The Coming Demise of Arms Control?

The last supporting column in the structure of arms control is wobbling and will soon fall over if nothing is done to stabilize it.

Rose Gottemoeller makes an appeal to save New START:

Sustaining New Start is no less in the interest of both countries. The treaty ensures that our bilateral nuclear future is clear and predictable. It provides a moral, political and technical backdrop against which we can each engage China. And it means that we will not again build up to the 12,000 nuclear weapons that we readied, one against the other, by the Cold War’s end.

There are three years left before New START expires, there is nothing that will take its place when it is gone, and right now it is not being fully implemented. In the absence of regular inspections that can verify that both states are complying with the treaty’s limits, we cannot be sure that the treaty is being honored. The last supporting column in the structure of arms control is wobbling and will soon fall over if nothing is done to stabilize it, and the entire structure will come down with it.