IFSH Research Report #002

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

RESEARCH REPORT#002

ABOUT THE AUTHORSABOUT THE INSTITUTE

Ulrich Kühn (editor) is Head of the Arms Control and Emerging Technologies program at
the Institute for Peace Research and Security
Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH).
			
kuehn@ifsh.deDavid Santoro is Vice President and Director
for Nuclear Policy at Pacific Forum, a nonprofit foreign policy think tank based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
			david@pacforum.org

Alexey Arbatov is Head of the Center for International Security at IMEMO, a former participantof the START-I negotiations (1991), and member of the Russian State Duma (1994-2003).
			arbatov@imemo.ru

Tong Zhao is a Senior Fellow in the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear
Policy Program based at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.
			zhaot2005@gmail.com

Copyright Cover Foto: iStockphoto
Text License: Creative Commons CC-BY-ND (Attribution/NoDerivatives/4.0 International).
IFSH – Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg
Beim Schlump 83 20144 Hamburg Germany Phone +49 40 866077 - 0 ifsh@ifsh.de www.ifsh.de

The Institute for Peace Research and Security
Policy (IFSH) researches the conditions forpeace and security in Germany, Europe andbeyond. The IFSH conducts its research
independently. It is funded by the Free andHanseatic City of Hamburg.
Funded by:

Trilateral Arms Control?

Perspectives from
Washington,
Moscow, and Beijing

ULRICH KÜHN (ED.) / ALEXEY ARBATOV /DAVID SANTORO / TONG ZHAO | 03/2020

IFSH Research Report #002

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and BeijingTrilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Ulrich Kühn (ed.) /Alexey Arbatov / David Santoro / Tong Zhao

Trilateral Arms Control?
Perspectives from Washington,
Moscow, and Beijing

3

IFSH Research Report #002

Table of Contents
Foreword by Ulrich Kühn

3

Executive Summary

4David Santoro:“A U.S. Perspective on Trilateral Arms Control:
A Long Shot – Within Reach”

6Alexey Arbatov:“Trilateral Nuclear Arms Control –A Russian Assessment”

38

Tong Zhao:“The Case for China’s Participation in
Trilateral Arms Control”

68

About the Authors

96

4

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Foreword
With the end of the INF Treaty in 2019, trilateral arms control – meaning arms
control between the United States, Russia, and China – has gained center stage.
Only shortly after the U.S. withdrawal, U.S. President Trump declared that hewants a new nuclear pact to be signed by both Russia and China. Other U.S.
administration officials have set the goal of including China in a future follow-on
framework to the New START agreement, which expires in February 2021.
It is easy to dismiss the idea of trilateral arms control or arms control with China
as far-fetched and just another lofty goal of the mercurial Trump administration.
However, a couple of reasons speak quite strongly for a novel format that would
go beyond the Cold War-style U.S.-Russian bilateralism. As the world enters an
age of seemingly unconstrained great power competition, arms control between
the “big three” could help strengthen arms race and crisis stability and provide aplatform for strategic dialogue. Also, now that the bilateral frameworks between
Washington and Moscow are eroding, bringing in China could signal to the restof the world that nuclear arms control has a future. The latter could help to renew
the disarmament promise that nuclear-weapons states have signed up to under
the NPT.
Then again, could trilateral arms control be possible at all? What would be necessary conditions? Why should Washington, Moscow, and Beijing engage in an
uncertain endeavor that promises to significantly affect their strategic relationships? Those are just three of the questions I asked the authors of this report toaddress. It is important to note that the goal of this report was never to arrive at
a consensual opinion on trilateral arms control. Rather, I asked Alexey Arbatov(Russia), David Santoro (United States), and Tong Zhao (China) to reflect on
their respective national perspective and outline potential ways forward. Whatis encouraging, none of the authors sees trilateral arms control as pointless or
impossible. They all find reasons why their respective nation would benefit fromsuch a format.
Even though the time might not be ripe for arms control between the “big three,”it definitely makes sense to start thinking about the possible goals of and approaches to trilateral arms control.

Ulrich Kühn (editor), Hamburg, March 2020

5

IFSH Research Report #002

Executive Summary❚❚ None of the three authors deems trilateral arms control – meaning arms
control between the United States, Russia, and China – impossible or pointless.
Instead, all three list compelling reasons why their respective nation would
benefit from such a trilateral format. They even agree that trilateral engagement
should start now. Though, they also agree that under current conditions, many
trilateral arms control options will most likely have to wait and would only bepossible over the mid to long term.
❚❚ None of the three authors excludes the possibility that the next round of
nuclear arms control would still, initially, be only between the United States andRussia or that Washington and Beijing might agree on a bilateral framework
before arms control goes trilateral.
❚❚ All three authors recommend their governments to engage further in nuclear
arms control, including in various already existing formats. In particular, all threeagree that the New START agreement, limiting the strategic forces of the UnitedStates and Russia, should not simply be left to expire in 2021. Instead, theagreement should be extended for another five years.
❚❚ Against the background of great power competition between the UnitedStates, Russia, and China, the authors see a heightened potential for arms raceand crisis instability, particularly in East Asia, should unconstrained nuclear andconventional competition ensue. In that regard, particularly the end of the INF
Treaty creates uncertainties for regional and global security and could contributeto additional arms racing in various weapons systems, the authors conclude.
❚❚ Any future trilateral arms control arrangement should, according to theauthors, take into account the asymmetric nature of the nuclear balance between
the United States and China as well as between Russia and China. These
asymmetries affect their latent or actual deterrence relationships, their posturesand doctrines, and potential future arms control measures. These asymmetries
also imply the need for a certain amount of flexibility in the systems covered
should it ever come to the stage of defining the scope of trilateral arms control.

6Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing❚❚ According to the authors, the three countries should publicly acknowledge
that they are mutually vulnerable in order to help strengthen strategic stability. In
that regard, all authors identify U.S. ballistic missile defense systems as a serious
obstacle to progress on arms control, which could be solved were compromise
possible.
❚❚ In the near term – the authors stress to varying degrees – all sides should
engage in confidence-building measures that could prepare the ground for later
reductions, including military-to-military contacts, capacity-building efforts, andincreased track 1.5 exchanges.
❚❚ All three authors agree that a future trilateral arrangement or a bilateral
Chinese-American arrangement cannot be based on the idea of exclusively
constraining China’s capabilities. Rather, any future format would have to find agive-and-take formula that somewhat satisfies the respective national interests.
❚❚ As regards the scope of a potential trilateral arms control arrangement, thethree authors suggest and discuss different though also similar approaches that
could involve forces considered “strategic” under New START, those of INFrange under the now defunct INF Treaty, and sea- and air-based systems outsideof the INF Treaty’s original land-focused scope.
❚❚ In order to address asymmetry in systems and numbers between the three
countries, the authors prefer not to end up with an arms control arrangement thatlegalizes massive increases in numbers in order to arrive at more symmetricalceilings. According to the authors, such possible solution would run counter tointernational disarmament obligations. Alternatively, also the option of mixing
certain systems under equal umbrella ceilings is discussed.

7

IFSH Research Report #002

A U.S. Perspective on Trilateral
Arms Control: A Long Shot –Within ReachDavid Santoro
1. INTRODUCTION“I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with
President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has
become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.”1 This was a tweet by U.S.
President Donald Trump sent on December 3, 2018 on the heels of the U.S.
decision to withdraw from the U.S.-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces(INF) Treaty and amidst questions about the future of New START. It was the firsttime a U.S. president officially called for an expansion of nuclear arms control,
which so far has been bilateral: between the United States and the Soviet Union
during the Cold War, and then between the United States and Russia.
Trump’s tweet was not a vague wish expressed in a random tweet. In his 2019
State of the Union Address, the President suggested there should be a new
INF Treaty that would include China and others. 2 Two months later, he insisted
that the United States, Russia, and China should “[come] together” to control
the arms race and, later that month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said thatthe next agreement should be more comprehensive and include China.3 News
reports followed indicating that Trump had ordered his administration to prepare
for a comprehensive, trilateral arms control push, and senior administration
officials explained they would approach Moscow and Beijing separately andtogether.4 Former officials from the George W. Bush administration, too, stressedthat “China’s nuclear forces must also be included in any future [arms control]
negotiations.”5 Then, in May, Republican senators Tom Cotton and John Cornyn,
along with Republican representative Liz Cheney, introduced legislation thatwould prevent New START extension unless, among other things, China weremade a party, and senior administration officials Andrea Thompson and David
Trachtenberg also stressed that Russia and China should be brought to the arms
control table.6
Yet when Trump publicly said that he and Putin had discussed making a “threeway deal” with China, adding that Beijing “would very much like to be part of8

