Nuclear Major Power Geopolitical Clashes Jeopardizing the Global Arms Control Regime: Reassessing Priorities, Searching for Approaches in a New Era of Nuclear Tripolarity

Sharyl Cross is Distinguished Professor of International Politics and Former Director of the Kozmetsky Center of Excellence at St. Edward’s University. The views presented are the author’s own and not the positions of the institutions or associations where she has been employed or affiliated.

The strategic arms control regime—which provides the foundation for global stability between the world’s two largest nuclear powers—is in jeopardy. Even during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union were able to avoid nuclear confrontation by maintaining reliable communication channels, routine diplomatic engagement on arms control, and establishing mutually agreed safeguards to avoid escalation of clashes beyond a given threshold, accidents, or misperception.

The experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war heightened appreciation for the importance of cultivating a robust nuclear arms control regime to deter U.S. and Soviet/Russian leadership from resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. Since the 1970s, the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States have concluded a series of strategic arms agreements ensuring transparency and reliable mutual verification protocols. Along with introducing transformational reforms of glasnost and perestroika on the domestic front, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was able to accomplish tremendous strides working with U.S. President Ronald Reagan to achieve major bilateral nuclear arms reductions. The fact that many fewer nations have acquired nuclear capabilities and the international community avoided clashes involving the use of nuclear weapons must be attributed for the most part to the stable core foundations of the U.S.-Soviet/Russia nuclear security regime.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) that was set to expire in 2026 has been halted. Russia’s war in Ukraine and its severing of relationships with the United States and its Western allies and the collapse of U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue and engagement on arms control, coupled with China’s accelerated drive toward nuclear expansion and escalating tensions in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, have ushered in a new period of instability and risk for arms control and proliferation. U.S. President Joe Biden has acknowledged that we have reached an “inflection point” that will determine the future security for our allies and partners and the world community for decades ahead, but the circumstances require careful assessment of strategic options and consequences of policy choices. Innovative approaches will be required to prevent catastrophic nuclear escalation and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as the world system transitions from an era of bipolar nuclear stability to a more complex three major power nuclear configuration.

Ukraine War, Derailing U.S.-Russia Strategic Nuclear Collaboration, Risk of Nuclear Response

In the past, it has been the expectation that the United States and Soviet Union/Russia could compartmentalize differences to prevent other contentious issues in the bilateral relationship from interfering with the critical areas of nuclear security and arms control. However, the fact that Ukraine has been defined as an “existential” security priority for Russia’s leadership suggests that it is no longer a safe assumption that Moscow will separate clashes on Ukraine from collaboration with the United States on nuclear security. While the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia were able to manage competition and differences in the past on Angola, Ethiopia, Central America, Afghanistan, and, more recently ,in the Middle East (Iraq, Libya, Syria) without undermining strategic arms control, Ukraine’s location bordering the Russian Federation with a large Russian-speaking population and extensive historical, cultural, and geostrategic ties elevates its importance to a level of being associated by Russia’s leadership with survival of the state.

In January 2023, the U.S. State Department reported that it was no longer possible to verify that Russia was complying with New START due to the Kremlin’s unwillingness to allow for on-site inspections. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to suspend New START in February 2023, linking resumption of the treaty with an end to Western military support for Ukraine. The Biden administration responded by expressing interest in engaging Russia to manage nuclear risks and develop a post-2026 arms control framework. While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov described the suggestion of the U.S. administration as “important and positive,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reiterated that unless “Washington and the West as a whole do not radically revise their anti-Russian policy…productive negotiations on arms control will hardly be possible.”

Although Russia has a no-first use nuclear policy, since unleashing the “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has not ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in the event that the survival of the Russian Federation was threatened. For Putin, Russia’s territory includes those areas annexed from Ukraine since 2014 (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia). At the time of launching Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on alert and warned that those interfering with Russia’s operation in Ukraine would face consequences on a scale “you have never seen in your entire history.” In September 2022, after annexing four Ukrainian oblasts to Russia, Putin stated, “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

Russia’s military forces seized control the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is the largest in Europe early on in the war generating concerns about possible nuclear disaster. In March 2023, Putin announced that Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus contending this was no different than the United States positioning nuclear assets among allied nations in Europe.

Putin’s remarks at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in July 2023 seemed to dial back concerns about nuclear responses in Ukraine. Putin justified moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus as an “element of deterrence” for those “thinking about inflicting strategic defeat” of Russia. Following recounting setbacks in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Putin reiterated that Russia’s official doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons in situations where the survival of the nation was threatened but then implied that this option was not necessary at this point.

