Putin's Arms Control Gambit: Arms Control Without Russian Compliance

In the context of the crisis over Ukraine, Russia has proposed under the guise of “security guarantees” the most one-sided set of demands to the U.S. and NATO ever made by the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation. Many of them go back many decades and have been rejected by all previous U.S. administrations. Some of them are the worst we have ever seen. The fact that they were made at all clearly indicates how unimpressed the Putin government is with the Biden administration. Russia’s extreme proposals are backed by the threat of war and even all-out nuclear war. Indeed, in early February 2022, noted Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhauer wrote that "Official reports state that land-mobile Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are being moved out of permanent bases and placed in war-time firing positions across different locations in Russia (Militarynews.ru [1] [2], February 2).” The announced Russian exercise involved two divisions of Yars mobile ICBMs,[1] something that is unusual, particularly under winter conditions. This appears to be more of an operational dispersal than an exercise. Russian nuclear threats are common but operational dispersals of their mobile ICBM force are not.

William Alberque, Director of Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control at the prestigious International Institute of Strategic Studies, has pointed out that, “Engaging on the basis of these texts [the Russian texts which were made public] would reward Russia for seeking negotiations at the point of a gun, and send a chilling message that Russia has succeeded in limiting the sovereignty of Euro-Atlantic states outside of the Alliance.” Instead of rejecting the Russian demands out of hand, the Biden administration is negotiating about them. This assures either a failed negotiation or an unmitigated disaster.

Concerning the U.S response to the Russian proposals, according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “There is no positive reaction on the main issue in this document. The main issue is our clear position that further NATO expansion to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation are unacceptable." (Emphasis in the original). Lavrov is still continuing Russia’s war threats. On January 28, 2022, he said, “We don’t want a war….But we won’t allow [the West] to rudely ignore and trample on our interests.” U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan compared Lavrov’s comments on not wanting war while having Russian troops near Ukraine to having “a gun on the table” during negotiations….If I put a gun on the table and say that I come in peace, that’s threatening.”

NATO has also rejected the Russian proposals. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “…we cannot agree that we should have no NATO troops in all the countries that have joined NATO since 1997.” He also said, “…we are ready to engage in balanced, verifiable measures to reduce arms, conventional [and] nuclear missiles and that kind of things.” He later said that NATO believed “…we need to have a serious conversation on arms control. Including nuclear weapons and ground-based intermediate and shorter range missiles.” He also said, “As a first step, we are proposing mutual briefings on exercises and nuclear policies in the NATO-Russia Council.”

The “release” of information and documents concerning the U.S. and NATO response to Russian demands was clearly leaked by Russia. Pavel Felgenhauer has noted:

Washington asked Moscow to keep confidential the text of the memorandum it sent in reply to Russian security demands. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reluctantly agreed but “predicted” a week ago that the documents would not stay confidential for long, likely to be leaked to the press by any one of the NATO allies or Ukraine, with which the US had shared the contents (see EDM, January 27). Indeed, on February 2, the Spanish daily El País published the texts of both U.S.' and NATO's written replies to Russian demands. The authenticity of the published documents was confirmed in Moscow and in Washington, though the Kremlin additionally stated it had not leaked them (Interfax, February 2).

Thus, we have a negotiation that is in part political-military and in part “arms control,” although more like arms control at gunpoint, an unprecedented occurrence. The Russian “arms control” proposals are more political-military demands than they are arms control. They are aimed at fundamentally changing the balance of power in Europe and Asia, allowing for Russian and Chinese domination.

We are apparently negotiating mainly about the extraordinarily one-sided Russian proposals. This has never been done before. In effect, this is an exercise in how not to negotiate. While both the Biden administration’s and NATO’s response was better than I expected, the U.S. Department of State has had a long history and great expertise in eroding good U.S. positions.

The Biden administration has apparently already begun to make arms control concessions to Russia. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “…they [the U.S.] are prepared to pledge not to have nuclear-armed missiles, but remain undecided as far as non-nuclear ones are concerned.” This is bad news. Giving Putin a monopoly on nuclear-capable missiles, including hypersonic missiles, is a bad idea because it represents an enormous military advantage and could even result in Putin implementing his policy of first use of nuclear weapons if war breaks out. A political commitment is even worse because it is more difficult to change than defense policy. Making this legally binding is the worst option because it is far more difficult, as history has shown us, to get out of an agreement with Russia even in the face of material breaches. For example, according to Michael Gordon, then with The New York Times, while the U.S. knew about the Russian violations of the INF Treaty in 2011, the U.S. did not formally declare the existence of Russian violations until 2014, and we did not finally get out of the Treaty until 2019.