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijingthat deal,” the Chinese leadership denied and rejected the offer.7 Beijing thenreiterated its opposition repeatedly, echoing its earlier rejection of joining a new
INF Treaty.8
China has argued that the United States and Russia should continue to lead onarms control because, despite having undertaken important nuclear reductions
since the end of the Cold War, they still have much larger arsenals than China
and other nuclear-armed states. This is a solid argument. Today, of the 13,890
nuclear warheads believed to exist in the world, the United States and Russia
possess 12,685 and the rest is split between France (300), China (290), theUnited Kingdom (215), Pakistan (150), India (140), Israel (80), and North Korea(25).9 Therefore, much like the French, UK, Pakistani, Indian, Israeli, and North
Korean arsenals, the Chinese arsenal is a small fraction of U.S. and Russianforces.
For now, U.S. thinking about trilateral arms control is unclear. It is unclear if
U.S. officials want incorporation of China into New START, or if they want a new
agreement. If they want the latter, it is unclear if that agreement would focus on
nuclear warheads or deployed forces, or if it would include a verification regime.
Recently, there have even been suggestions that Washington may engage
Russia and China separately first. Christopher Ford, Assistant Secretary at the
Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation,stated in December 2019: “We want to engage directly with our Russian andChinese counterparts in bilateral and ultimately trilateral talks on strategic
security, nuclear posture and doctrine, and the role of nuclear weapons in our
respective security postures, with an eye to setting in place measures to deliver
real security results to our nations and the entire world.”10 Shortly thereafter,
Ford invited Russia and China to bilateral “strategic security dialogues” with theUnited States; a U.S.-Russia dialogue round took place in mid-January 2020,
while China did not respond.
2. WHY TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL IS HERE TO STAY
Still, trilateral arms control is here to stay, for three reasons. First, because Trumpis personally interested. In a March 2018 call with Putin, Trump had alreadystated that he wanted to bring the arms race under control.11 Trump has also
had a longstanding affinity for arms control because it presents an opportunity
to showcase his self-promoted deal-making skills.12 Besides, Trump is serious
about bringing China into the arms control fold: China has been a major focus

9

IFSH Research Report #002

of his foreign policy, a country his 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS)
deems “revisionist,” and against which his administration has orchestrated
comprehensive pushback.13
Beyond Trump, while Republicans have proved more skeptical than Democrats,
there is general agreement in the United States that arms control is good for thecountry. Americans believe it helps maintain stable and predictable relationships
with competitors. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), for instance, statesthat arms control “can foster transparency, understanding, and predictability
in adversary relations, thereby reducing the risk of misunderstanding
and miscalculation.”14 Americans also believe arms control helps sustain
U.S. extended deterrence and alliance cohesion, and that it benefits U.S.
nonproliferation policy; the United States, as the other “Nuclear-Weapon States”(NWS) identified in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT),
is required to move toward disarmament, and Washington has regarded arms
control as one of these steps.15 As the United States is refocusing on Asia and,in so doing, getting into an increasingly competitive relationship with China, abipartisan issue that will extend beyond the Trump administration, incorporating
China into arms control will continue to gain traction.16
Second, trilateral arms control is unlikely to die because Moscow is not opposed
to it. The Russians agree with Americans about arms control. Russia’s Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, for instance, listed predictability as one of arms
control’s core contributions to Russian security and Moscow, too, thinks that
arms control helps Russia fulfill its NPT obligations. Moreover, as explained later,
despite growing closeness and cooperation between Russia and China, there isa deterrence relationship between the two countries. That is why Moscow has
long called for arms control multilateralization and, while the Russians have also
been interested in involving the United Kingdom and France (the two nucleararmed U.S. allies), they have welcomed the U.S. call for trilateral arms control.
Ryabkov stated: “When our American colleagues actually get to the point where
they give us something concrete, we will look at this with interest and I hope ina positive way.”17
Third, the push for trilateral arms control is unlikely to go away because arms
control multilateralization is the plan at the core of the NPT. Arms control
began as a bilateral process (U.S.-Soviet, then U.S.-Russia) because thesetwo countries have held most nuclear weapons. Yet the NPT and subsequentdecisions made under its umbrella have made clear that all NWS are required

10Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

to lead on disarmament and, therefore, engage in arms control. There has also
been general agreement that the “NPT holdouts,” i.e., the countries that havedeveloped nuclear weapons outside the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan, and now
North Korea), are required to disarm. This cannot be dismissed, especiallygiven the development of the nuclear-disarmament norm, which has becomeso strong recently that a new process has emerged outside the NPT. Frustrated
by what they deem to be slow disarmament progress, several countries andcivil-society movements have sought fast nuclear-weapon elimination under thebanner of the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Yet because
nuclear weapons cannot disappear overnight (because they are tied to security
realities), arms control will continue to be the only viable answer. The pressure ison, however, for it to deliver results faster, and do so beyond the bilateral format.
Analysts frequently suggest that arms control multilateralization should begin
with all NWS, i.e., that China, France, and the United Kingdom should join Russia
and the United States, building upon the “P5 process” established in 2009.18
NPT holdouts should then follow.
There is, however, a good rationale for incorporating only China first. Not justbecause expanding the process further would be too big to manage, but also
because unlike China, the other nuclear-armed states will either not increase
their forces (France, Israel, the United Kingdom) or do so by a few dozen (North
Korea) or hundreds (India and Pakistan). Plainly, the impact of the nuclear
decisions and developments made by these seven states will remain limited.
Nuclear dangers will increase because of choices made in New Delhi, Islamabad,and Pyongyang, but the consequences will be either managed (by sanctions andextended deterrence for North Korea) or remain contained at the sub-regional
level (in South Asia for India and Pakistan). By contrast, China has been building
its arsenal steadily, both quantitatively and qualitatively and, recently, it has done
so fast. Besides, China has been building up in an opaque manner: Beijing has
not been transparent about its modernization program, fueling speculations
about its intent, particularly given that the Chinese leadership has adopted anincreasingly assertive posture. The considerable financial and technologicalresources that Beijing has at its disposal also give China the option to grow its
arsenal much bigger, much faster.
China must be aware of these dynamics. By now, it must know that competition
with the United States is here to stay and that the nuclear dimension of thebilateral relationship will not be insulated. As detailed later, the United States has

11

IFSH Research Report #002

insisted that China was a key driver in its decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty.
Beijing, therefore, must be beginning to wonder if it is still in its interest to stayout of arms control and face the prospect of uncontrolled nuclear competition.
Accordingly, it is timely to start thinking about trilateral arms control and how it
could take shape.
3. THE STRATEGIC SITUATION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES, RUSSIA,
AND CHINA: PAST, PRESENT, AND LOOMING DYNAMICS
To provide focus for a trilateral arms control plan, it is important to begin with ananalysis of the nuclear dynamics between the United States, Russia, and China.
Relationships between these three countries have evolved but each state has
envisaged major war with either of the other two, leading each to try to deter both.
Relationships between the three countries, therefore, have all been deterrence
relationships. That means arms control has a role to play: arms control is only
meaningful if there is a possibility of conflict between states.
3.1 THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA
The United States and Russia have held most of the world’s nuclear weapons andhave been nuclear peer competitors, even though they have used arms control
to push nuclear weapons into the background of their relationship. However, theU.S.-Russia relationship has deteriorated so much recently that it is threateningarms control and setting the stage for renewed nuclear competition.
During the early Cold War, Washington and Moscow engaged in intense arms
races, only to realize after dangerous crises (Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962)
that they were better off regulating their competition through arms control. This
began with a “hotline” (1963) and then limitations of, and reductions on, U.S.
and Soviet offensive and defensive arsenals with the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks Agreement (SALT) and the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile(ABM) Systems (1972), the INF Treaty (1987), and the START process (whichbegan in the 1980s). Arms control required U.S. and Soviet leaders to thinkbeyond fighting and winning wars and accept that, because they were mutuallyvulnerable, they should regulate their forces, and keep them roughly on par.19
Both Washington and Moscow, however, continued to pursue damage-limitation
strategies.20

12Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and BeijingWith the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, as Russia wasin transition, U.S.-Russia competition gave way to partnership, and there was anopportunity to push nuclear weapons into the background. Significant progress
was made. Washington and Moscow cooperated to repatriate to Russia thenuclear weapons scattered in the territories of the former Soviet Union. They
engaged in nuclear-security work, agreed to reciprocal reductions in substrategic nuclear weapons (1991), and reduced strategic nuclear weapons
through START (1991). Moreover, Washington and Moscow negotiated START
II (1993), began thinking about START III (1997), and agreed on responses toemerging missile threats from the Middle East and Northeast Asia in a mannerconsistent with the ABM Treaty (1997).
From the late 1990s, however, the U.S.-Russia relationship went from bad toworse. With Putin in power, the hopes of turning Russia into a democracy
dissipated. Putin also became confrontational toward the United States andthe West, which, he believed, had taken advantage of Russia’s weaknesses
and encroached on its interests and “near abroad” by intervening in the former
Yugoslavia, enlarging NATO up to Russia’s borders, and allegedly backing
the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, the U.S.-Russia
strategic relationship suffered. Russia ratified START II (2000) on the condition
that the U.S. Senate approve the ABM Demarcation Agreement, which proved
impossible and led to Washington’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and thenRussia’s withdrawal from START II (2002), paving the way for the U.S. decision
to create in Europe a U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) site to protect the U.S.
homeland (2007). This did not prevent U.S.-Russia cooperation, especially after
9/11, and arms control resumed with the ratification of the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty (SORT, 2003). But problems remained. Moscow became
worried about U.S. BMD and strategic conventional weapons, believing thatbehind its claim that it only wants protection against “rogues” such as North
Korea or Iran, Washington was after “absolute security”: the ability to defend
against, and even prevail over, Russia.21
The U.S. attempt to reset the U.S.-Russia relationship in the late 2000s failed.
A key factor was what Moscow perceived to be NATO’s aggressive action in
Libya, which extended beyond its mandate and suggested that the United States
wanted to act as a hegemon. The reset helped deliver New START (2010), but did
not resolve Russia’s concerns over BMD and strategic conventional weapons.22
So, when in 2013 Washington proposed that U.S. and Russian strategic forces
be reduced further, and sub-strategic and non-deployed forces constrained,

13

IFSH Research Report #002

Moscow declined. Moscow wanted an agreement that included not only
strategic offensive weapons, but also BMD, strategic conventional weapons, andspace and counter-space weapons, and it pushed for the multilateralization of
the process. This proved impossible for Washington, which wanted a narrower
bilateral agreement and BMD for protection against rogues; Washington tried,
unsuccessfully, to address Russian BMD concerns.23
The U.S.-Russian relationship then took a turn for the worse with Russia’s
annexation of Crimea (2014) and intervention in eastern Ukraine, which Putin
justified to protect Russian interests against U.S./Western overreach. Russia’sinterference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, intervention in Syria, andattempted assassination of a UK national and his daughter using chemical
weapons deepened the crisis. Putin’s post-Crimea promise to “snap back hard”
if threatened brought nuclear weapons back into the foreground, especiallywhen four years later, in 2018, the Russian president unveiled two novel strategic
nuclear weapons.24 This drove the United States to rethink nuclear deterrence
and, in the context of launching its modernization program (to follow Russia,
which began modernizing in 2011), led to the decision to advance two new nuclear
weapons.25 This also contributed to the U.S. decision to withdraw from the INF
Treaty, which Washington had assessed Moscow was violating since 2014, andraised questions about the future of U.S.-Russia arms control, particularly given
Russia’s insistence that the next round should be comprehensive and include
BMD.26 This was a redline for Washington, which was preoccupied by Moscow’s
sub-strategic forces. By the end of the 2010s, therefore, the U.S.-Russia arms
control partnership was falling apart, foreshadowing renewed competition.
3.2 THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA
Lately, the U.S.-China relationship has deteriorated so much that there are now
signs of spillover effects into the strategic relationship, which, for the first time,
could make nuclear weapons a key feature of U.S.-China dealings. Yet, unlike
the United States and Russia, Washington and Beijing are not nuclear peers andthey do not have an arms control relationship.
U.S.-China relations were tense in the early Cold War, especially when it became
clear, notably after the Korean War (1950-1953) and Taiwan Strait confrontation(1954-1955), that Beijing was developing a nuclear arsenal, initially with Soviet
assistance.27 Washington, however, quickly realized that Sino-Soviet nuclear
cooperation never materialized because Moscow, too, was concerned about

14

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Beijing going nuclear. That led U.S. officials to try and prevent Beijing fromreaching its goal by promoting arms control and nonproliferation, and exploring
military options, including with the Soviets.28
Yet, after Beijing tested its first atomic device in 1964, Washington decided that
the United States could live with a nuclear China. The belief was that the benefitsof U.S.-China rapprochement outweighed the costs and that the United States
was better off with China on its side against the Soviet Union. Another reason
was the realization that China was primarily concerned with the Soviet Union,
not the United States, and that Beijing had neither the ability nor, seemingly, thewillingness to engage in nuclear competition. Unlike Washington and Moscow,
Beijing developed a strategy of assured retaliation and did not pursue nuclear
warfighting. That is why Beijing has claimed to have a “self-defense nuclear
strategy,” why it has adopted a no-first use (NFU) policy, and why it has “only”
developed a small nuclear force, which it has kept de-mated.29
Through to the late 2000s, therefore, the United States was interested in engaging
China.30 The hope was that China would transform into a power that accepted
the existing international order, endorsed market forces, and implemented
democratic reforms.31 The United States also adopted such an approach
because it had other priorities: the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the loosenuke problem after the Soviet collapse, then small actors with nuclear-weapons
ambitions, and the strengthening of the nonproliferation and nuclear-security
regimes.
But from the late 2000s, Beijing became critical of the international orderand began to assert itself, notably in Asia. Moreover, instead of endorsing
market forces, Beijing began to expand mercantilist tools, and the Chinese
Communist Party, especially under Xi Jinping’s rule, became more repressive
and more nationalistic, seemingly to achieve the “China Dream” of national
rejuvenation.32 Washington also became concerned because Beijing ramped up
the modernization, diversification, and expansion of its strategic force, notablyof its short- and intermediate-range systems (systems banned by the INF Treaty,
to which China was not a party).33 Concerns ran high because Beijing does notreveal the size and shape of its nuclear arsenal, or the goal of its modernization
program.
Beijing, however, argued that its developments are defensive, that it has
always maintained a self-defense nuclear strategy and NFU policy, and that its

15

IFSH Research Report #002

modernization efforts are consistent with its tradition of minimum deterrence andsolely aimed at developing a “lean and effective” force. These are codewords
to stress that the goal is for Chinese forces to remain reliable and survivable,
especially as U.S. BMD and strategic conventional weapons improve, and as
the U.S. refocuses on Asia. China has had the same worries as Russia: thatit may become the target of such U.S. military developments because theUnited States allegedly seeks “absolute security.” China has been especiallyconcerned because the United States has refused to accept an NFU policy andthe existence of mutual vulnerability between them, suggesting that Washington
is not ruling out launching a disarming strike against Beijing.
Yet in addition to doubting the strength and veracity of China’s NFU policy,
the United States has become concerned that Beijing may abandon minimum
deterrence and “sprint to nuclear parity” with Washington (and Moscow), especiallyas that the latter have been building their nuclear arsenals down.34Concerns havealso increased because, besides refusing to be transparent about its activities,
China has rejected nuclear dialogue (and arms control) despite repeated U.S.
invitations, and adopted an assertive military posture.35
The relationship deteriorated further from the mid-2010s, when the UnitedStates identified China as a major competitor and began pushing back against
Beijing. In the context of Beijing’s military reforms (launched in 2015) and withuncertainty, despite Chinese reassurances, about the impact on Chinese nuclear
strategy and weapons programs, the United States now seems to have opted
for nuclear competition with China because it is easy to increase and cementits (already immense) superiority over Beijing, and because Washington has
likely concluded that it is necessary given that the regional balance of power isshifting in China’s favor. The idea is that a more decisive U.S. nuclear advantage
over Beijing will compensate for Washington’s widening loss of conventional
superiority in the region (mostly given the growth of China’s intermediate-range
arsenal).36 That is why the U.S. decisions to develop two new nuclear capabilities
and withdraw from the INF Treaty were made with Russia and China in mind.
Significantly, a senior administration official said that China’s growing militaryforce was “the strategic reason for the U.S. INF withdrawal.”37 By the late 2010s,
therefore, while questions remained, the U.S.-China relationship appearedripe for rivalry, with the prospect of nuclear weapons being brought into theforeground of that relationship.