In mid-August 2023, the United States announced approval for the Netherlands and Denmark to provide F16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Russia has been targeted with a series of drone strikes on military installations and buildings in civilian areas over the past months attributed to Ukrainians operating within the Russian Federation. Following announcement in August 2023 that the Biden administration would provide the 45 tranche of military assistance in Ukraine, including additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Javelin and anti-armor rockets, Hydra 70 rockets, and 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition, the head of Russia’s space agency ROSCOSMOS Yuri Borisov stated that the Sarmat MIRV equipped intercontinental ballistic missile had been placed into service—a weapon that Putin had said would make Moscow’s enemies “think twice.”

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has issued periodic warnings about a nuclear scenario stating that “loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of nuclear war” and that Russia may be forced to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine’s counteroffensive succeeds. On August 28, 2023, Medvedev posted on Telegram that Ukraine’s approval from Western nations for missile strikes throughout Russia or to attack Crimea unfortunately indicates that the “prophecies of the Apocalypse” were closer.

Statements from Russia’s leadership on willingness to resort to the use of nuclear weapons over Ukraine have been echoed by discussions taking place among leading defense experts. Sergei Karaganov, former presidential advisor and dean of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, published an article in June 2023 calling for Russia to undertake preemptive nuclear strikes against several European countries as a way to end the war in Ukraine. While Karaganov acknowledged that this would be a “terrible choice” on a moral level, he contends that it is necessary to prevent the West from leading the world to a final “full-scale” and “last world war for humanity." Karaganov’s article prompted a series of responses among other leading analysts of Russia’s foreign policy community contending that employing a nuclear strike would not “sober up the West” or that Karaganov’s position “underestimates the willingness of Western elites’ determination to climb the escalation ladder with Russia, and, if necessary ahead of it...”Former head of the Carnegie Moscow Center Dmitry Trenin affirmed that nuclear weapons have been “on the table” from the outset and that basing U.S. strategy on the “belief that the Russian leadership will not dare use nuclear weapons in the current conflict” was an “extremely dangerous misperception.” Russia’s channel 1 and other state-sponsored media networks have hosted programs with pundits, analysts, and legislative leaders calling for nuclear responses over Ukraine.

U.S. President Biden cautioned at the outset of the Ukraine conflict that a direct U.S.-Russia war must be avoided because of nuclear risks. In October 2022, Biden warned that the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was the highest it had been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Biden has said that there was no way to use tactical nuclear weapons on a battlefield without it ending in Armageddon. In June 2023, he stated that the threat issued by Putin to use nuclear weapons was “real” and that deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was “absolutely irresponsible.” U.S. officials have warned of “catastrophic consequences” for nuclear use, but Biden has remained ambiguous in spelling out scenarios and likely U.S. responses, which have traditionally been essential for deterrence.

Several analysts have tended to downplay threats of the use of nuclear weapons coming from Moscow as “bluffing,” but others have not dismissed the possibility or even certainty.  Although Putin has referenced the doctrinal foundation and taken steps to prepare for employing a nuclear response, he must weigh the consequences in loss of life, destruction of the environment and infrastructure, and damage to existing significant international partnerships. China, India, and other valuable partner nations for Russia have emphasized that nuclear weapons should not be used in the Ukraine war. There are options available to Russia in the conventional, cyber, or other domains that would not entail the costs of using nuclear weapons.  At the same time, there is a high risk that the war in Ukraine could escalate involving neighboring nations evoking an Article V response from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the potential for unleashing a nuclear response should not be ruled out.  The longer the war in Ukraine continues the greater the risk of miscalculation and accidents that could result in a nuclear confrontation.

Russia had supported Washington and Beijing in containing North Korea’s nuclear development, but the fact that Putin has turned to Kim Jong-un as a source for ammunition for the Ukraine war with the prospect for Russia-North Korea cooperation in the nuclear sphere represents a setback for managing nuclear security and proliferation.  Russia’s military cooperation with Iran in the wake of the war in Ukraine with Tehran providing lethal drone technology and Moscow offering diplomatic support to Iran poses further complications for nuclear safeguard compliance.

The suspension of the U.S.-Russia New START, threats of resorting to the use of nuclear weapons and shifting geopolitical alignments resulting from clashes over Ukraine has destabilized the global nuclear security order. The issue of perhaps highest priority on the U.S.-Russia security agenda, ongoing collaboration among the two nations holding the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, is now in question.

