{"id":47534,"date":"2019-05-14T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=47534"},"modified":"2019-05-14T06:16:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T20:16:14","slug":"beyond-the-spectacle-of-summits-trump-isnt-truly-dedicated-to-nuclear-arms-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/beyond-the-spectacle-of-summits-trump-isnt-truly-dedicated-to-nuclear-arms-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the spectacle of summits, Trump isn\u2019t truly dedicated to nuclear arms control"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the words of President Donald Trump, \u2018nobody\u2019s happy\u2019 with the dimming prospects for further US\u2013North Korea talks; last week<\/a> Pyongyang renewed short-range missile tests and the US Justice Department impounded North Korea\u2019s second-largest cargo vessel for sanctions violations. But this wasn\u2019t the first instance of backsliding after negotiations broke down. In March, mere days after Kim Jong-un dined with Trump at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, satellite imagery suggested renewed activity<\/a> at the Sohae satellite-launch and rocket-testing facility.<\/p>\n

The Hanoi summit\u2019s unsatisfying conclusion stemmed from dissimilar definitions<\/a> of \u2018complete denuclearisation\u2019. US officials later clarified that North Korea\u2019s ballistic missile capabilities and chemical and biological weapons programs must also be eliminated. More significantly, US National Security Advisor John Bolton rejected<\/a> North Korea\u2019s preference for a step-by-step, reciprocal approach to talks, in which negotiating carrots such as sanctions relief, economic development, a peace declaration, or diplomatic normalisation could keep pace with corresponding progress towards weapons dismantlement and a verification framework.<\/p>\n

After three decades of intermittent negotiations with North Korea, direct engagement between heads of state was a fresh approach, for which Trump should be commended. But his administration\u2019s indigestion when contemplating anything less than an all-encompassing, landmark accord should have been tempered with a seasoned helping of negotiating flexibility. And looking beyond Hanoi, it\u2019s evident that Trump and his team are hardly committed to nuclear arms control writ large.<\/p>\n

Only weeks after the US declared its intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which forbids both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,000 kilometres, the Pentagon announced its plans to test<\/a> a ground-mobile version of the sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile in August, followed by a 4,000-kilometre-range ballistic missile in November.<\/p>\n

Russia and the US have each critiqued the other for treaty noncompliance. Washington has continued to cite the operating range of Russia\u2019s 9M729 missile and Moscow\u2019s failure to course-correct since 2014, whereas Moscow has countered that the US Aegis Ashore missile defence site in Romania could perhaps be repurposed to launch offensive cruise missiles instead of only defensive interceptors.<\/p>\n

At a January meeting in Geneva, Russia purportedly offered an inspection<\/a> of the 9M729 system in exchange for a demonstration that the Aegis launchers couldn\u2019t be converted to accommodate offensive missiles. American diplomats rejected this proposal, and, with the US Defense Department wasting no time to prepare for tests of INF Treaty\u2013violating weapons soon after the agreement becomes void on 2 August, the Trump administration appears all too willing to dispense with existing arms limitations.<\/p>\n

US officials have also yet to communicate their stance on prolonging the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2017, Trump reportedly disparaged the treaty<\/a> as a \u2018bad deal\u2019 after Putin mentioned possible extension beyond 2021. Top US Air Force generals have testified before Congress<\/a> and spoken publicly<\/a> in unequivocal support of New START, calling bilateral and verifiable arms-control treaties \u2018essential\u2019, \u2018of huge value\u2019, \u2018unbelievably important\u2019 and \u2018good for us\u2019.<\/p>\n

Regrettably, Bolton was a strident critic<\/a> of New START before his appointment to lead Trump\u2019s National Security Council, and the US State Department\u2019s top diplomat for arms control remains noncommittal<\/a>, explaining that the administration\u2019s consolidated position towards treaty extension is still meandering through bureaucratic interagency review. \u2018It gives reason to suspect our American counterparts of setting ground\u2019 to let the treaty expire quietly, said Russia\u2019s deputy foreign minister<\/a>. Without the INF Treaty and the binding, verifiable limits contained in New START, American and Russian nuclear weaponry could soon be unconstrained for the first time since 1972<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have just concluded their final preparatory meeting<\/a> in advance of the treaty\u2019s review conference next year. Non-nuclear states have expressed irritation<\/a> that the US and Russia have further created \u2018doubt about their intention ever to fulfil their disarmament obligations\u2019. Instead of faithfully pursuing another stepwise reduction in its numbers of launchers and warheads, the US proposed multilateral working groups<\/a> to discuss specific disarmament challenges. Among the 122 countries that voted in July 2017 for a nuclear-weapons ban, this American initiative, called \u2018Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament\u2019, smells like much high-minded talk<\/a> without any meaningful effort towards US arms reductions.<\/p>\n

If Trump desires credibility, dialogue with Russia promises fertile ground. At the outset, his political opponents may deride such overtures as cosying up to Putin. But as highlighted<\/a> by former admiral Mike Mullen, the top American military officer from 2007 to 2011, \u2018even in the darkest days of the Cold War\u2019 the US had regular interchanges with the Soviet Union, but \u2018we don\u2019t have them now\u2014it\u2019s not even close\u2019.<\/p>\n

And responsibly trimming American and Russian arsenals would make any future pressure on North Korea all the more compelling.<\/p>\n

Commitment to arms-control talks could help Washington and Moscow further comprehend areas of shared concern, such as China\u2019s economic clout in central Asia and its adventurism in the Arctic, short of a thaw in relations. If mutually beneficial agreements with Moscow stimulate Trump\u2019s appetite for open-minded negotiations and incremental processes, and achieve appreciation and esteem from the international community, perhaps step-by-step progress with Kim would then become palatable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the words of President Donald Trump, \u2018nobody\u2019s happy\u2019 with the dimming prospects for further US\u2013North Korea talks; last week Pyongyang renewed short-range missile tests and the US Justice Department impounded North Korea\u2019s second-largest cargo …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":47538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2330,86,356,163,31],"class_list":["post-47534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-arms-control","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-russia","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBeyond the spectacle of summits, Trump isn\u2019t truly dedicated to nuclear arms control | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/beyond-the-spectacle-of-summits-trump-isnt-truly-dedicated-to-nuclear-arms-control\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond the spectacle of summits, Trump isn\u2019t truly dedicated to nuclear arms control | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the words of President Donald Trump, \u2018nobody\u2019s happy\u2019 with the dimming prospects for further US\u2013North Korea talks; last week Pyongyang renewed short-range missile tests and the US Justice Department impounded North Korea\u2019s second-largest cargo ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/beyond-the-spectacle-of-summits-trump-isnt-truly-dedicated-to-nuclear-arms-control\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-13T20:00:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-05-13T20:16:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/BGM-109G-Tomahawk.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"426\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Evan Karlik\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Evan Karlik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/beyond-the-spectacle-of-summits-trump-isnt-truly-dedicated-to-nuclear-arms-control\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/BGM-109G-Tomahawk.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/BGM-109G-Tomahawk.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":426,\"caption\":\"Two employees of the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center cut up a BGM-109G Tomahawk ground launched cruise missile (GLCM) as a third stands by with a fire extinguisher. 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