16

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

3.3 RUSSIA AND CHINA
Russia and China are neither allies nor adversaries. Best described as“complicated,” their relationship has become increasingly cooperative recently.
The chief reason: confronting the United States, hence why their relationship has
been called an “axis of convenience.”38 Still, Russia and China have a deterrence
relationship, one that is both imbalanced and implicit.
The Soviet Union and China were allies (against the United States) in the early
Cold War before splitting over competing visions for communism and Soviet
reluctance to share nuclear-weapon technology with Beijing. The relationshipreached a low point in 1969 when Moscow and Beijing engaged in borderskirmishes and, later, when Moscow considered striking China’s nascentnuclear-weapons program.39 From the 1970s through to the end of the Cold War,after Washington attempted to cement the Soviet-Sino split by engaging Beijing,
the Soviet Union and China remained wary neighbors.
After the Cold War, most analysts expected the Russia-China relationship to
deteriorate because the two countries share a long land border and have different
power trajectories and competing interests in Central Asia, Eastern Siberia, and
the Arctic. Yet the trend has been toward greater cooperation. In 1994, Moscow
and Beijing sealed a “constructive partnership,” which translated into a mutual
NFU agreement. In 1996, Moscow and Beijing upgraded their relationship to a“strategic partnership” and, in 2001, signed a “Treaty of Good-Neighborlinessand Friendly Cooperation.” Then, in 2011, they signed a “comprehensive strategic
partnership,” which has helped expand cooperation. By 2019, cooperation had
deepened so much that Putin described Russia-China relations as “almost an
alliance-type relationship.”40
Cooperation has taken several forms. Russia has exported military hardware to
China, including modern air and missile defense systems, such as the S-400, andhas begun assisting Beijing to develop early-warning systems. Russia and China
have also participated in the other’s military exercises, and the two countries
have conducted combined drills. Moreover, Moscow and Beijing have pursued
low-level CBMs, notably by concluding a ballistic missile launch notificationagreement (2009), and they have coordinated their opposition to many U.S.
policies, such as on BMD and strategic conventional weapons. In June 2019,
they issued a joint statement on “global strategic stability,” the second of its
kind (the first was in 2016), in which they criticized “Some individual powers [for17IFSH Research Report #002

pursuing] unilateralism and bullying” and identified themselves as the “stability
anchor” for world peace.41
There is a deterrence relationship between Russia and China, however, eventhough neither acknowledges it. As in the U.S.-China relationship, the stronger
power (Russia) does not recognize that it is worried about, let alone mutuallyvulnerable with, its weaker counterpart (China). Yet Moscow is concerned.
Russia’s Military Doctrine states that Russian nuclear weapons help prevent“an outbreak of nuclear military conflicts involving the use of conventional arms
(large-scale or regional war).”42 As two Russian analysts have explained, theterms “regional war” can only mean a conflict with China because war with theUnited States/NATO would be larger than regional.43 Moreover, in calling forarms control multilateralization, Moscow has made clear that it is concernedthat Beijing may “sprint to parity” as U.S.-Russian reductions continue. Similarly,
while there is no evidence to substantiate it, China, too, must be worried
about its much stronger northern nuclear neighbor, and some of its short- andintermediate-range missiles probably target Russia. Even as Russia-China ties
are strengthening, therefore, an imbalanced and implicit deterrence relationshipexists between the two countries, limiting the potential for cooperation. Because
the trajectory is up for China and down for Russia, deterrence may soon play agreater role.
The three bilateral relationships differ greatly. There is a symmetric deterrence
relationship between the United States and Russia, one that is worsening andcould end their arms control partnership and lead to renewed nuclear competition.
By contrast, the United States and China have an asymmetric deterrence
relationship, with the former dominating over the latter. That relationship, which
does not include an arms control partnership, is also deteriorating and could leadto nuclear competition. Meanwhile, the Russia-China deterrence relationshipis asymmetric, too (with Moscow dominating over Beijing) but also latent, andboth Moscow and Beijing are strengthening their ties, while steering clear ofarms control. Overall, there is a dynamic beyond intensification of the bilateralrelations: a three-part system is emerging, one characterized by an odd man out(the United States) but also three-way counterbalancing moves.44
4. OUTLINE OF A TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL PLAN
In this strategic configuration, conceptualizing a trilateral arms control plan ispossible. It must be done against the backdrop of the theoretical ends, ways,

18

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijingmeans, costs, and risks of arms control, and, to work, such a plan would haveto be based on an asymmetric framework and require flexibility from all three
countries.
4.1 BACKGROUND ON ARMS CONTROL
Consider first the ends of arms control. Arms control is not about eliminating
nuclear weapons; this is disarmament. Arms control also is not about locking
in an advantage against a competitor. Rather, it is, per its original theorists, atool states can use to enhance their security by maintaining strategic stability
with their competitors, i.e., to prevent war and arms competition.45 Because
they have their roots in the Cold War, strategic stability and arms control havealso traditionally been associated with nuclear weapons and the U.S.-Soviet
competition.46
To foster strategic stability, arms control parties need to exercise restraint over, or
impose constraints on, their nuclear policies, strategies, forces, and postures toensure that they meet two criteria. First, that there is no incentive for either party
to be the first to use military force in a crisis (“crisis stability”). An associatedconcept is “first-strike stability,” the removal of incentives for either arms control
party to be the first to use nuclear weapons to disarm its opponent.47 Second,arms control parties need to remove incentives for them to improve their position
by building more or better weapons (“arms-race stability”). As one analyst hassummed up, the idea is for arms control parties to reach an equilibrium, or abalance between them, and encourage equanimity, “the ability of states toavoid escalation and return to a state of equilibrium despite perturbations in
the international system, such as the emergence of new technologies, threats,
crises, or conflicts.”48 These are the ways of arms control and, historically,
strategic stability has rested on mutual assured destruction (MAD), the ideathat each side need to maintain forces that can survive a first strike and inflictdamage in retaliation that the attacker would find unacceptable, thereby making
nuclear or major conventional war irrational and arms races pointless.49 This was
the organizing principle for U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War and it is still
the foundation for U.S.-Russia relations today. De facto, as suggested earlier, aMAD relationship also exists between the United States and China, and between
Russia and China, even though mutual vulnerability is neither acknowledged nor
equal in these relationships.

19

IFSH Research Report #002

Regardless of the specific means of arms control, transparency is a must
because transparency leads to predictability and predictability is a prerequisite
to both crisis and arms-race stability. While treaties have traditionally been themeans of choice, many other, less formal means exist. Reciprocal unilateral
actions, CBMs, reciprocal restraint, or regular strategic dialogue and military-tomilitary discussions to improve mutual understanding on the parties’ thinking on
specific issues or emerging technologies are all valuable arms control means.
Turning to costs, it is important to stress that arms control requires its parties
to abandon the pursuit of superiority, at least in some categories of weapons or
domains. It requires them to acknowledge mutual vulnerability, either explicitly
or implicitly, and to be willing to preserve it. Relatedly, arms control requires its
parties to negotiate among one another and, therefore, to make compromises
and engage in a give-and-take process.
Finally, arms control is not risk-free. An arms control party can conclude an
unfavorable agreement, one that leaves him at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the otherparties. Other risks include the loss of secrets, or that one of the parties cheats,scoring gains over the other parties even as the latter have a (false) sense of
security. Still, while acknowledging these risks, the first theorists stressed thevalue of arms control. Herman Kahn said: “We must be willing to do [armscontrol] even though we may thereby run great risks, since the alternative, an
uncontrolled situation, probably involves greater risks.”50
Against this backdrop, a trilateral arms control plan requires two key features:asymmetry and flexibility.
4.2 TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL REQUIRES ASYMMETRY
It is worth appreciating why symmetric nuclear arms control would not be
attractive. If the goal is strategic stability, i.e., create a balance between arms
control parties, then symmetric nuclear arms control would present two options
to manage strategic forces, where the United States and Russia dominate over
China. One would require Washington and Moscow to bring down their forces
close to Chinese levels (and require Beijing to stop building up). In so doing,
Washington and Moscow would have to reduce nuclear warheads and delivery
systems, and address non-deployed forces, to eliminate the possibility that they
could upload warheads on their launchers. This would require Washington
and Moscow to make deep reductions – close to an eight-fold reduction in the20Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

