The nuclear reset

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 17th of February.

So glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It: The end of a nuclear treaty.

The so-called START agreement theoretically limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals has expired, and no new agreement is yet in place.

REICHARD: At the Munich Security Conference in Germany over the weekend, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed hard for a new treaty.

SÁNCHEZ: As a non-nuclear country that has witnessed nuclear bombs accidentally being dropped on its territory back in 1966, I beg you, prevent the launch of a new arms race while it is possible. 

Humanity will be forever grateful if you do, and it will heavily judge you if you don't.

All this comes as President Trump has suggested the U.S. could resume nuclear testing as a deterrent to Russia, which had not lived up to its end of the START treaty, as well as China.

Joining us now is Andrea Stricker. She is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

Good morning, Andrea.

ANDREA STRICKER: Good morning, thank you for having me.

REICHARD: Well tell us briefly first about the START Treaty and what it accomplished.

STRICKER: The New START Treaty was the latest in a successive list of U.S., Russia, and previously, USSR nuclear treaties that limited the deployed nuclear arsenals of each side. 

So the U.S. and Russia were each allowed to have 1,550 nuclear warheads deployed on their intercontinental ballistic missiles, their submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. And then it also limited the missiles and the bombers that they were allowed to have deployed. 

So it really gave predictability and allowed both sides to actually inspect whether the other was complying with the limits; they were allowed to visit about 18 times per year. And so it is a loss, as far as having insight into what both sides would be doing.

REICHARD: Well, you say it's a loss. What else does this expiration of the treaty mean for the two countries?

STRICKER: I think it really gives the U.S. in particular, a chance to re-examine its nuclear posture and assess whether it is doing the job at deterring both Russia and China in this new era of trilateral great power competition. 

The U.S. was actually complying with the treaty, even though Russia had suspended the mutual inspections provisions back during the 2020 COVID pandemic. So the U.S. has been flying blind for some time. And then Russia, we've seen, has been adding to its so-called "non-strategic nuclear arsenal." So that's theater nuclear weapons that it doesn't have deployed, but would be more useful in a battle or to defend the Russian homeland. So it has around 1,000 to 2,000 of those, whereas the U.S. has about 200 on its side. 

Also, Russia has been doing a lot with novel delivery systems. So it's been thinking about putting nuclear anti-satellite weapons in space, it's been doing more underwater in the sea, as well as other delivery systems that are not constrained by the Treaty and that really give the U.S. a disadvantage with regard to Russia. 

REICHARD: Do you have estimates of numbers to compare the two countries? As far as each country’s capabilities are right now?

STRICKER: The United States has a total military arsenal of about 3,700 nuclear weapons. There are some good, open source estimates on that, whereas Russia has about 4,300 nuclear weapons. And so I think even though the limits are expiring, both sides are not really expected to start arms racing as far as building additional nuclear weapons. I think both consider that they have enough, and they're more focused on modernizing their nuclear weapons for the new century and for really giving more impetus to the delivery systems. 

So I think in the short term, we are not going to see the building of new nuclear weapons.

REICHARD: Now over the weekend was the Munich Security Conference in Germany. Some European leaders there expressed concern about the expiration of the START treaty. How do you think a new arms race might affect them?

STRICKER: I think it really does push Europe to start thinking about a European nuclear deterrent. We've seen France and Germany talking about how they could collaborate. We've seen the U.K. also getting involved in these discussions. But it causes other European countries that are really on the borders with Russia, like Poland, to start talking about whether they need to proliferate nuclear weapons. 

And I think this also dovetails with the degrading U.S.-NATO relationship. So if the U.S. continues to signal that it is not really interested in being part of the NATO alliance and continues to push on issues like Greenland, that gives pause to European leaders and makes them question whether they need to go for their own arsenals as well.

REICHARD: You know, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not even mention the START treaty at all at that meeting. What do you make of that?

STRICKER: I think Secretary Rubio is looking to the next several decades. I think he considers New START to be behind us, and that it was unfairly constraining the United States. He did reiterate, and I believe other U.S. officials have reiterated, that the U.S. does believe in its extended nuclear deterrent over Europe. 

So I think some good diplomacy, some good legwork to try to patch up the issues that we've had with Europe over the past several months would be positive and could go a long way toward diminishing their drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

REICHARD: All right, wrapping up here, we know that nuclear power is not a duopoly. Are there any other nations that we should be paying attention to on this nuclear front?

STRICKER: Certainly we'll be looking at Iran and whether the U.S. intends to conduct another strike on the regime, potentially to stabilize or topple it. That would cause some insecurity as far as loose nuclear material. Concern about safeguarding Iran's nuclear facilities in the event of regime collapse. 

I'd also be looking at other Asian countries, like South Korea acquiring its own nuclear deterrence, Eastern European countries, and then, of course, other Middle East states like Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia have been itching to start proliferating nuclear weapons if Iran does.

REICHARD: Andrea Stricker is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

Andrea, thank you so much, appreciate your time.

STRICKER: Thank you.

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