Treaties and Programs
The Kabuki continues
Here's a one word description for the confluence of US diplomacy and defense spending regarding nuclear weapons: Zitterbewegnung, a compounding of zittern, to tremble, and Bewegnung, motion. It was coined by Erwin Schrödinger to describe the rapid oscillatory motion of free electrons in Dirac's relativistic formulation of quantum mechanics, in case you're interested, but in the present context it denotes the constant vacillation among various conflicting diplomatic goals and weapons programs that has characterized the US since the Reagan era. Picture something moving back and forth so rapidly that it becomes a blur. Biden was bad, but Trump is worse: It is a bipartisan problem.
This post discusses the US nuclear programs as they are understood to be as of late May 2025 and their relationship with select international treaties, without considering the set of statements on nuclear warfare, nuclear weapons and international treaties by the senior officials of the US Government. That is not to say that we should ignore such statements, but rather that we should analyze actions and not words.
The figure at the top of the post lists a half dozen arms control treaties from a much longer list of treaties and conventions tracked by the Arms Control Association [1] [2]. Starting at the top of the list, we have the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (PNWT), which is listed because it is aspirational and because it provides a mechanism for the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Quoting the ACA, this treaty “. . . reinforces the commitments of these states against the use, threat of use, development, production, manufacture, acquisition, possession, stockpiling, transfer, stationing, or installation of nuclear weapons. It reinforces states' commitments to the NPT [Non Proliferation Treaty] and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).” [3] In other words, the 94 signatory states (of which 78 have ratified to date) will have nothing whatsoever to do with nuclear weapons. Unsurprisingly, none of the nine nuclear armed countries (The P5 consisting of the US, Russian Federation, PRC, UK and France; plus India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel) have signed, but the Union of South Africa joined in conjunction with abandoning its nuclear weapons program. The treaty provides two mechanisms by which a nuclear armed state can join. As indicated by the red arrow, the Sentinel ICBM program designates US military planning as contrary to the aims of the PNWT.
The New START (STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is the latest in a list of strategic nuclear weapons treaties between the US and the Russian Federation and its predecessor USSR tracing back several decades, starting with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). It is the most important treaty between the US and Russia, and the only one that imposes limitations of any kind on our nuclear arsenals. Its terms include a provision to extend the treaty for five years, which was done in 2021. The treaty is due to expire in February 2026, and no serious discussion of its replacement is taking place. This treaty is complex, as you can see for yourself at [4] or other links provided in [1]. Russia suspended implementation of the treaty in 2023, meaning that on-site inspections are no longer being carried out. Over the past few years, there have been proposals to begin negotiations for a follow on treaty, some involving the PRC, and also proposals for a so-called “gentleman's agreement” to keep the existing limits in place until a new treaty can be negotiated. These proposals have failed to gain traction for a number of reasons, including
Trump's refusal to negotiate a follow-on or extension to the treaty during his first term in office;
Putin's attempt to prevent US support of Ukraine by refusing to negotiate while his war of aggression is ongoing;
The refusal of the PRC to enter into talks with the US and Russia as long as both countries retain vastly larger nuclear arsenals; and
The Zitterbewegnung in US statements and, more recently, the total loss of competence in negotiating technical details through the gutting of the administration's National Security Council Staff.
The Sentinel program provides a further obstacle because the missiles are being designed to carry as many as three warheads, vice one on the Minuteman III missiles they are scheduled to replace. The 400 planned Sentinels alone would potentially carry 50% more warheads than New START allows, and that does not even include the submarine-launched ICBMs. To make matters even worse, the Air Force has recently announced that it abandoning efforts to house the Sentinels in the Minuteman III silos, opening the path for the Sentinels to augment rather than replace the Minuteman IIIs. Sixteen hundred US land based ICBM warheads, twice the New Start limit, not even including the subs.
