What happened to the arms control treaties?


Mounting U.S. concerns over a potential Russian-North Korean arms deal has provoked a more comprehensive review of global arms control agreements. Key agreements were already disintegrating for several years before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine took them off the table entirely.

Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan reminds readers that these deals matter perhaps more today than they have in the past, especially as Putin might attempt to use nuclear weapons to compensate for Russian conventional force weaknesses.

Excerpted from Peter’s Sept. 18 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:

Towards the end of the Soviet period, arms control treaties with the U.S. peaked under Gorbachev, but each U.S. president has handled these differently. Treaties fell off under Clinton, had a bit of a resurgence under George W. Bush, and have since fallen off. Today, the post-Cold War arms treaties have all but vanished (at least in practice).

Now, onto the really stressful stuff — cue the second glass of whiskey. Without these treaties, several concerns arise… can Russia maintain its nuclear arsenal? What happens if things go nuclear? What if they launch a nuclear weapon and it fails?

There are too many moral and strategic dilemmas to even think through, but we should probably have some sort of roadmap to guide us through these scenarios. Unfortunately, policymakers have no established procedures for specific situations like a failed nuclear strike attempt, which is quite a conundrum.