New START ceilings – and present a significant verification challenge, for nondeployed forces have never been subject to verification. The other option would
be to allow Beijing to build its forces up or close to U.S. and Russian levels, andto allow it to deploy such forces – at present Beijing does not deploy its nuclear
forces. This would involve allowing Beijing to do a massive build-up and require
Washington and Moscow to maintain their current force levels.
Managing intermediate-range forces, which traditionally have included both
nuclear and conventional ground-launched systems of a 500-5,000 km range,
would present two similar options and be even more complicated to negotiate
if the plan is symmetric nuclear arms control. Given that China dominates over
the United States and Russia with intermediate-range forces, one option would
require Beijing to eliminate its forces, or bring them down to U.S. and Russianlevels if Washington and Moscow decided to build such systems now that INFTreaty restrictions no longer apply. As would be the case for Washington andMoscow with regard to strategic forces, this would require Beijing to make deep
reductions and present a major verification challenge. The other option would
be to allow Washington and Moscow to build their intermediate-range forces up
or close to Chinese levels, i.e., allow them to do a massive build-up, and it would
require Beijing to maintain its current force levels.
Either way, there would be two extra requirements. First, the parallel eliminationof, or tight restrictions on, U.S. and Russian sea-based cruise missiles.
Understandably, Beijing would neither want to eliminate/reduce its intermediate
grounded-based systems (which account for approximately 90 percent of its
arsenal), nor allow Washington and Moscow to develop such systems without
also including sea-based cruise missiles in the negotiations; note that airlaunched cruise missiles are subject to New START counting rules. Washington
and Moscow have large numbers of sea-based cruise missiles, which can be
deployed on multiple platforms. That means the verification challenges would
be immense, and, because most of these weapons are mobile, the verification
regime would need to be global. Second, managing intermediate-range forces as
described above would have to include simultaneous (or prior) action on strategic
forces. Beijing, again, understandably, would probably not want to negotiateintermediate-range forces if U.S. and Russian strategic superiority endured.
This suggests the United States, Russia, and China would likely not be interested
in symmetric nuclear arms control. U.S. allies, too, would find such a planunacceptable and the disarmament community would not be pleased either

21

IFSH Research Report #002

because, at least in some scenarios, this would create a strategic situation inwhich there are more nuclear weapons in the world.
More attractive would be to engage in asymmetric nuclear arms control. As one
analyst has shown, asymmetric arms control, which she defines as “cooperative
measures of self-restraint in which states make non-like-for-like exchanges,
either quantitatively or qualitatively,” is probably the best response to today’s
nuclear landscape, which is characterized by multipolarity and new weapons
and technologies besides nuclear forces. It has relevance in a trilateral context.
To manage strategic forces in an asymmetric nuclear arms-control plan, theUnited States and Russia could be required to bring their forces down to acertain level (nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and non-deployed forces) in
exchange for China pledging not to build its forces beyond that level, and not to
deploy such forces. This arrangement would make clear that Beijing is not givena “green light” to build up to the new level reached by Washington and Moscow,but, rather, that it is prohibited to build beyond that level. The United States andRussia would verify their reductions in a regime à la START, and China would
be required to engage in transparency measures that provide guarantees that it
abides by its pledges; as the weaker power, however, China would be allowed tomaintain a greater degree of opacity than the United States and Russia.
Similarly, to manage intermediate-range forces, China could be required to limit
or bring down its forces to a certain level in exchange for the United States andRussia pledging not to go beyond that level and, at the same time, limiting or
reducing their sea-based cruise missiles. Because they are at a disadvantage
vis-à-vis Beijing when it comes to intermediate-range ground-launched forces,
Washington and Moscow would be allowed to keep some of their sea-based
systems. In this arrangement, the three countries would be subject to importantverification and transparency measures. Also, this arrangement would require
simultaneous (or prior) action on strategic forces because, again, Beijing would
not want to negotiate on intermediate-range forces so long as Washington andMoscow maintain an advantage at the strategic level.
Such an asymmetric arms control plan could be spelled out in two formal
treaties, with the one on strategic forces preceding the one on intermediaterange force for the reasons detailed above. Alternatively, there could be one
single treaty that includes both strategic and intermediate-range forces, sets anequal ceiling for them, and lets the three countries decide the “mix” of forces22

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

they deem necessary. Either way, such agreements would be challenging tonegotiate, implement, and verify but could improve U.S., Russian, and Chinese
security and strategic stability. They would also be more acceptable to U.S. allies
and better received by the disarmament community because it would create astrategic situation in which there are fewer nuclear weapons in the world.
In parallel, a separate arrangement would have to be negotiated in a U.S.-Russia
context, to address sub-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons, which China does
not have. Because there is a big disparity between the numbers of U.S. andRussian sub-strategic weapons (the United States is estimated to have 230 ofsuch weapons and Russia 1,830) and because these weapons play different
roles in U.S. and Russian security strategies (e.g., Moscow places considerable
value in its larger arsenal to compensate for conventional inferiority vis-à-vis
NATO), it would be difficult to conclude an agreement that reduces weapon
numbers equitably and addresses the security void that these weapons fill.51
An agreement that imposes an equal ceiling on each side’s weapon numbers
might appear equitable, but it would require deep reductions on Russian forces
and few, if any, on U.S. forces. Similarly, an agreement that requires each side to
reduce its forces by an equal percentage would demand greater reductions on
Russia’s part. Even if this issue is resolved, it is not clear which weapons would
be involved because there are many different types, particularly on Russia’sside, and most are dual-capable, complicating verification.
To address these issues, some have proposed limits that would cover all typesof nuclear warheads: those deployed on strategic and sub-strategic forces, andthose non-deployed.52 This is ambitious, however, and it is not clear that such an
agreement can be negotiated (or verified).
Assuming definitional issues can be addressed, there are asymmetric arms
control options available. One would involve trading U.S. readiness to accept alimit on non-deployed strategic warheads, where Washington has a numericaladvantage over Moscow, for Russian readiness to agree to a lower limit on substrategic weapons. Such an exchange could work, particularly given that mostof Russia’s sub-strategic arsenal appears to be non-deployed.53 Another option
would involve Washington and NATO capitals accepting Moscow’s request that
U.S. and Russian sub-strategic arsenals be placed deep into U.S. and Russian
territories in exchange for bigger reductions by Russia. The price Washington
and NATO agreeing to the removal of U.S. sub-strategic weapons from Europe
would involve deep reductions by Russia.54

23

IFSH Research Report #002

Both options would present verification challenges. Until a formal treaty canbe concluded, however, transparency measures could be concluded, such as
information exchanges about weapons numbers, their status, and their location.
Involving China in some of these discussions would be worthwhile, particularly
if the option of repatriating these weapons deep into national territories is
considered, as Beijing would want to know where Russian weapons end up (ifthey are brought closer to Chinese territory). Moscow would want to reassure
Beijing, too.
4.3 TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL REQUIRES FLEXIBILITY
For trilateral arms control to work, the United States, Russia, and China would
have to address several other issues, all of which require flexibility. Managing
defensive systems tops the list because, as mentioned earlier, Russia has
made clear that it will not conclude another arms control agreement unlessthere is some control over U.S. BMD systems. Given China’s similar concerns
about such systems, it is likely that Beijing, too, will demand some control.
Both Russia and China fear not U.S. BMD systems as they exist right now, butwhat they could become. It is the open-ended nature of the U.S. program andWashington’s rejection of any limits that are an issue. Moscow and Beijing areconcerned that the program, now solely designed to negate the threats posedby the rogues, may later expand and negate their own second-strike capability;
they are especially concerned because some in the United States have beencalling for such a program expansion.
The basis of a compromise, therefore, is obvious: it would involve finding
agreement on a threshold that distinguishes between the systems (and/or their
numbers or speed) that can defend against rogue states, and those that have an
impact on the Russian and Chinese deterrents and undermine strategic stability;
recall that Washington has stated repeatedly that it does not want to undermine
the strategic balance with Moscow and Beijing. If agreement on such a threshold
can be found, the former systems would be authorized, and the latter prohibited.
Finding such an agreement would require the United States, Russia, and China
to discuss data on BMD systems and conduct joint analyses on their capability toassess their impact, or the lack thereof, on strategic stability. The three countries
could also conduct joint studies on the evolving capabilities of the rogues tobuild trilateral consensus on what is needed to defend against them. This would
help build a foundation for trilateral BMD cooperation.55

24

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Taking these steps would require flexibility on all sides. Washington would haveto accept limits on its BMD program, and Moscow and Beijing that some U.S.
BMD systems are tied to the evolution of the rogues’ capabilities. That implies
recognizing that pressure on strategic stability would increase if the rogues growtheir capabilities because this would create incentives for BMD expansion. Thatwould create a formal connection between strategic stability and nonproliferation.
Managing new technologies and new domains is another critical component.
Here too, because much remains unknown about their impact, the operating
word is flexibility.
Discussions about strategic conventional weapons, notably hypersonic weapons,
are important because these weapons will be more accurate than existing
weapons and they will have unpredictable trajectories, presenting significant risks
of inadvertent or unintentional escalation and, according to some, potentiallyemboldening its possessors to conduct a disarming first strike.56 Discussing
the impact of such technologies is especially appropriate in a trilateral context
because, at present, only the United States, Russia, and China have such
weapon programs.57 These discussions could begin in strategic-stability talks,
which could lead to technical exchanges and transparency measures, preparing
for integration of such systems into treaties down the line. Per past practices,
it would be possible to integrate these systems into START-like agreements: in
New START, all warheads on intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic
missiles – nuclear and conventional – count under the warhead limit.
Trilateral discussions about the impact of the space and cyber domains arealso paramount. Because space support systems have become critical to the
combat potential of the U.S., Russian, and Chinese armed forces (and thoseof others), anti-satellite weapons have become attractive options. Yet somesatellites serve to manage the U.S., Russian, and Chinese strategic deterrents
and their disruption or, worse, their destruction could lead to escalation andnuclear use, especially in a crisis. Similarly, while it is difficult to gauge the impact
of cyberattacks (because little is known about their potential), they, too, could
lead to escalation to the nuclear level.
Trilateral engagement on space and cyber, therefore, is important. Washington,
Moscow, and Beijing would benefit from jointly defining “rules of the road” toshape their behavior in such domains.58 At present, it is difficult to imagine howthese issues could be regulated in a formal treaty (or treaties) because we know
little about the problems that they pose and because verification options are25