NATO Enlargement, Failed Diplomacy, Costs and Risks of Military Engagement

Moscow’s invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine has come at enormous cost, but the West also made strategic choices that contributed to provoking conflict with Russia. Russia’s leadership, defense, and foreign policy community consistently expressed opposition to expansion of the Western security alliance. George F. Kennan, architect of America’s post-World War II Soviet containment strategy, had warned that expansion of NATO would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Moscow tolerated the first rounds of NATO enlargement in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, but claimed that NATO’s military involvement in Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO crossed a line constituting a serious immediate and long-term potential threat to Russia.

Moscow’s leadership had broached proposals to develop a European security architecture that would take account of Russia’s interests. In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev, then serving as president of the Russian Federation, advanced a proposal for a new European security order followed by additional proposals prior to the invasion of Ukraine that were not afforded serious consideration among Western nations.

Suggestions in the aftermath of the unraveling of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact that NATO was dead or had no purpose were unfounded. NATO provided a platform for bringing nations together to strengthen capacity for addressing a broad range of significant security challenges including promoting collaboration in managing weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, cyber and maritime cooperation, providing disaster support, and much more.  Together with the EU, NATO offered assistance to Soviet successor nations in Europe and Eurasia for democratic reform, defense transformation, and capacity building. The NATO-Russia Council fostered practical security cooperation and consultation until Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, but, for Russians, NATO enlargement was considered a betrayal of pledges on the part of the United States and its allies that NATO would not expand and the possibility of Ukraine engaging in military collaboration with the Western security alliance or Ukraine joining NATO became a defining red-line for the Kremlin.

The reality is that Ukraine was not a likely candidate for NATO membership in the foreseeable future, but Western involvement in the Euro-Maidan uprising that contributed to unseating Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych prompted Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. The collapse of the Minsk peace process and lack of commitment in finding a workable diplomatic solution for resolving differences between Kyiv and Moscow on Crimea and Russian-speaking communities in Donbas escalated into the devastating war witnessed today.  The disclosure by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel revealing that Germany and other Western nations were not sincere about reaching a diplomatic settlement between Russia and Ukraine, but only sought to gain time for Ukraine to enhance NATO military collaboration and presence in Ukraine has done nothing to enlist confidence that a diplomatic settlement would be possible.

The Russia-Ukraine war has cost thousands of lives, displaced much of the Ukrainian population, destabilized the European and Eurasian security and economic orders, and disrupted global energy and food supplies. Had Ukraine been willing to forego NATO membership remaining neutral, this war would likely have been averted. Dedicated commitment on the part of all involved to pursue diplomatic channels toward developing alternative approaches for the post-Cold War European security structure would certainly have been preferable to suffering the tragic losses in Ukraine. There is no reason that Ukraine should not have been able to maintain ties with Russia and other Eastern European neighbors while simultaneously benefitting from cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic community.

Moscow’s leadership contends that this is not simply a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but that the West wants to destroy Russia. The perception that the West seeks strategic defeat of the Russian state is not unfounded.  U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s public statement that the United States intends to “weaken Russia” by providing military support to Ukraine and frequent comments on prospects for regime change in Moscow by Western policy officials and analysts reinforces the Kremlin’s assessments regarding U.S./Western intentions. Any strategy aimed to destabilize and drive a major world nuclear power into a rogue nation status is obviously misguided and dangerous.

Russia is still a European power and stabilizing Moscow’s relationships with nations of the transatlantic community will remain consequential for European and wider global security. Ukraine’s most recent June 2023 counteroffensive has been unsuccessful and it should be understood that Ukraine can not win a war with a much larger committed nuclear power. Anticipating the difficulties ahead for the Ukrainian military in re-taking occupied territories, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had said in late 2022 after successes in Kharkiv and Kherson that it might be time to consider entering into discussions on a political settlement. This suggestion was widely rejected, and the Biden administration has been clear that decisions on ending the war in Ukraine would rest with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian population. However, the setbacks in Ukraine’s most recent June 2023 counteroffensive has generated consideration among some in the administration about the need for an exit strategy. The current period of geopolitical upheaval in Europe and Eurasia is fraught with risks and at a minimum it will be important for the United States and its allies to support Ukraine in re-building and to stabilize relationships with Russia in order to prevent a wider Russia-NATO or world war.