El Pais, which published the leaked U.S. and NATO  documents, reported that the U.S. and NATO told Russia, “We continue to refrain from additional permanent deployment of strike weapons, as well as from the deployment of nuclear weapons in the countries of Eastern Europe.” In light of the massive disparity in tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons that now exist in the Russian favor, this hardly maximizes deterrence.

As noted above, the Putin government has made public the text of a proposed treaty and an agreement on what it calls “Security Guarantees.” It has a major arms control component, a combination of the most one-sided proposals ever made by the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation and some new ones. The relevant provisions in the proposed treaty and agreement are:

Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on security guarantees:

Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization:

Article V of Putin’s proposed Treaty is specifically aimed at preventing the U.S. from deploying military forces to defend its NATO allies which would drastically shift the balance of power in Europe in the Russian favor. It is written in such a way as to give the Russians a quasi-legal basis for objecting to almost anything the U.S. does with regard to force deployments. The prohibition on flying heavy bombers “equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments” outside of national territory and nuclear-capable warships outside of territorial waters “from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party” would eliminate freedom of the seas and the analogous right involving air transportation. It would seriously impact the U.S.'s ability to support our European and Asian allies and even conduct anti-terrorist operations in the Middle East. Under the Russian proposed treaty, the limiting factor to where U.S. Navy surface combatants could be deployed would be the range of the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles they carry (reportedly 900 miles) because our ships couldn’t be in range of Russia. In the future, it would be the range of any new cruise, ballistic or hypersonic missiles carried by surface warships and the strike radius of carrier aircraft, including the extra range provided by the missiles they carry or might carry in the future. This would constitute a massive attack on freedom of the seas, perhaps the oldest U.S. national security policy.

The Russians would evade these limitations by lying about the type of weapons their heavy bombers, and surface warships carry and their ranges. In the context of a Treaty that is based upon the range of strike weapons, lying about weapons range makes the Treaty completely one-sided because the U.S. will honestly declare the range of its missiles.

“National territorial waters” under the U.S. interpretation of international law is only 12 miles from the shoreline. Since Russia claims a large part of the Arctic Ocean, it will certainly claim that deployment of its warships and heavy bombers over the Arctic Ocean does not violate Russia’s proposed Treaty restrictions because Russia owns the sea-bed under the Arctic Ocean. (The actual legality of such a claim is irrelevant to Russian actions.)

In January 2022, Pavel Felgenhauer wrote, “…major Russian warships carry nuclear weapons onboard…” This won't change, but the Russians will deny it, claiming they are not deploying nuclear weapons on their warships. With very long-range cruise missiles, Russia has and is further improving its ability to strike U.S. territory with nuclear and conventional weapons. Russia will lie about the range of its missiles anytime it is in its interest to do so. It will even contradict its previous statements about its weapons’ ranges.

It is interesting that the Russian position does not apply to submarines. This suggests that Russia regards its submarines as technically closer in performance to U.S. submarines while Russia has only a single aircraft carrier. (It is mainly constructing small warships.)

As one would expect, limiting the prohibition to “heavy bombers” would exclude the Russian Backfire bomber, which is not declared to be a heavy bomber under the New START Treaty. There is no U.S. counterpart to the Backfire. The Backfire is apparently an illegal, undeclared heavy bomber under New START. There are reports in Russian state media that the Backfire has been given the capability to launch nuclear-capable long-range cruise missiles, one of which has a range of 4,500-km and is nuclear-capable, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Carrying long-range nuclear-capable cruise missiles would make it a heavy bomber under the New START Treaty. If there is a new Treaty, the Russians will continue to deny that the Backfire is a heavy bomber.

Article VI of the proposed Treaty is completely one-sided. It prohibits U.S. deployment of short-range missiles to Eastern Europe and intermediate-range missiles almost anywhere in NATO Europe while having zero impact on Russian deployment of these missiles, including nuclear-capable missiles, to areas from which they can threaten our NATO allies and also into areas from which they can threaten our Asian allies. The very definition of “intermediate-range” excludes the possibility of using them to attack the other party; hence there is no geographic limitation on their deployment in Russia under Russia’s proposed Treaty. The asymmetry is made even worse because the New START Treaty eliminated the START Treaty prohibition on air-launched ballistic missiles with a range of more than 600-km. Thus, Russia can deploy the nuclear-capable Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile with a range of over 2,000-km on any aircraft large enough to carry it, and it does not count under the New START Treaty. In January 2022, Russia's Defense Minister announced that a regiment of Mig-31 fighter aircraft with the Kinzhal missile was operational. State-run TASS and other publications report that they will deploy the Kinzhal on the Backfire bomber. This dramatically improves its strike capability against NATO Europe.

