New #ArmsRace looms as clock ticks down on last #Russia - #US #nuclear treaty
The last nuclear treaty between Russia & the US is due to expire within hours, raising the risk of a new arms race in which #China will also play a key role.
The web of #arms control deals negotiated in the decades since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, considered the closest the world ever came to intentional #NuclearWar, was aimed at reducing the chance of a catastrophic nuclear exchange.
Unless Washington & Moscow reach a last-minute understanding of some kind, the world's two biggest #nuclear powers will be left without any limits for the first time in more than half a century when the New START treaty expires.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said #Putin had discussed the issue in a video call on Wednesday with #China President #Xi Jinping and told him that Moscow would act "carefully & responsibly".
"We remain open to exploring avenues for negotiation & ensuring strategic stability," Ushakov quoted #Putin as saying.
There was confusion about the exact time the treaty would lapse, though #arms control experts told Reuters they believed this would happen at 2300 GMT on Wednesday—midnight in Prague, where the treaty was signed in 2010.
As the clock ticked towards expiry, #PopeLeo urged both sides not to abandon the limits set in the treaty.
"I issue an urgent appeal not to let this instrument lapse," the first U.S.-born pope said at his weekly audience. "It is more urgent than ever to replace the logic of fear and distrust with a shared ethic, capable of guiding choices toward the common good."
Matt Korda, associate director for the #Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that if there were no agreement to extend the treaty's key provisions, neither #Russia nor the #UnitedStates would be constrained if they wanted to add yet more #warheads.
"Without the treaty, each side will be free to upload hundreds of additional warheads onto their deployed missiles & heavy bombers, roughly doubling the sizes of their currently deployed arsenals in the most maximalist scenario," he said.
#Trump has given different signals on arms control. He said last month that if the treaty expired, he would reach a “better” agreement [whatever that means. He said he’d come up with a better health plan than the ACA too].
So far, Russian officials said, there has been no response from Washington on a proposal by #Putin to extend the limits of the treaty beyond expiry.
Arms control supporters in Moscow & Washington say the expiry of the treaty would not only remove limits on #warheads but also damage confidence, trust & the ability to verify #nuclear intentions.
Who can doubt that, without limits, China could build nukes faster and at a scale much larger than the sum of any increase by Russia and the US? Trump makes this new arms race more likely with his crazy decision to allow prior arms limitations to expire. An effective leader would have worked to include China without destroying the prior framework, and also to decrease the size of all of the arsenals.
Nonilex
nada_bio_entity2
Minnesota 123456
Seán Fenian