Newly installed US President Joe Biden is seeking a five-year extension to the New START nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, in a clear shift of policy compared with the previous Trump Administration.
Biden, who formally took office on 20 January, pledged during the 2020 US presidential election campaign to extend New START beyond its scheduled expiration date of 5 February 2021.
‘I can confirm that the United States intends to seek a five-year extension of New START, as the treaty permits,’ White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed on 21 January.
‘The president has long been clear that the New START treaty is in the national security interests of the United States,’ Psaki added. ‘This extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is as adversarial as it is at this time.’
Towards the end of his term as US president, Donald Trump tried to negotiate a short extension to New START but this faltered, partly because the US wanted to broaden the treaty to include China.
‘New START is the only remaining treaty constraining Russian nuclear forces and is an anchor of strategic stability between our two countries,’ Psaki remarked.
If the treaty expires, there would no longer be any limits to the number of nuclear-armed platforms that Russia and the US would be able to deploy.
New START was signed in 2010 and entered into force the following February for ten years. It set a target for Russia and the US each to reduce their inventory of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 700 inter-continental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers within seven years.
The treaty can be replaced by a follow-up agreement before the deadline expires, or prolonged until 2026 by mutual consent.
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