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PICTURED: Marshall Billingslea, the current arms control negotiator for the United States, speaking at a press conference in Latvia, 2019. Photo Credit: Commondreams.org. *ARR

MOSCOW, Russia. September 28th, 2020. Set to expire in February of 2021, talks between Moscow and Washington regarding the New START nuclear forces treaty took a blow after Russia rejected the latest proposals by the U.S. to extend the only remaining nuclears arms control agreement left between the two nuclear powers.

According to Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s principal arms control negotiator, Russia has offered an extension of the treaty at large for 5 years with no preconditions, while the United State’s eagerness to involve China in the agreement saw them offer to accept a temporary extension of the current agreement provided that the framework for future alterations be agreed upon.

Dave DeCamp, writing for Antiwar.com reports that U.S. demands include “increased verification, a larger scope on what warheads the treaty limits, and a commitment from Russia that China would be involved”.

Russia has categorical suggested the demands make it impossible for Moscow to agree to the treaty.

As World at Large reported in July, China would only agree to participate in talks if the United States and Russia reduce armament levels to those maintained by China of around 300, more than 1,000 fewer than apportioned in the original New START treaty.

“I can assure you, if the US says that they are ready to come down to the Chinese level, China would be happy to participate the next day,” said Fu Cong at the time. “But actually, we know that’s not going to happen”.

Russia meanwhile has tried to focus on agreeing with the U.S., and is not at all focused on Beijing.

“We have not taken and do not intend to take any steps to bring China into these talks, something we have told our American colleagues on multiple occasions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview this week.

U.S. arms control envoy Marshall Billingslea suggested that the price of extending New START “will go up” if Russia doesn’t come to terms with the U.S. before the elections in November.

Clear signals

According to reporting from Politico, sources under the conditions of anonymity claimed that the Trump Administration has ordered U.S. Strategic Air Command of Nebraska to assess how long it would take to pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto ballistic missiles and submarines.

Furthermore, Billingslea told Russian negotiators that the U.S. would immediately reverse conversions of bombers and submarines into non-nuclear roles at the expiration of the treaty.

“It’s a clear signal that the costs for not negotiating before the election are going to go up,” said one of the sources. “The Trump administration is ‘trying to create an incentive,’ and it’s a real incentive, for the Russians to sit down and actually negotiate.”

The trio of unnamed officials described it as “very stupid,” and said the chance of success of the plan was “about nil.”

“It makes absolutely no sense to threaten to upload. It becomes a valid leveraging point only if the other side can’t do it. The Russians can do it, too,” said one GOP source who spoke on conditions of anonymity being that he still advises current policy makers.

Russia may feel their best chances lie in waiting to see what happens after the election, as Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden has already stated he would agree to extend the current New START treaty for another five years.

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