‘Apocalypse No.’ Why the world is moving away from global catastrophe

News that Russia would consider extending the nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the US offers a ray of unexpected light at a time of unrelenting war, writes Mary Dejevsky

If there has been one message from the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine recently, it has been “more of the same”. The hopes of halting violence that Donald Trump brought to office have evaporated. The word ceasefire is barely heard. Any movement has been towards more rather than less war.

At the UN General Assembly this week, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Russia was preparing to lead the world through “the most destructive arms race in human history”. Ten days ago, after an incursion of presumed Russian drones into Poland, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned that his country was closer to military conflict “than at any time since the Second World War”. Trump recently gave an apparent go-ahead to the prospect of Nato countries shooting down intruding Russian drones, seconded by the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Into this doom-laden picture, however, a narrow shaft of light comes from a completely unexpected quarter. In a statement preceding a routine meeting of the Russian Security Council, Vladimir Putin said that Russia would support extending the long-range nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, by another year when it comes up for expiry in February – as long as the United States agrees to do the same, and refrained from any actions that might change the current nuclear status quo.

There was no knee-jerk dismissal from the United States, with the White House spokeswoman saying the proposal sounded "pretty good", but that Trump would respond to the offer himself.

The proposal could have reverberations that go beyond the two signatories. Not only does it contradict the pervasive diplomatic mood, but its extension could be seen as a modest and realistic move that would cost the US nothing, while serving the wider security interest.

‘The New START treaty is the one area where Russia feels that it is treated as an equal to the United States’ (REUTERS)

The New START treaty is the last survivor of the arms control architecture painstakingly negotiated between the US and the Soviet Union and then Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. In talks with successive US presidents, it has been the reliable fallback agenda item for Russia. If there is nothing more pressing to discuss then arms control, and the combination of technical issues and confidence-building it represents, keeps talks chuntering along. It is also the one area where Russia feels that it is treated as an equal to the United States.

In arguing for the treaty to be extended by a year, the Kremlin spokesman said that time was “running out” to negotiate a new treaty, and the risk was of a situation where there were no bilateral documents regulating strategic security. Keeping the treaty in force would allow both sides to avoid, or at least postpone, the expensive arms race that would be likely if New START were to lapse. What the spokesman did not say was that another year could provide time not only to explore the outlines of a new treaty, but perhaps to put out feelers to China for a possible three-way strategic nuclear treaty.

That the initiative to extend New START came from Russia suggests a degree of vulnerability that it rarely admits to. Of course, both the official Kremlin spokesman and Putin in his National Security Council remarks insisted that Russia would be equal to the task of upping Russian security, even if the treaty expired. But it would clearly prefer the element of assurance it believes the treaty continues to give.

Which provides a possible link to the Ukraine war. Russia’s hopes of rescuing the last vestiges of superpower nuclear arms control should be a cue for the US, if not also Nato, to grasp that Russian security concerns were at very least a contributory cause of the 2022 invasion. Whenever Trump and Putin have discussed Ukraine, a recurrent theme has been the need for any lasting end to the war to address what Russia calls "underlying issues".

It is worth repeating that it is not only Ukraine and its European allies that want security guarantees from the United States; Russia wants something similar. Extending the New START treaty could thus be a first step in a new stage of international arms control direction. Allowing it to lapse, on the other hand, would be a retrograde step that could diminish global security.

The Kremlin’s proposal is a significant initiative that also betrays Russia’s own sense of insecurity – something that Trump has long understood. To offer hope of even a marginally safer world, however, Russia’s proposal needs to be taken seriously. Putin has made his pitch, and he is unlikely to repeat it. The next move has to come from Donald Trump.