IFSH Research Report #002

not available. So, developing informal rules and norms appears more realistic,
and that may also be the case for artificial intelligence, as some are beginningto unpack its potential impact on strategic stability.59 For new technologies andnew domains, the three countries should commit not to attacking one another’s
nuclear command-and-control systems. They should also work together toprevent third actors – states or non-state groups – from meddling with such
systems to prevent their ability to cause a crisis or unwanted escalation during acrisis. This would require Washington, Moscow, and Beijing to establish a quick
way to communicate. Such a hotline could later morph into a comprehensive
trilateral crisis-management mechanism.
5. PROSPECTS FOR TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL
If trilateral arms control is possible, its prospects appear bleak. At present, at leastin the U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China dyads, the order of the day is competition, notcooperation. Even in the Russia-China dyad, where cooperation is flourishing,
there is little interest in engaging in arms control because of latent competitive
dynamics. Yet for arms control to work, competitors need to recognize that, while
competition will continue, cooperation must be given space. As Hedley Bull, one
the first arms control theorists, highlighted: “Arms control in its broadest sensecomprises all those acts of military policy in which antagonistic states cooperate
in the pursuit of common purposes even while they are struggling in the pursuitof conflictual ones.”60
The United States, Russia, and China have not – and do not seem about to – cometogether to pursue “common purposes,” either bilaterally or trilaterally. Doing sowould involve more than stating an interest, as the Trump administration has
done. It would involve designing a plan, which may be in the works in Washington
but, for now, is nowhere to be seen.
Regardless, as suggested above, trilateral arms control would involve making
tough decisions, particularly for the United States. It would require all three parties
to acknowledge that they are – and commit to remaining – mutually vulnerable,
even though they are not equally vulnerable. That mean the three countries
would need to embrace deterrence – MAD – as the operating model for theirrelationships. Yet the United States has always reluctantly accepted deterrence;
as one analyst has stressed, “Deterrence was never a well-loved concept in the
United States.”61 This may be especially true today, where the focus of the Trumpadministration’s national-security policy, anchored in “America First” ideology,

26

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

has been on enhancing the U.S. competitive edge. This leaves little room fornegotiations, and for making compromises, with competitors, a requirementof arms control. Sometimes, it even seems that some only view arms control
as a means to constrain Russia and China, not the United States. Consider
Tom Cotton’s recent tweet that “Future arms-control agreements must limit
both Putin’s massive tactical nuclear arsenal and Xi Jinping’s growing nuclear
ambitions. Anything less isn’t real arms-control.”62 Of course, it is not clear either
that Moscow or Beijing would be amendable to negotiations and compromises.
While they have some specific requests (e.g., BMD restrictions or, for Beijing,formal U.S. acknowledgement of mutual vulnerability), for them progress canonly be made if Washington becomes “more flexible” – a vague request that canbe (conveniently) interpreted in multiple ways.
That said, it would be wrong to assume nothing can be done, or that it is best
to wait “until the conditions are right.” At no point were the conditions rightwhen there were arms control breakthroughs in the past. Recall that the SALT/
ABM-treaty negotiations proceeded in a less-than-ideal environment – they
started after the Prague Spring of 1968 and concluded after the bombing ofNorth Vietnam in 1972 – and initially had poor prospects. Similarly, INF-Treaty
negotiations and the START process began after the Soviet-Afghan War, butadvanced nonetheless and led to two landmark agreements few thought werepossible at the time. Even when the U.S.-Russia relationship began to deteriorate
from the late 1990s, despite arms control setbacks, Washington and Moscow
concluded SORT and New START. Similar breakthroughs are possible, even if
the goal is now three-way agreements with weapons and technologies besides
just nuclear forces.
Moreover, there may be less daylight between the U.S., Russian, and Chinese
positions than is often assumed. One analyst has argued that, for the first time,the 2018 NPR implicitly acknowledges Moscow and Beijing’s long-held view that
non-nuclear threats across domains, including BMD, are essential to strategic
stability, which could present arms control opportunities.63 Besides, for all the
talk about Beijing’s lack of incentive to accept trilateral arms control, some
Chinese scholars have indicated that this would depend on what is expectedof China and, presumably, what China would receive in return. As one such
scholar has explained: “if the proposed trilateral negotiations are not about the
number of weapons but strategic stability, China should get on board as soon as
possible.”64 This suggests progress is possible.

27

IFSH Research Report #002

6. CONCLUSION
One thing is certain: trilateral arms control will not happen overnight. It will taketime, probably years, for U.S., Russian, and Chinese officials to negotiate viableagreements. This means work should begin now. Because they have experience,
Washington and Moscow should jointly approach Beijing and opt, for instance,
to share their practices of exchanging missile pre-launch notifications and flighttest telemetry data. Additionally, U.S. and Russian officials could invite theirChinese counterparts to observer U.S.-Russian on-site inspections. This would
help build habits of trilateral cooperation before more substantive work can
begin. Until then, Washington and Moscow should preserve the current arms
control architecture, insofar as it remains relevant to manage today’s realities.
New START, which will expire in February 2021 but can be extended for an
additional five years, fits that bill. From a U.S. perspective, extension should bea no-brainer: the treaty has helped enhance U.S. security and will capture twoof Russia’s new strategic systems, the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic
missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle.65 That is why General John
Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and former commander of
the U.S. Strategic Command), has said that he is “a big supporter of the New
START agreement.”66 The good news is that Moscow has now indicated its
willingness to extend it immediately and without preconditions.67 The ball is
now in Washington’s court. The Trump administration should respond positively
to Moscow’s invitation and extend New START now, while at the same timelaunching a strong diplomatic push for trilateral arms control negotiations tobegin shortly thereafter.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Vincent Manzo for his comments on an early draftof this paper.

28

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Endnotes
1

Trump, Donald (2018). Tweet from 3 December 2018, available at https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1069584730880974849?lang=de(accessed 15 February 2020).

2

The White House (2019). Remarks by President Trump in State of theUnion Address, Washington, DC, 6 February 2019, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trumpstate-union-address-2/ (accessed 15 February 2020).

3

Reif, Kingston & Taheran, Shervin (2019). U.S. Seeks Broader Nuclear
Arms Pact. Arms Control Today, May 2019, available at https://www.arms
control.org/act/2019-05/news/us-seeks-broader-nuclear-arms-pact(accessed 15 February 2020).

4

Sonne, Paul & Hudson, John (2019). Trump orders staff to preparearms control push with Russia and China. Washington Post, 26 April 2019,available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/
trump-orders-staff-to-prepare-arms-control-push-with-russia-and-china/
2019/04/25/c7f05e04-6076-11e9-9412-daf3d2e67c6d_story.html(accessed 15 February 2020).

5

Joseph, Robert & Edelman, Eric (2019). New Directions in Arms
Control. National Review, 29 April 2019, available at https://www.national
review.com/2019/04/arms-control-treaties-russian-chinese-nuclear-forces/(accessed 15 February 2020).

6

Cotton, Tom (2019). Senators Cotton, Cornun, and Rep. Cheney Introduce New START Treaty Improvement Act, Press Release, 13 May 2019,available at https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1121(accessed 15 February 2020); Thompson, Andrea & Trachtenberg,David (2019). Hearing on The Future of Arms Control Post-IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces Treaty, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, 15 May 2019, available at https://www.foreign.senate.gov/
hearings/the-future-of-arms-control-post-intermediate-range-nuclearforces-treaty (accessed 15 February 2020).

29

IFSH Research Report #002

7

Holland, Steve & Alexander, David (2019). Trump says he, Putin discussed nuclear deal that would reduce weapons. Reuters, 3 May 2019,available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-nuclear/trump-says-he-putin-discussed-nuclear-deal-that-would-reduce-weaponsidUSKCN1S91U1 (accessed 15 February 2020); Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019). Foreign Ministry
Spokesperson Geng Shuang’s Regular Press Conference, Beijing, 6 May
2019, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/nanhai/eng/fyrbt_1/
t1661163.htm (accessed 15 February 2020).