It is important to recognize that a consequence of the choices that have been made over Ukraine present major obstacles for continuation of a central U.S. security priority that has ensured global stability over the past decades, the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms regime. If the war in Ukraine continues to grind on for years or becomes a “forever war,” the prospects for negotiating a new START agreement before it expires in 2026 may be over, ending an era of cooperation in arms control and proliferation. This should be a major motivating factor for resuming dialogue and diplomacy toward ending the war in Ukraine avoiding further loss of life and devastation and setting a foundation for a return to normalcy in managing nuclear arms and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Russia-China Strategic Partnership and Prospects for Tripartite Major Power Nuclear Engagement

Although the history of the Sino-Russian relationship has not been without clashes, the two countries have become more closely aligned over the past decade forging a burgeoning “strategic partnership” described by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping as a “partnership without limits.” Following escalation of tensions with the West over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Moscow moved to further strengthen its relationship with Beijing. Moscow continued to turn to China to offset stringent economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its European allies in response to Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine. Beijing attributes the Russo-Ukraine war to Western meddling in Ukraine’s domestic politics and NATO’s tendency to remain locked in a Cold War mindset insisting on expansion of the alliance.

Russia and China find common ground in resisting U.S. global hegemony and challenging American leadership of the rules-based liberal international order. Both Moscow and Beijing believe that they should be entitled to have greater influence in shaping world order in the contemporary multipolar system. Though the two countries no longer share ideological affinity, both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are concerned about protecting security of the state and have been united in opposing Western intervention to advance democracy which they contend has resulted in chaos and destabilizing societies. Moscow and Beijing want to ensure that the kind of domestic turmoil that fueled the color revolutions in Eurasia and upheavals in the Middle East will never pose threats of regime change in their respective nations.

Cultivation of relationships on the part of Russia and China with nations of the Global South is another means of counterbalancing the influence of the United States and its Western allies. Both countries issue narratives emphasizing legacies of Western imperialism, moral decadence, and claims of exceptionalism invoking calls for respecting the diversity of world civilizations and traditions. Offering investment without imposing domestic requirements has contributed to China surpassing U.S. economic presence throughout much of the world. The significant expansion of numbers of nations that would like to join BRICS threatens the preeminence of U.S. currency and influence in global finance and economic development over the long term.

Russia and China have expanded military-to-military cooperation and have held routine large-scale military exercises since 2018 in Asia, the Baltics, and the Mediterranean, and Russia has sold some of its most advanced military equipment to China. While China’s economy far exceeds that of Russia, Russia as one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers can offer support to China in accelerating nuclear development. During the visit of Xi Jinping to Russia in March 2023, Putin announced that Russia’s state atomic energy corporation Rosatom and China’s Atomic Energy Agency had entered into a long-term contract that would include exporting plutonium from Russia to China for use in nuclear reactors potentially contributing to more rapid expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal.

China and Russia do not yet have an “alliance,” but the two countries have been driven closer as a result of tensions with the United States. While the conflict over Ukraine has led to collapse of the initial post-Soviet rapprochement between the United States and Russia, the U.S.-China bilateral relationship is quite strained over Taiwan, competition for influence in the South China Sea and wider Asia, economic reprisals in the technology sphere, and more.

The Russia-China strategic partnership has advanced too far to hope that the United States would be able to drive a wedge between the two countries. The Biden administration’s identification of the struggle between democracy and autocracy as the guiding vision for American foreign policy presents additional difficulties for enlisting cooperation in nuclear security and other critical areas or to avoid uniting Russia and China against American interests. 

In considering approaches to arms control in the current conflictual and rapidly shifting geopolitical circumstances, U.S. policy officials should understand that both Moscow and Beijing will expect an equal say in setting terms for engagement. Major regional concerns for both countries including Ukraine for Russia and Taiwan for China stand as impediments to advancing cooperation in nuclear security.

Toward a Tripartite Nuclear Framework for the 21st Century Global Security Environment

Concepts for policies of the past that were effective in containing geopolitical and ideological clashes among nuclear rivals such as “peaceful coexistence” and “détente” or aspirations for building U.S.-Russian “strategic partnership” in the early post-Soviet period no longer exist. There is much greater focus today on what is perceived as inevitable peer or near-peer major power confrontation rather than considering ways nations of different historical experience, cultures, values, and core interests might co-exist and cooperate to ensure strategic security. Policymakers of the three nations confront an emerging global security environment that is more daunting not only because of transition from a bipolar to a tripolar major power nuclear order, but also because protecting nuclear security has become more problematic because of new developments in areas such as space, cyber, or artificial intelligence.

