Arms Control Helps Contain the Ukraine Crisis

Arms Control Helps Contain the Ukraine Crisis

Apr 10, 2014 03:00 am | Steven Pifer

Steven Pifer

The Ukraine crisis has plunged U.S. and Western relations with Russia toward a post–Cold War low. The damage will continue for some time, especially in the event of a Russian military incursion into eastern Ukraine. Among the victims could be further progress on arms control. Yet arms control is now all the more valuable. It puts important bounds on an increasingly confrontational U.S.-Russian relationship.
The Kremlin’s occupation and annexation of Crimea plus its persisting military pressure on Ukraine have broken a cardinal rule of the post–World War II European order: states should not use force to take territory from other states. The West has responded with sanctions against Russia, and will likely apply additional penalties if Moscow continues to escalate the crisis.
This deterioration in East-West relations caused by Russian actions has already claimed a number of victims, including NATO-Russian cooperation. The U.S. government has frozen a wide range of bilateral contacts with Moscow, as have European governments. Unfortunately, another victim could be further arms control.
Prior to the Ukraine crisis, Washington and Moscow had a full arms-control agenda—including further cuts in strategic forces, limits on tactical nuclear weapons, a resolution of differences on missile defense, and the restoration of a conventional arms-control regime in Europe—though little progress had been registered in the past two years. Russia has shown particularly little interest in new bilateral nuclear-arms reductions, arguing instead for multilateral nuclear arms control, even though U.S. and Russian nuclear forces dwarf those of any third nuclear-weapons state.
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