgAnRUiAAiwhkzjng7VXSiD5F60Uy7xOhs1X-l-RVfjDZo2nnLJGGi5pCKyOxGVOdv1k
The view from Moscow: The future of nuclear arms control exists, but the path is hard
By Dmitry Stefanovich | May 13, 2026 It is impossible to argue with the fact that
today’s arms control architecture is in very bad shape, especially if
one focuses on strategic nuclear weapons. While Moscow seems open to at
least some limitations, the current thinking in Washington is obsessed
with Chinese nuclear buildup (real or alleged), and the only
acknowledged solution to the ‘three-body’ problem seems to be purely
arithmetical in its nature: In other words, the United States declares
that the only way to sustain nuclear deterrence under current
circumstances is to have its nuclear arsenal exceed both the Russian and
Chinese capabilities. Clearly, neither Russia nor China can ignore such
an attitude and would respond in kind.]\
But despite the current negative trends,
arms control remains alive, although the formats that still exist are
limited. And in the future, arms control instruments may take many
forms: legally and politically binding agreements, unilateral
initiatives, and bilateral and multilateral arrangements. Even enhanced
notifications and transparency mechanisms could be helpful. Moreover,
there is some room for synchronized limitations on certain
activities—i.e. deployment of selected weapons only at selected
regions—which might contribute to the stabilization of
military-political relations between certain countries.
It is also crucial to understand that it is
hardly possible that any future arms control could only be bilateral.
Furthermore, it is impossible to even imagine the complicated
arrangements for inspection mechanisms for every state that possesses
nuclear weapons, and the asymmetrical quantitative limitations for them.
The arsenals of nuclear weapon states are significantly different, and
even the Russian and US nuclear forces postures are not symmetrical. To
have a dozen or more inspections per country per year is too much of a
logistical challenge if we begin to consider more than two participants
for such a regime.
There are other factors as well, including
but not limited to the increasing presence of dual-capable systems,
growing cooperation between the United States and its allies and
partners in the nuclear domain (with NATO declaring itself a “nuclear
alliance”). The peculiar part is that while one side perceives such
developments as explicitly destabilizing, the other believes them to be
stabilizing and enhancing strategic (or integrated) deterrence.
Most important, not only nuclear
capabilities contribute to the overall “security equation.” Military
conflicts since the end of the 20th century clearly show that
non-nuclear long-range precision weapons are indeed a strategic
capability, while non-nuclear deterrence is a much more complicated
concept. It is now becoming readily apparent that non-nuclear weapon
states can inflict significant costs on their adversaries, no matter how
many nuclear weapons those adversaries have in their arsenals. Such
trends are augmented by rapid scientific and technological change. The
role of hypersonic weapons, drone warfare, artificial intelligence,
machine learning, and outer space infrastructure is continuously
growing, and all these emerging and disruptive technologies are
intertwined—jointly contributing to the very complicated landscape of
multilateral strategic deterrence.
Last but not least, the renewed possibility
of overt nuclear testing is becoming a big challenge. Major countries
have hardly forgotten what their nuclear weapon explosions revealed, but
there seems to be a growing number of arguments supporting nuclear
tests for both political and technological reasons. A deep dive into
this issue deserves a separate paper, but what is clear is that should
one country test, others will follow—and ultimately, a domino effect
would likely follow, leading to the destruction of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty as it is, not to mention the grim prospects it
would make for the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty to ever enter into
force.
A path forward
Still, there are options to address the
current polycentric nuclear era of major military-political
confrontations. One way is to find a way to engage in behavioral arms
control—which basically means looking for mechanisms that limit
activities, and not capabilities.
Unilateral and coordinated declarations of
one’s capabilities and doctrines might be helpful as well. Joint
notification regimes are also a possibility, even if those will be
limited initially. For example, the only area where the “Nuclear Five”
of the nuclear weapons states recognized by the NPT have some symmetry
is the sea-based leg of their nuclear deterrence forces. Codifying
existing patrol practices regarding nuclear-tipped ballistic
missile-armed submarines (known as Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear,
or SSBN), and a regime of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM)
launch notifications could be a relatively easy first step that would
significantly enhance mutual understanding and revitalize the practices
of military-to-military data exchanges. Moreover, increasing the number
of SSBNs deployed on deterrent patrols above the agreed “normal’ can
become a visible and clear signaling method.
However, to make such arrangements
possible, arms control itself should be “re-branded,” so it will be
perceived first and foremost as a tool in a state’s national security
arsenal rather than anything intended for the good of all humankind. And
the term “re-branding” would be absolutely correct to use, because a
top-to-bottom overhaul of arms control would indeed contribute to the
optimization of military development projects—based on better
understanding of the efforts and logic of similar developments in both
adversarial and partner countries alike.
Russia, for what it is worth, had already
made several proposals regarding somewhat informal arms control
mechanisms over the last decade alone. To name a few such proposals,
there was the suggestion for a post-INF moratorium on intermediate-range
ground-launched missiles deployment; limitations on the scale and
geographic locations of military exercises during the COVID-19 pandemic;
and an extension of treaty limitations post-New START. Unfortunately,
none of those eventually succeeded, although the post-INF moratorium did
contribute to a somewhat slowed and scaled-down development and
deployment of such systems by both Russia and by the United States.
Moreover, as of Spring 2026 neither Russia nor the United States seem to
be actively engaged in deploying nuclear warheads beyond the
now-defunct New START limits.
Other scenarios
But with the expiration of the last of the
nuclear arms control treaties, a renewed nuclear arms race is a real
possibility, and one that is already occurring in some domains. The
exact parameters are hard to determine, because there is only secondary
or even tertiary data on the capacities of defense industries and
nuclear enterprises for countries like China and Russia, especially
given the ongoing “special military operation” that the latter is
undertaking in Ukraine. More information is available on the United
States, the United Kingdom, and France, while far less can be found on
India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea (also known as the DPRK).