If the United States and Russia are not able to establish a framework for continued collaboration in arms control after the expiration of START in 2026 and China is not engaged in nuclear arms control, the global community will face unprecedented circumstances of unconstrained nuclear arms competition. Beijing is on track to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 and has been exceeding predictions in terms of the pace of development in nuclear capacity, but China has traditionally been unwilling to participate in arms control believing that this would only provide advantages to nations with much larger nuclear arsenals. While the prospects for forging a tripartite nuclear regime appear quite limited in the current geopolitical/strategic circumstances, it is simply too important for global security not to make every effort to preserve longstanding cooperation with Russia in arms control and proliferation and to foster nuclear security cooperation with Beijing.

Prior to the Ukraine war, we suggested that the U.S. administration might boldly propose a tripartite security dialogue with Russia and China to manage nuclear challenges and other security issues of shared concern. This approach would underscore U.S. recognition of the major power status of both countries and the importance of engaging in a constructive and pragmatic spirit to address issues impacting citizens of all three countries and the world community. The U.S. administration should understand the risks of driving Russia and China closer and explore ways to engage with both countries so as to diffuse the perception that the United States sees no alternative to future major power war.

In the past, relationships among Presidents have been pivotal in advancing the U.S.-Soviet/Russia arms control agenda. The fact that the U.S. and Russian presidents do not communicate and China’s president has been reluctant to meet with the U.S. president presents a major obstacle for advancing an arms control agenda. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China in June 2023 was promising in terms of generating dialogue on the U.S.-China bilateral agenda, but Biden’s reference to Xi as a “dictator” upon Blinken’s return from China elicited angry reactions from Beijing. 

Presuming that it might be possible to resume dialogue and negotiations on nuclear security at some point, it would of course be important to approach discussions with realistic aspirations and low expectations. This is a process that will require highly skilled diplomats with commitment, patience, and capacity to recognize the stakes and risks of failure.

All parties must appreciate that there is no winning a war among nuclear powers and the United States, Russia, and China would benefit by strengthening commitment to exhausting all diplomatic options for avoiding conflict and rapid termination of kinetic clashes. Pledges like “fighting until the last Ukrainian” or promulgating protracted wars will not bode well for nuclear arms control and avoiding catastrophic loss of life that should be unacceptable to all. 

Engaging in discussions on crisis avoidance, crisis management, and implementing safeguards to prevent misperceptions that could result in nuclear use would be obvious priorities. Reliable communication channels among the three nations will be essential for managing clashes and ensuring that intentions are clear in any crisis situation.

In current circumstances in which nuclear threats have been issued over the conflict in Ukraine, the risk of a regional conflict escalating to nuclear use should be clear. Perhaps considering a tripartite no first-use option would provide an objective that the three nations could work to accomplish.

Recent serious U.S. bilateral clashes with both Russia and China only underscore the importance for continually reviewing arms control and deterrence strategies to adjust to rapidly shifting geopolitical circumstances. Entering into dialogue on nuclear security would help the three parties to gain better understanding of the capabilities and intentions of the others. Russia has agreed to abide by the New START limits on numbers of deployed long-range nuclear forces.  The United States and Russia might consider agreeing to reductions in order to incentivize China’s cooperation.

Destabilization of major nuclear power collaboration will undermine successes of the nuclear non-proliferation regime as several nations will only be more determined to acquire nuclear capacity in response to changing and strained geopolitical circumstances. In the past, although the United States has been able to collaborate with Russia and China on issues such as engaging Iran in nuclear negotiations, reigning in the North Korean nuclear threat, and achieving successes in nuclear nonproliferation, the risk of uncontrolled proliferation among both state and non-state actors will only increase if the three countries are not able to manage geopolitical strains.

Given the longstanding U.S.-Soviet/Russia experience and prior successes in nuclear arms control, it would be wise to build on this foundation and experience while reaching out to bring China into a major nuclear power triad. Simultaneously, it would be important to strengthen multilateral negotiations in nuclear security among P5 countries while perhaps broadening dialogue with other nuclear nations regarding safeguards necessary for developments in artificial intelligence and other areas.

These measures toward preventing a nuclear arms race, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and avoiding nuclear first use will certainly be difficult to implement at this juncture. However, such steps would serve the interests of the United States, Russia, and China and enhance security of the global community and should be among the highest priorities for the world’s leading nuclear powers.