As the United States (US) cancelled its much-awaited final Presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, several burning questions about the candidates’ foreign policy goals remain unanswered, particularly with respect to their global arms control and nuclear weapons ambitions. While Trump and the Republican party have made it abundantly clear that they plan to continue down their current path, the Biden campaign has, until now, not revealed much except his fervent desire to scale back moves by the Trump administration. With the future of Washington’s crucial New START treaty with Moscow in jeopardy and North Korea’s recent show of its nuclear capabilities, the outcome of the election is likely to have a slow yet major effect on how the world tackles nuclear arms control and proliferation.
The Trump administration has taken bold moves in the international arms space, especially with respect to its adversaries in Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia. For starters, Trump’s withdrawal from crucial agreements like the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty (OST), followed by the imposition of crippling economic sanctions on countries it deems to be violative of national interest and international laws, has changed and reduced Washington’s negotiating power in the international system.
For example, several members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council opposed the renewal of international sanctions on Iran due to its sorry economic state and stifled healthcare capabilities during the pandemic, but the Trump administration soldiered on, calling for a ‘snapback’ of sanctions despite its non-participation in the JCPOA. This has irked several European allies, who heavily criticized the US’ lack of jurisdiction in calling for such a move in the first place. Further, several analysts have opined that the President has manifestly failed in his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Tehran, as he has been unable to coerce the Al Khameini regime to renegotiate the JCPOA and contain Iran’s growing influence and aggression in the Middle East. If anything, the US’ insistence on choking Iran without entering any sort of negotiations with its government has paved the way for China to step in and aid the country not only financially, but also militarily through the introduction a new bilateral security agreement.
Furthermore, while Trump’s historic June 2018 Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended on a promising note, with a joint declaration curbing the testing of long-range missiles, Washington’s continued sanctions regime has also signalled severe mistrust of Pyonyang’s sovereign ability to adhere to bilateral commitments. In fact, Pyongyang’s display of its new range of deadly intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) last week, which the Pentagon has seen as the country’s newest way to threaten the US, was not at all surprising, considering that Kim has made it abundantly clear that his primary demand is the lifting of economic sanctions.
The Trump administration’s stubbornness may also cost it the New START treaty with Moscow, which the latter has been keen to reform. Russia has been vying for amendments to be made to the agreement before it expires in February, stating that a renewed deal should include new strategic-range conventional weapons in missile and space defence, and should be willing to accommodate China. Russian Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said that Moscow has made it a “priority” to reach a final deal with the US before the treaty expires, fearing that it may become more complicated post the November elections.
However, while the US is continuing to propose an arsenal freeze, which Russia has rejected several times, the Trump administration is still peddling hope to voters that the New START will be renewed before the Presidential vote. “If the Americans need to report to their superiors that they allegedly reached agreement with Russia before their elections, they won’t get it,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said late on Tuesday, “If the Americans would agree with the documents we gave them, then an agreement could be reached tomorrow, but as the differences are too big, I can’t imagine what grounds our colleagues in Washington have to suggest such things.”
Further, the Trump administration’s shift away from multilateralism—as evidenced by its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, and freezing of funding to the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic—has also solidified the belief that a second term would further isolate the US from international fora, including those of global arms control efforts. The President’s intentions to leave the NATO have also brought into question the US’ future relations with traditional European allies, who have grown increasingly concerned about the US’ shifted posturing towards emerging autocratic governments in the Global South and Trump’s close personal relationships with autocratic leaders like Kim, Vladimir Putin, and Jair Bolsonaro.
Vipin Narang, a nuclear security expert, has identified three main nuclear challenges to the world—vertical proliferation, or the development of nukes in states that already possess nuclear arsenals; horizontal proliferation, which is the spread of nukes to new countries; and an increasing global trend of unilateral attacks that challenge the very notion of deterrence, such as the Balakot airstrike and Turkey’s attack on US troops despite the fact that it houses over 50 American nukes. In this vein, he notes that Russia and China’s nuclear modernization programmes are heavily driven by the US’ large nuclear and conventional counterforce capabilities. Doubled with the Trump administration’s withdrawal from crucial treaties, these developments threaten to disrupt strategic stability.
However, while Biden may be accurate in calling out the Trump administration for its failures in this domain, he has not really offered up a specific alternative. For instance, he has said that his government would “offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy” by re-entering the JCPOA but has not mentioned what incentives they would use to anchor negotiations. Biden has also said that he is open to negotiations with Kim but has again not delved into details about what a possible deterrence strategy with North Korea would entail.
Further, the former Vice President has made it clear that a new arms race is dangerous and has openly committed to reducing US military reliance on nuclear weapons, adopting the No First Use policy—something President Barack Obama did not commit to. Yet, his campaign website’s 48 policy initiatives only include one foreign policy highlight, which prioritizes the reparation of US alliances across the Atlantic and the stabilization of Sino-American relations. And while Biden may have the right intentions by going on record to support a five-year extension of the New START, he may not have enough time to enter discussions with Moscow after assuming leadership, especially considering his rather hostile stance towards its government.
Yet, it is worth noting that Trump’s plan of modernizing the country’s nuclear arsenal has bipartisan Congressional support, despite budget pressures. Washington’s conflation of the Chinese threat has led to a situation where the US military has five times the ballistics deployed in shooting distance of Chinese territory than Beijing has within the range of the continental US. It is not an easy feat to roll back these weapons, even if Biden wants to, especially considering the financial costs involved. Both candidates also face the task of balancing the security ambitions of its biggest ally in the Middle East, Israel, who, despite the widely-welcomed Abraham Accords, has vehemently opposed the sale of American arms and F-35s to Arab countries.
Further, Biden’s own track record of hawkish foreign policy, which focuses on a US-centric value-based evaluation of human rights, may not bode very well immediately in a world where liberal democracy is losing popularity, especially for rising powers in the Global South like Brazil and India, whose ties with Washington have flourished under Trump. This may also hamper efforts at maintaining deterrence and brokering peace in the ‘forever wars’, as Washington pulls back its troops from conflicts where Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China are emerging as major military and financial supporters of regimes and their opponents.
Lastly and more importantly, if elected, Biden faces the major task of cleaning up the domestic mess that Trump has created—there is mounting public pressure for the next administration to manage the coronavirus crisis, rising unemployment, and the issue of police reform and systemic racism. With his primary focus being the rejoining of multilateral treaties and a simultaneous rollback of Trump’s COVID-19 efforts, Biden may not be able to afford to throw away all of Trump’s foreign policy moves. Rather, he must work slowly and tactfully at repairing lost relationships and building trust in existing ones and be willing to roll back sanctions regimes in exchange for meaningful negotiations with Pyongyang and Tehran. To reclaim the American position in global arms control talks, the extension of the New START and the brokerage of a peace deal between North and South Korea may be the most crucial immediate steps moving forward.
Can Biden Undo Trump’s Global Arms Control Blunders?
Pressing domestic issues may impede the urgency by which a Biden administration tackles Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
October 16, 2020
SOURCE: LAZARO GAMIO/AXIOS