Article VII is the old Soviet/Russian position of getting U.S. nuclear weapons out of NATO Europe and eliminating the NATO nuclear deterrent while having zero impact on the thousands of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons that threaten NATO. The article specifically prohibits the NATO nuclear deterrent, which according to NATO:

The United States maintains absolute control and custody of their nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe, while Allies provide military support for the DCA [dual capable aircraft] mission with conventional forces and capabilities. Nuclear sharing arrangements play a vital role in the interconnection of the Alliance and remain one of the main components of security guarantees and the indivisibility of security of the whole Euro-Atlantic area.

Contrary to the bogus Russian claim that NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as NATO has stated, “NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements, which were already in place by the time negotiations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) began in the 1960s, were codified by the United States and the Soviet Union as a precursor for the final agreed NPT text.” 

This would leave NATO with no nuclear deterrent other than that provided by the small British and French forces and, unlike the U.S. and Britain, France has never made an explicit nuclear guarantee. While the UK has, its entire arsenal has only 260 nuclear weapons, and none of them are non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons. The UK nuclear deterrent certainly helps contribute to NATO's nuclear deterrent, but there is no way the small U.K. nuclear force alone can serve as a plausible nuclear deterrent for NATO against Russia’s massive nuclear capability.

Looking at Russian violations of the INF Treaty is vital to understanding Putin’s current arms control gambit. In 2014, the Obama administration determined that a new nuclear-capable Russian intermediate-range missile violated the INF Treaty. The State Department report was silent on the precise identification of the missile, but it was later identified as the 9M729. All of the NATO alliance agreed with this assessment and that the 9M729 missile constituted a material breach of the INF Treaty.

The first reports of a ground-launched Russian cruise missile with ranges that could violate the INF Treaty date back to Russian state media in 2007. Reports in Russian state and non-state media credit the R-500 cruise missile with ranges from over 500-km to 3,000-km. In 2014, Pavel Felgenhauer wrote that the R-500 [9M728] missile “has been tested at a range of 1,000 km,” but the “range could be extended up to 2,000-3,000 km by adding extra fuel tanks.” There are a number of other Russian press reports of ranges of 1,000-km for the R-500.[2] The reports of substantially longer ranges (2,000-3,000-km range) may actually be references to the 9M729 Novator missile, but this is unclear.

As demonstrated by the Russians to NATO military attaches in 2017, the 9M728 and the 9M729 missiles are quite similar in size. During this demonstration, the Russian Defense Ministry said, “The 9M729 cruise missile is a modernized version of the 9M728 cruise missile, which is part of the Iskander-M complex.” The difference in the length between the two missile launch canisters was only 53-cm. To explain the assertion that the 9M729 had a range of under 500-km, the Russians tried to argue that 9M729 was delivered to the troops only partially fueled. They did not actually show the two missiles themselves, probably because it would have shown that they were lying. The unfortunate reality is that the Russians blatantly lied about the range of both missiles, and they both violated the INF Treaty.

In November 2014, there was a Russian press report that the Kalibr nuclear-capable naval cruise missile was made ground-launched and, hence, a violation of the INF Treaty because of its range. (The INF Treaty prohibited conventional and nuclear ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500-km.) There were also other reports that R-500 was related to the Kalibr and had a range of 2,000-km. The 2020 State Department report on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments confirmed that there was an INF compliance issue related to the Kalibr, although the details were relegated to the classified portion of the report.

The official range of the Bastion ground-launched cruise missile is 500-km. Like the other new Russian ground-launched cruise missiles, there are reports its actual range is in the INF Treaty prohibited zone. Interfax, Russia’s main non-state news agency, has reported that the Bastion has a range of 600-km;[3] that would put its violation of the INF Treaty. The Bastion carries the Oniks supersonic anti-ship/land-attack cruise missile. After the demise of the INF Treaty, TASS reported, “Bastion is armed with Onyx anti-ship missiles with a range of 600 km.” In August 2012, well-connected Russian journalist Colonel (ret.) Dmitry Litovkin said the range on the Onix was 372 miles (598 kilometers). In September 2018, TASS reported that "The operational Oniks cruise missile has been used as the basis to develop a new version, the Oniks-M, with the 800km maximum range capability,” and is capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads. There are other reports that the Bastion has a range of  600-km. In March 2020, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said that a modified version of the Bastion’s Oniks ground-launched cruise missile had a range of 800-km. Noted Russia expert Dr. Stephen Blank has written that “…the Oniks, which also flew over 500 km in its tests ─ is de facto an intermediate-range weapon.” 

