When US President-elect Joe Biden takes office in the White House next week, his administration will need to rush into negotiations with Russia to salvage the important New Start disarmament treaty.
This text which limits the nuclear arsenals of the two powers expires on February 5, only 16 days after the inauguration of Joe Biden. It is the last major arms reduction agreement between former Cold War rivals.
With the deadline fast approaching, both Moscow and Washington will have to compromise and put aside the deplorable state of their relations, amid disagreements on most international issues, accusations of electoral interference, espionage and cyber attacks.
The stakes are high for both countries, assures Elena Tchernenko of the Russian daily Kommersant, who has closely followed the negotiations in recent months.
“The treaty limits the possibility that one of the two camps is mistaken as to the intentions or plans of the other, as we saw it happen several times during the Cold War, which led to very dangerous times”, she explains to AFP.
Any agreement will also define the budgetary priorities for the two powers, estimates the journalist Vladimir Frolov. A potential extension of the New Start will thus determine “if more money than necessary will have to be spent in the purchase of nuclear toys in relation to health,” he told AFP.
The New Start treaty was signed in 2010 by then-presidents Barack Obama for the United States and Dmitry Medvedev for Russia, in the midst of a “reset” period, an attempt to “reset” relations between the two states. .
The text limits the number of nuclear warheads in each camp to 1,550, as well as launchers and bombers, which is enough to destroy Earth multiple times.
Pressure and concessions
Joe Biden has a lot to gain if he concludes a diplomatic success in the first weeks of his presidency, but he also finds himself under pressure from part of the American establishment wanting a firmer policy towards Russia. , one of his campaign elements.
Last year, U.S. lawmakers called for punishing Russia for a wave of cyberattacks targeting administrations and businesses in the United States, which was blamed on it. Moscow has already been sanctioned several times by Washington for various cases, to which are added cross-expulsions of diplomats.
Biden’s future national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, however, said in January that the president-elect had asked his team to start thinking about expanding the New Start.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin recently proposed a one-year extension without preconditions and asked his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to draw a “coherent” response from the United States to the offer.
The last leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, champion of disarmament treaties during the Cold War, said this week that he expected Joe Biden to extend the New Start and called on the two camps to “negotiate”. future reductions ”.
According to Vladimir Frolov, Russia hopes for an extension because it would allow it to modernize its nuclear forces at its own pace, without rushing into an arms race.
Negotiations for the extension of the treaty were deadlocked for long months under President Donald Trump, who demanded that China, another major nuclear power, be included in the arms limitation. Beijing has not shown interest in this request.
With the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, this condition should go away.
“There are now adults in the room in the United States and despite the elements of confrontation, perhaps this is one of the aspects on which Moscow and Washington will be able to find a compromise,” said Mme Chernenko.