8

Beijing rejected trilateral arms control again on 16 May, 5 November, and
11 December 2019, see: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s
Republic of China (2019). Regular Press Conferences of the Chinese
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_
eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/ (accessed 15 February 2020).
Beijing had also rejected INF multilateralization on 5 December 2018, see:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019).
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang’s Regular Press Conference on December 5, 2018, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_
eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1619268.shtml(accessed 15 February 2020).

9

Kristensen, Hans M. & Korda, Matt (2019). Status of World Nuclear
Forces. Federation of American Scientists, May 2019, available at https://
fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/(accessed 15 February 2020).

10 Ford, Christopher (2019). Remarks on The P5, the ‘N5,’ and the NPT
Review Conference. Wilton Park Nonproliferation Conference,
16 December 2019.
11 Johnson, Jenna & Troianovski, Anton (2018). Trump congratulates Putinon his reelection, discusses U.S.-Russian ‘arms race.’ Washington Post, 20
March 2018, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumpcongratulates-putin-on-his-reelection-kremlin-says/2018/03/20/379effd02c57-11e8-8dc9-3b51e028b845_story.html(accessed 15 February 2020).

30

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

12 Feinberg, Scott (2017). Donald Trump Angled for Soviet Posting in the
1980s, Says Nobel Prize Winner (Exclusive). The Hollywood Reporter, 26
May 2017, available at https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donaldtrump-angled-soviet-posting-1980s-says-nobel-prize-winner-1006312(accessed 15 February 2020).
13 The White House (2017). National Security Strategy of the United Statesof America (Washington, DC: White House, 2017), p. 25. Besides the NSS,
the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy and Nuclear
Posture Review from 2018 and its Indo-Pacific Strategy Report from 2019as well as the U.S. Department of State’s “A Free and Open Indo-Pacific
Report” from 2019, focus on competition with China.
14 U.S. Department of Defense (2018). Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), pp. 72-73; Manzo, Vince (2019).
Nuclear Arms Control without a Treaty? Risks and Options after New
START (Washington, DC: CNA, 2019), pp. 16-34.
15 There is a debate about whether NWS are legally required by the NPT tolead on disarmament. The matter was settled politically in 1995 when the
NPT was extended indefinitely. The document “Principles and Objectives
for Nuclear Non-Pproliferation and Disarmament” requires “the determined
pursuit by the nuclear weapon states of systematic and progressive efforts
to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating
those weapons, and by all states of general and complete disarmament
under strict and effective international control.” See: United Nations(1995). 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Principles and Objectives
for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, NPT/CONF.1995/L.5,
9 May 1995.
16 U.S. efforts to prioritize Asia began in the 2000s with George W. Bush andcrystalized with Barack Obama’s “rebalance to Asia.”
17 Kravchenko, Stepan & Meyer, Henry (2019). Russia Welcomes Trump
Offer of New Nuclear Pact, Awaits Details. Bloomberg, 7 February 2019,available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-07/russiawelcomes-trump-offer-of-new-nuclear-pact-awaits-details(accessed 15 February 2020).

31

IFSH Research Report #002

18 Hoell, Maximilian (2019). The P5 Process: Ten Years On. European
Leadership Network, 25 September 2019, available at https://www.europe
anleadershipnetwork.org/policy-brief/the-p5-process-ten-years-on/(accessed 15 February 2020).
19 Arbatov, Alexey (2017). Understanding the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Schism,
Survival, 59(2): 33-66.
20 Long, Austin and Green, Brendan (2015). Stalking the Secure Second
Strike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy, Journal ofStrategic Studies, 38(1-2): 38-73.
21 Long, Austin (2018). Russian Nuclear Forces and Prospects for Arms
Control, Testimony presented before the House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, 21 June 2018, available at https://www.rand.org/pubs/
testimonies/CT495.html (accessed 15 February 2020).
22 When signing the Treaty, the Russians issued a unilateral statement in
dicating that were U.S. BMD developments to threaten their strategic
forces, Moscow would consider withdrawing.
23 Roberts, Brad (2015). The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21stCentury (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), pp. 119-120.
24 Putin promised to “snap back hard” in a March 2014 address, see:President of Russia (2014). Address by President of the RussianFederation, 18 March 2014, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/
president/news/20603 (accessed 15 February 2020). He unveiled Russia’s
new strategic weapons on March 2018: a long-range nuclear-powered andnuclear-armed autonomous underwater vehicle, the Status-6 or Poseidon,
capable of striking coastal cities or other targets from transoceanic ranges,
and an intercontinental-range nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed cruise
missile, the Burvestnik, which will hold the U.S. homeland at risk.
25 These weapons include a low explosive yield option for submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, and the restoration of nuclear, sea-launchedcruise missiles. U.S. Department of Defense (2018), op. cit., pp. 52-55.
26 Russia’s 2016 Foreign Policy Concept links arms control progress toincluding BMD, see: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the RussianFederation (2016). Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation(approved by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on
32

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

November 30, 2016), available at https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/
official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/2542248(accessed 15 February 2020). Putin also said that because of U.S. BMD
developments “all agreements signed within the framework of New START
are now gradually being devalued.” President of Russia (2018).
Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, 1 March 2018, available
at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957(accessed 15 February 2020).
27 The Chinese arsenal was meant to be a national asset and a contribution
to the socialist camp’s collective deterrent capability. Goldstein, Avery(2000). Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France,
and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2000), p. 111.
28 Burr, William & Richelson, Jeffrey T. (2000-2001). Whether to “Strangle
the Baby in the Cradle”: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear
Program, 1960–64, 25(3): 54-99.
29 References to China’s “self-defense nuclear strategy” first appeared in the2006 Defense White Paper, see: Ministry of National Defense, The
People’s Republic of China (2006). China’s National Defense in 2006,
available at http://eng.mod.gov.cn/Database/WhitePapers/2006.htm(accessed 15 February 2020). After its first nuclear test, China declared:“The Chinese Government hereby solemnly declares that China will neverat any time and under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear
weapons.” China’s NFU commitment has been emphasized in all official
documents since. Beijing has only focused on developing “the minimum
means of reprisal,” i.e., enough for a nuclear counterstrike. Quoted from
Lewis, Jeffrey (2007). The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China’s Search
for Security in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).
30 The United States never embraced China without restraint. As it engaged,
Washington was also hedging, see: Friedberg, Aaron L. (2018).
Competing with China. Survival, 60(3): 7-64.
31 Ibid., p. 11.
32 Mingfu, Liu (2015). The China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic
Posture in the Post-American Era (Beijing: CN Time Books, 2015).
33 Kristensen, Hans M. & Korda, Matt (2019). Chinese Nuclear Forces,
2019. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 75(4): 171-178.
33

IFSH Research Report #002

34 Wheeler, Michael O. (2012). Nuclear Parity with China? (Washington, DC:
IDA, 2012).
35 Until recently, nuclear dialogue was active at the track-1.5 level. Suchdialogue was run by the Pacific Forum and Naval Postgraduate School on
the U.S. side, and the China Foundation for International and Strategic
Studies and China Arms Control and Disarmament Association on the
Chinese side.
36 Talmadge, Caitlin (2019). The U.S.-China Nuclear Relationship: Why
Competition Is Likely to Intensify (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,2019).
37 Interview by the author, Washington, DC, July 2019.
38 Lo, Bobo (2008). Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New
Geopolitics (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008).
39 Goldstein (2000), op. cit., pp. 71-76.
40 President of Russia (2019). Valdai Discussion Club session, available
at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/61719(accessed 15 February 2020).
41 President of Russia (2019). Joint Statement by the Russian Federationand the People’s Republic of China on strengthening global strategic
stability in the modern era, 5 June 2019, available at http://kremlin.ru/
supplement/5412 (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]42 The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2014). Approved by
the President of the Russian Federation on December 25, 2014, No. Pr.2976, available at https://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029(accessed 15 February 2020).
43 Arbatov, Alexey & Dvorkin, Vladimir (2013). The Great Strategic Triangle(Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013), pp. 12-13.
44 Roberts, Brad (2002). Tripolar Stability: The Future of Nuclear Relations
Among the United States, Russia, and China (Washington, DC: IDA, 2002),
pp. 38-42.