The El Pais newspaper report indicates that the U.S. told Russia that:

The United States and our Allies and partners are concerned about Russia’s material breach of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) when it was in force, and Russia’s continued production and deployment of the SSC-8 (9M729) missile system, as well another Russian intermediate- and shorter-range land-based missiles (Russia’s proposed bilateral treaty Article 6).

Read in the context of the State Department’s non-compliance reports, this statement implies that at least three and possibly all four of the Russian missiles discussed above violated the INF Treaty when it was in force. 

Russia was also apparently planning to deploy a ground-launched version of the Zircon (Tsirkon) by lying about its range. According to state-run RT in 2016, the Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic missile has “a rumored range of at least 400km (1,000km, according to other reports…)." In 2016, state-run Sputnik News also reported that "Various estimates suggest its range may be between 400 and 1,000 km.” There were other Russian press reports that the maximum range was 400-km. The apparent reason for the 400-km number was the fact that the missile had been tested from a ground launcher, and Russia wanted to retain the option for illegal ground-launched deployment. Another reason was the desire to sell the missile. Russia could not openly sell ground-launched missiles that had a range in violation of the INF Treaty. As soon as the INF Treaty was no longer in effect, the official range of the Zircon became over 1,000-km, according to President Putin and a retired Russian Rear Admiral who said it was at least 2,000-km.

Russia apparently also lies about the range of the Iskander-M ground-launched ballistic missile, not because it would necessarily violate the INF Treaty because of the range definition with regard to ballistic missiles, but because it would create the appearance of one. According to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, the range of the Iskander-M is not the up to 500-km the Russians claim but up to 700-km. There are Russian press reports that state the range is 1,000-km or more.

The reality we face is that Russia will lie about the range of any of its missiles in order to violate the provisions of any arms control agreement. We seem to be ignoring this. In a February 2022 interview with Fox News, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said:

We’re prepared, alongside our allies and partners, to negotiate issues of mutual concern when it comes to European security. And yes, that would include reciprocal limitations on the placement of offensive missiles, it would include greater transparency measures, it would include mechanisms to reduce the possibility of mistake or escalation if there are incidents at sea or in the air. We’re prepared to do all of that, just as we have been over the course of the past decades in the Cold War and after.

This is a recipe for a New START approach to a new INF Treaty -- a Treaty with little or nothing in the way of limitations and verification and a serious risk to the oldest National Security policy of the U.S., freedom of the seas. In light of the Russian non-compliance record, any new agreement would need a lot more than “greater transparency measures…” It would require Russian correction of its violations of the INF Treaty and a real verification regime. A range-only based regime would have virtually no ability to constrain the Russian threat while having a tremendous ability to hamstring the U.S. Keep in mind that the Russian proposal is not limited to ground-launched cruise missiles. It would impact our air-launched cruise missiles, manned aircraft, drone aircraft, air- and surface ship-launched ballistic missiles in a highly asymmetric manner. The chances of Russian cheating would be 100%. Indeed, in 2016, there was a report that Russia already had deployed nuclear missiles only 86 miles from Alaska. They are hardly likely to admit this in any negotiation.

The proposed agreement with NATO repeats the prohibition on short- and intermediate-range missiles in areas where they can reach Russia. It merely extended it to all of NATO. As noted above, the effect is highly asymmetric because Russia is lying about the range of all its land-based short- and intermediate-range missiles. The demise of the INF Treaty was the result of Russian violations. Russia has violated just about every major arms control agreement.

Putin’s approach to arms control clearly involves treaties with little substance, asymmetric effects, and minimal verification buttressed by a "bodyguard of lies" with regard to the range of its strike missiles. Business as usual U.S. style arms control will not deal with this problem.

Dr. Mark B. Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Before his retirement from the Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, Dr. Schneider served in a number of senior positions within the Office of Secretary of Defense for Policy including Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commissions.  He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.

[1] “Another Russian strategic missile forces division starts drills involving field deployment of Yars systems,” Interfax, February 2, 2022, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professional newsstand/docview/ 2624967916/fulltext/17E2C1DB3DA50EB8C42/2?accountid=155509&accountid=1555 09&site=professional newsstand&t:ac=17E2C1DB3DA50EB8C42/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocks brief&t:zoneid=transaction alZone_905242214f9463

[2] Dr. Mark B. Schneider, “Reports of Russian Violations of the INF Treaty,” (Fairfax Virginia: National Institute for Public Policy, June 2012), p. 3

[3] “Russian Navy to get 5 coastal defense missile systems by end of 2016 - source (Part 2),” Interfax, July 22, 2016, available at   https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/180623 2638/fulltext/ 17E35A33ED674386024/1?accountid=155509&accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=17E35A33ED674386024/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_30257966d7b90a