Challenges to multilateral arms control

Timothy Wright

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The world is likely approaching an era of unconstrained nuclear activity. While destabilising in and of itself, geopolitical rivalry and distrust are set to further undermine strategic stability. In this environment, actions connected to strategic nuclear forces and associated ballistic-missile tests may be misunderstood or misinterpreted among rivals as being escalatory. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (P5) could plausibly explore creating new transparency mechanisms, especially a multilateral pre-launch notification regime, to reduce risk, but proposals to bring China, France and the United Kingdom into a re-negotiated New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) look to be dead in the water.

New START

In February 2023, Russia suspended implementation of New START due to what it said was Washington’s ‘extreme hostility’ in relation to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time that ‘conducting business as usual with the United States and the West in general is no longer possible’. The 2011 bilateral agreement had remained in force under a 2021–26 extension and placed warhead and launcher limits on Russian and US strategic arsenals, while transparency and verification measures provided each country with important information about the other’s force structure. The US reciprocally suspended its implementation of New START in June 2023, but stressed its readiness to reverse these countermeasures if Russia returned to compliance.

Verifiable, legally binding limitations on the size of Russia’s and the United States’ strategic nuclear arsenals have been in place since 1972. But this will no longer be the case after 2026 if New START is not replaced. The prospects for this are dim given that Russia has linked arms control to the war in Ukraine, hindering negotiations over a follow-on agreement; and even if the war is concluded before 2026, it may be on terms that will sour any Russia–US arms-control negotiations.

Political and technical challenges

Perhaps the most important substantive disagreement between Russia and the US about future arms-control limitations are their divergent views on the inclusion of additional countries. Russia insists that France and the United Kingdom must participate, because they are US allies, while the US aspires to include China because of its expanding nuclear arsenal.

While Moscow and Washington may ultimately concede these ambitions, if they do not, bringing additional parties to the negotiating table will present a considerable political and technical challenge. France and the UK have resisted Russian calls to join a legally binding multilateral agreement because of their small arsenal sizes. China has similarly rejected US suggestions it be included in a future treaty for the same reason. Unlike France and the UK, however, China’s nuclear forces are undergoing a rapid quantitative and qualitative expansion.

Incorporating more signatories into a legally binding framework would also require redesigning hitherto bilateral agreements to account for greater diversity in nuclear-stockpile sizes. While Russia and the US have roughly analogous arsenals, those of the other P5 members differ significantly (see Figure 1). In an enlarged agreement, states would either agree on a single ceiling for all signatories or negotiate asymmetric ceilings. The latter approach would provide unwelcome opportunities for some states to build up to the maximum ceiling, while the former would restrict signatories from pursuing doctrines of minimal deterrence reflecting their perceived security environment.

These difficulties suggest that legally binding bilateral arms control may be approaching its nadir, giving way to an era of unconstrained nuclear activity. An absence of constraints will be aggravated by a lack of transparency into opponents’ nuclear force structure and posture, potentially resulting in arms racing. Geopolitical tensions in Europe and the Asia-Pacific will likely increase risk even further, as civilian and military planners may be driven in times of crisis or uncertainty by worst-case assumptions that could result in inadvertent escalation. Given the challenges associated with fashioning new legally binding multilateral agreements, nuclear-weapon states might instead seek politically binding mechanisms to reduce risk, which may be easier to negotiate.

Prospects for multilateral arms control

Although China, France and the UK are unwilling to formally join a multilateral agreement, statements from these countries – as well as Russia and the US – express an appreciation for the need for risk-reduction measures and the applicability of the P5 as an appropriate forum to pursue these measures. In a speech addressing the deteriorating arms control environment in June 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the P5 ‘provides an opportunity [to] manage nuclear risk and arms race pressures through a mix of dialogue, transparency, and agreements’. Russia responded positively to this speech, saying it was an ‘important and positive statement’. In August 2023, China too said it ‘supports the P5 in continuing dialogue and cooperation to discuss feasible strategic risk reduction measures’. Although the UK and France have not responded directly to Sullivan’s remarks, London and Paris have said that rivalry creates a need for better mechanisms to mitigate risk.

Negotiations among P5 members on politically binding risk-reduction measures would likely be difficult given current poor relations. Moreover, some NATO member states may object to France, the UK and US engaging Russia on arms control while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues. However, policymakers have highlighted the important role of transparency measures to reduce risk and the possibility of miscalculations when tensions are high. Beneficially, these frameworks can also serve as useful starting points for more extensive measures later when conditions are appropriate.

Options available

The participation of P5 members in different types of bilateral risk-reduction measures suggests an appetite to avoid miscommunication and misperception. They might also attempt to multilateralise nuclear risk-reduction centres, nuclear hotlines, strategic-exercise notifications or implement a new pre-launch notification regime.

The last of these might make the most difference, given that in crises ballistic-missile launches can be misunderstood as escalatory or as the sign of a pre-emptive strike. Pre-launch notification regimes provide notices to fellow signatories of information about planned ballistic-missile launches and notification regimes can be flexibly designed depending on the amount of data signatories wish to share. China and Russia have notified each other of certain types of ballistic missile tests since 2001 (renewed in 2010), while Russia and the US have had a similar agreement in place since 1988 (see Figure 2).

Alongside these bilateral regimes, France, Russia, the UK and US subscribe to the Hague Code of Conduct, a voluntary, pre-launch notification regime covering 144 states. Although Beijing supported the code at its inception, it has not joined the mechanism and since 2011 has embraced a policy of abstention and silence on the issue in its United Nations voting record.

The Hague Code of Conduct relies on voluntary data submissions by subscribing countries based on a set of general principles and is not legally binding. Since it does not define the types of ballistic missiles covered or list notification requirements, subscribers apply different standards for the tests they report and the data shared, meaning that some states report significantly less than others.

China’s reluctance to engage with the code reflects Beijing’s broader resistance to sharing information about its ballistic-missile capabilities. China possesses one of the world’s largest ballistic missile arsenals and uses it as a central pillar of its conventional and nuclear-deterrence policy. It is therefore unlikely that China will join the code in the foreseeable future. Creating a pre-launch notification regime specifically for the P5 that incorporates elements of narrower existing bilateral agreements may, however, be a more pragmatic step.