Such races are occurring even though they
are not the most effective way to spend increasingly limited resources.
Russian nuclear weapons and delivery systems have been continuously
upgraded and modernized throughout the post-Cold War period, for many
reasons. The reasons include the degradation of Russia’s conventional
forces, US superiority in strategic non-nuclear weapons, concerns about
US missile defense, and the general security environment on the Eurasian
continent—not to mention the practical need to preserve nuclear
weapons’ expertise and to keep Russia’s relevant nuclear infrastructure
running throughout periods of economic turmoil. So, there seems to be
some capacity for arms racing.
The same is more or less true for China
and, probably, France, although the reasons for keeping one’s nuclear
weapons enterprise in good shape can be different.
The nuclear arms race itself, which could
be said to have been ongoing for at least a decade or even more, only
now shows signs of switching from the qualitative to the quantitative.
Previously, most nuclear weapon states focused on enhancing the
capabilities of their nuclear weapons—and especially their delivery
systems—through increased precision, reliability, and survivability. Now
it is clear that, although there is a different amount of open-ness and
transparency about it, all nuclear weapon states are getting ready to
increase their overall nuclear weapon stockpiles. What makes it much
more different and much more dangerous compared to the previous Cold War
is that this new arms race is essentially multi-domain and multipolar,
with much bigger roles played by many more actors—including newly
emerging powers.
One should not ignore the link between the
growing emphasis on nuclear weapons as an ultimate tool to ensure
national security and sovereignty by nuclear weapons states (and to some
extent their allies) and the pressure on nuclear non-proliferation,
with more countries considering getting a nuclear capability for the
very same purpose. This link, if understood correctly, might also
contribute to the limitation of “nuclear optimism” by the existing
nuclear weapon states and force them to search for collective security
solutions.
Limits of negative effects
Presumably, there is an understanding in
Moscow and other nuclear capitals that arms-racing each other “into
oblivion” (as a former US official once said) is not straightforward,
and that there are serious limitations and bottlenecks. This gives some
level of optimism that the arms race can be contained, if not through
formal mechanisms, but based on mutual understanding that you can’t
change the political, industrial, and demographic landscape back to what
it once was.
The biggest danger, as viewed from Moscow,
is that it is crucial to see a mix of strategic nuclear, strategic
non-nuclear, non-strategic nuclear, and missile defense capabilities as a
joint system augmented by nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities of
allied states and integrated through “space superiority” and AI-enabled
unified mission planning. This is perceived as a possibility to combine a
disarming and decapitating strike with nuclear and non-nuclear weapons
with air and missile defense capabilities preventing a weakened
retaliation. The latest military conflicts demonstrate that such
“bogeymen scenarios” cannot be ignored, as there is a clear push to bank
on selected areas of military superiority by the United States and some
of its allies.
Clearly, such threats are well understood;
consequently there is a constant development of the Russian Strategic
Rocket Forces, as well as Heavy Bombers and SSBNs, not to mention
so-called novel strategic delivery systems, such as Avangard HGV-tipped
ICBMs, Burevestnik unlimited range nuclear-powered cruise missiles, and
the Poseidon nuclear-powered uncrewed underwater vehicle. Rapidly
developing kinetic and non-kinetic counterspace capabilities also
contribute to such efforts. There has been a clear focus on
survivability and overwhelming second-strike capabilities, so that even a
limited number of delivery vehicles intended for the targets on the
adversary’s territory will reach their destination. However, actions by
the United States and its allies do contribute to the ever-growing
decapitation and disarming strike concerns. Ensuring the balance based
solely on one’s military power without arms control framework is an
extremely complicated task.
How to survive
Finally, there are many reasons to have
questions and make accusations against each other because of bad
decisions made over the years, including but not limited to the
destruction of the ABM Treaty by Washington, as the most dramatic
example—it drove both Moscow and Beijing to pursue symmetrical and
asymmetrical measures to hedge against possible future technological
breakthroughs. The so-called rogue states that have been cited as a
primary reason to develop the US missile defenses and forward deploy its
assets also continuously enhanced their capabilities. The
characterization of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea by some
politicians as an “axis of evil” (or “evil tetragon” in Russian) did not
help to stabilize things either.
But the problem is that things can get much
worse, with countries facing less stable strategic balances and more
escalatory force postures. And they surely will evolve in that way,
unless joint efforts to find solutions are undertaken.
Ultimately, there can and should be some
new legally binding new arms-control regimes, including strict
limitations on nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, although it is
possible that a “warhead” would be a virtual accounting unit akin to the
New START rules, where one Heavy Bomber accounted for one Nuclear
Warhead only. This demands a significant volume of political will,
especially given the fact that it is impossible to cover all existing
concerns within a single document. Before we reach this stage, some
informal mechanisms to enhance arms control and risk reduction can be
put in place. The path forward will be hard and will need mutual
concessions.
However, the alternative is significantly
more costly and dangerous on an existential level. The more nuclear
weapons (and nuclear weapons states) that exist, the greater the
possibility that nuclear weapons use becomes. This is the ultimate
threat to the human civilization, and efforts to limit this threat
demand leadership from the great powers today, not tomorrow. ============= Dmitry Stefanovich is a research fellow at the Center for International
Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy
and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO
RAS), a member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy and PIR
Center Advisory Board, and an expert at the Russian International
Affairs Council and the Valdai Discussion Club. Stefanovich graduated
from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute with a degree in
International Science and Technology Cooperation. |
