Ponamarev Sergey Vladimirovich – Ph.D. in Political Sciences, Assistant Professor, Academy of Engineering, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia
The article explores the situation in Russian–US strategic dialogue after the INF Treaty cancelation, which was predetermined from the historical point of view. In this regard the paper stresses that some critically important modern types of weapon systems now making huge impact to the strategic stability were not mentioned at all in this Treaty. Author sustains the hypothesis, that the officials of the US government system, who actually prepare the doctrinal concepts and formulate Washington’s policy in the nuclear sphere are not dependent on the fluctuations of the tactical course related to the appearance of new administrations, but rather use them to level the impact of the restrictions incorporated in agreements of any kind. In that case, the goal of the US policy in the sphere of arms control is a deconstruction of whole existing system of bilateral disarmament agreements. Strong opposition to ratification of the CTBT by the US lawmakers was only the first step on this policy course; subsequently the international community faced the denunciation of the ABM Treaty; after that, the INF Treaty was violated by the US administration; and now the prolongation of the New START also is under question. On tactical level, instead of official negotiations in bilateral format on all aspects of the strategic stability, the USA tries to move forward expert discussions on the «1.5 and 2.0 tracks» with the inclusion of the PRC experts as a third party of the new architecture of international strategic balance. Nevertheless, on the «2.0 track» Washington would like to keep also some unofficial mechanism for monitoring (as much as possible) status, numbers and readiness of the Russian and Chinese SNF. That’s why during expert discussions the US specialists put forward various proposals regarding new formats of transparency and data exchange, which could be adopted on the basis of certain confidence-building measures.
New START, INF Treaty, ABM Treaty, CTBT, nuclear deterrence, strategic stability, arms control.
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