One way for the US to signal its desire to at the very least freeze strategic nuclear arsenals at their present level would be to modify the Sentinel program to eliminate the possibility of multiple warheads per launch vehicle. Were that to be done, we could further specify the requirement to transfer existing warheads from the Minuteman III missiles to their Sentinel replacements, which would also save tens of billions of dollars through the radical scaling back of the accompanying Plutonium Pits production expansion. An additional way to signal an earnest desire for nuclear arms control would be to cancel Golden Dome, as discussed below.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is an example of an arms control agreement which has worked almost perfectly, and can continue to do so if there is continuity in the balance of terror. Its sole example of imperfection is North Korea, which signed the treaty but then withdrew when accused of having a nuclear weapons program. Another problem is that India, Pakistan and Israel are not signatories, with evidence that Pakistan has provided weapon design assistance to North Korea. As is the case for the PNWT, these countries can join the NPT by giving up their nuclear weapons, as South Africa has done. One provision of the NPT is that all its signatories pledge to work toward complete nuclear disarmament. Clearly the six nuclear weapons states that are signatories are acting in violation of that provision.
US activities and policy changes can threaten the viability of the NPT in two ways.
As the US loses trustworthiness over its commitment to protect its allies, including NATO countries and South Korea, there is increased incentive for the non-nuclear weapons states among them to develop their own weapons; and
If the US resumes testing it will weaken the disincentive of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) toward testing, in effect encouraging other states to conduct their own nuclear weapons tests. Especially in the cases of current non-nuclear states, adherence to the CTBT is a serious road block to successful nuclear weapon development.
Of all the US nuclear weapons programs, the Golden Dome program is by far the most destabilizing, even if the scientific consensus of its practical infeasibility is borne out. [5]
First, it has a very negative effect on the sizes of ICBM arsenals, because to ensure a constant level of deterrence in the face of even limited ABM effectiveness, the size of the arsenal must increase. Because it is far cheaper to build and maintain an offensive capability of this type than a defensive one, our adversaries will take that path, absent some miraculous technological breakthrough;
Although the ABM Treaty is long dead, its principal aim remains valid, and Golden Dome stands opposed to that aim, which was to remove the incentive for arsenal building while providing a measure of assurance that each country's ability to retaliate could withstand a sneak attack; and
Depending on details of the Golden Dome implementation and interpretation of the treaty, it is arguable that deployment of Golden Dome would violate the Outer Space Treaty. Note that the PRC is not a party to that treaty, and has already conducted a successful destruction of a satellite. (Effective anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons can render the space-based component of Golden Dome less effective.)
The ABM treaty was an agreement between the US and USSR to severely limit deployment of anti ballistic missile systems, in recognition of the fact that widespread deployment of such systems would lead to a major increase in the number of nuclear weapons. Each side was allowed to build a very limited system – originally two sites, then later reduced to one - for the purpose of ensuring that the ability to retaliate could not be incapacitated by a small sized sneak attack. Remarkably, the US remained in the treaty even though spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the failed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, aka Star Wars) program, deployment of which would have been in clear violation of the treaty. The US abandoned SDI, withdrew from the ABM treaty (President George W. Bush, 2002) and has continued its program with the intent of fielding a system capable of defeating a very limited ICBM attack by North Korea. It is theorized by some, myself included, that this ongoing effort is responsible at least in part for the PRC's nuclear weapons buildup. The PRC's ASAT program can also be seen as a response to the US ABM effort.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) bans nuclear test explosions or any nuclear explosion. Of the nine nuclear armed states, only the UK and France have ratified the Treaty. The other seven, plus Iran and Egypt, have not, although of those, only North Korea has conducted a nuclear weapons test. Technically, the Treaty does not come into force until all of the nine holdouts have signed it. It is rumored that some members of Congress, and possibly of the administration, wish to have the US resume nuclear testing. This would repeat an effort undertaken in 2020, which was defeated.
Notes
[1] https://www.armscontrol.org/treaties
[2] Noteworthy among the other treaties are the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and the various (regional) Nuclear Weapons Free Zone treaties. The INF eliminated nuclear armed ballistic- and cruise missiles having ranges of 500 – 5000 km. After accusing Russia of violating the treaty annually in 2014 – 2018, the US withdrew from it under President Trump in 2018, followed by Putin's Russia shortly after. Ostensibly, the US Submarine Launched Cruise Missile – Nuclear (SLCM-N), now in development, would be in violation of the INF, as is the Russian 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile. Submarines armed with the SLCM-N will be prohibited from making port calls in any member state of a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.
[3] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons
[4] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/NewSTART
[5] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/transmuting-iron-to-gold