34

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

45 Schelling, Thomas C. & Halperin, Morton H. (1961). Strategy and Arms
Control (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1961).
46 Colby, Elbridge A. & Gerson, Michael S. (2013). Strategic Stability:
Contending Interpretations (Washington, DC: SSI and U.S. Army War
College Press, 2013).
47 There is a debate about whether first-strike stability means preventing
nuclear first use to disarm an opponent or preventing any nuclear first use,
including limited first use. The convention wisdom leans towards theformer.
48 Williams, Heather (2019). Asymmetric Arms Control and Strategic
Stability: Scenarios for Limiting Hypersonic Glide Vehicles, Journal ofStrategic Studies, 42(6): 789-813.
49 After the Cold War, while some have redefined MAD to account for thechanged realities, its key features have not changed.
50 Kahn, Herman (1960). On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1960), p. 537.
51 Congressional Research Service (2019). Nonstrategic Nuclear
Weapons (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2019),
pp. 37-42.
52 Pifer, Steven (2010). The Next Round: The United States and Nuclear
Arms Reductions after New START (Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution, 2010), p. 25.
53 Ibid., p. 23.
54 Ibid., p. 20.
55 To alleviate Russian concerns, Washington welcomed BMD cooperationin the NATO context. At the trilateral level, BMD cooperation could build
upon these efforts.

35

IFSH Research Report #002

56 Acton, James M. (2017). Entanglement: Russian and Chinese Perspectives on Non-Nuclear weapons and Nuclear Risks (Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017); Acton, James M.
(2016). Russia and Strategic Conventional Weapons: Concerns andResponses, Nonproliferation Review, 22(2): 141-154; Lieber, Keir &Press, Daryl G. (2017). The New Era of Counterforce: Technological
Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence, International Security, 41(4):9-49.
57 Congressional Research Service (2019). Hypersonic Weapons:
Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional
Research Service, 2019).
58 This effort has begun at the track-1.5 level. For the latest (published) draftof the memorandum on “Rules of the Road in Nuclear, Space, andCyber Domains,” see: Cossa, Ralph A., Glosserman, Brad & Santoro,
David (2016). Reaching an Inflection Point? The Tenth China-U.S. Dialogueon Strategic Nuclear Dynamics, Issues & Insights, 16(20): C-1.
59 Gasser, Paige, Loss, Rafael, Reddie, Andrew (2018). Assessing theStrategic Effects of Artificial Intelligence (Livermore, CA: Center for Global
Security Research, 2018); Boulanin, Vincent (2019). The Impact ofArtificial Intelligence on Strategic Stability and Nuclear Risk (Stockholm:
SIPRI, 2019); Horowitz, Michael C., Scharre, Paul & Velez-Green,
Alexander (2019). A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact on Autonomous
Systems and Artificial Intelligence, 11 December 2019, arXiv:1912.05291,
available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.05291(accessed 15 February 2020).
60 Bull, Hedley (1965). The Control of the Arms Race (New York: Praeger,1965), p. xiv.
61 Long, Austin (2008). Deterrence: From Cold War to Long War (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2008), p. vii.
62 Cotton, Tom (2019). Tweet from 6 December 2019, available at https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1202954273371443200 (accessed 15
February 2020).
63 Williams, Heather (2018). Strategic Stability, Uncertainty and the Futureof Arms Control, Survival, 60(2): 45-54.

36

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

64 Fan, Jishe (2019). Trilateral Negotiations on Arms Control? Not Time Yet.
China-U.S. Focus, 13 September 2019, available at https://www.chinaus
focus.com/peace-security/trilateral-negotiations-on-arms-control-not-timeyet (accessed 15 February 2020).
65 Neither the Poseidon nor the Burvestnik are expected to become
operational until after 2026 at the earliest, i.e., after an extended New
START expires.
66 U.S. House of Representatives (2017). Statement of John E. Hyten,
Commander United States Strategic Command Before the House
Committee on Armed Services , Military Assessment of Nuclear Weapons
Requirements, 8 March 2017, available at https://docs.house.gov/
meetings/AS/AS00/20170308/105640/HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-HytenU
SAFJ-20170308.pdf (accessed 15 February 2020);
U.S. Strategic Command (2019). U.S. Senate Committee on Armed
Services on March 1 2019, available at https://www.stratcom.mil/Media/
Speeches/Article/1771903/us-strategic-command-and-us-northerncommand-sasc-testimony/ (accessed 15 February 2020).
67 Tass (2019). Russia Ready to Include Avangard, Sarmat Systems in New
START after its Extension. TASS, 22 December 2019, available at https://tass.com/defense/1102179 (accessed 15 February 2020).

37

IFSH Research Report #002

Trilateral Nuclear Arms Control –A Russian Assessment
Alexey Arbatov
1. INTRODUCTION
For more than a decade since 2007, Russia had been insisting that the bilateral
U.S.-Russian arms control model must be transformed into a multilateral one,in particular regarding the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of
1987 and the follow-on to the Treaty on Measures of Further Reduction andElimination of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START of 2010). This position was
initially advanced by President Vladimir Putin in his famous 2007 Munich speechin relation to the INF Treaty1 and later regarding the follow-on to New START. In
2012, Putin said: “We will not disarm unilaterally … All nuclear powers should
participate in this process. We cannot disarm while other nuclear powers arebuilding up their arms.”2
Until recently the U.S. position on this subject had been generally in favor (except
about including Britain and France), but not too persistent. At some point, in
2007, the two states advanced a joint resolution in the United Nations in favor of
making the INF Treaty multilateral,3 but received no positive response.
With the unraveling crisis of arms control, the situation has now radicallychanged. Donald Trump’s administration suddenly became a devoted partisan
of multilateral nuclear arms control, while Vladimir Putin’s government has takena negative attitude towards this proposal. The U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty
has been justified (besides the alleged Russian violations) by the necessity tocounter China’s medium-range missiles deployment and the need for China’s
participation in any possible new treaty on this subject. Likewise, Washington’s
reluctance to extend New START and the prospects of a follow-on agreement
were linked to China’s joining strategic arms limitations and reductions.
The Russian position, on the contrary, shifted to the long-standing position of
all seven smaller nuclear-armed states: that the United States and Russia haveto proceed in a bilateral mode since they possess the overwhelming portion of
the nuclear weapons of the world. By taking this position, Moscow renderedfull support to China’s rejection of U.S. proposals to join any new version of the
INF or START follow-on treaty. In September 2019, President Putin declared this38

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

U-turn: “Now the U.S.A. has put forward a new version, they want to engage
the Peoples Republic of China in this joint work. But Chinese are arguing quite
reasonably that Chinese nuclear potential is much lower that than Russian orAmerican and they do not understand what they should reduce if they alreadyhave fewer delivery vehicles and fewer warheads. This position looks sufficiently
logical.”4
It is by no means clear whether the current shifts in U.S. or Russia’s arms
control stances deserve a serious strategic analysis or are just declaratory
tactics camouflaging motives of a different kind. Nevertheless, the problems
of multilateral nuclear arms control will remain on the agenda of international
security for the foreseeable future.
2. THE ASIA-PACIFIC STRATEGIC TRIANGLE
The great triangle of the Asia-Pacific region formed by the United States, Russia,
and China is of particular importance, in economic, geopolitical, and militarystrategic terms. Obviously, this triangle is not even-sided. On the one hand,
Russia and the United States as well as the United States and China are being
pulled deeper into geopolitical, military and economic confrontation. On theother hand, Russia and China are moving closer towards a political and military
alliance – de-facto if not de-jure. In line with this trend, mutual nuclear deterrence
relationships between Moscow and Washington, as well as between Washington
and Beijing are getting more conspicuous, while the nature of nuclear relations
between Moscow and Beijing, extremely tense until the late-1980s, is becoming
increasingly mute.
This triangular relationship has an important regional dimension as well, in that
other nuclear states (India, Pakistan, and North Korea) adjoin it in Asia. Besides,
the great triangle is directly or indirectly involved in military, political, territorial,and economic relations and conflicts in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia.
2.1 THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN DIMENSION
The present crises in U.S.-Russian relations started earlier than the conflictin and around Ukraine in 2014. At its origins was Moscow’s dissatisfaction
with the post-Cold War political order. This frustration for many years had
been privately delivered to Western counterparts until publicly expressed in
Putin’s Munich speech of 2007.5 After Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012,

39

IFSH Research Report #002

Moscow decided to stop talking and start acting to do away with the unequalmodel of relations with the United States by reasserting Russian traditional
geopolitical spheres of influence and positions of military superpower. In
response to Crimea in 2014, the United States and its allies imposed economic
sanctions and revived the strategy of isolation, containment, and arms buildup against Moscow. This U-turn in Russian-Western relations in just a few
years has drastically changed the relations of the previous thirty years andbrought them to a highly dangerous state. In the realm of strategic interactions
it is characterized by three trends in the spheres of arms control, weapons
programs, and military doctrines.
First, in the arms control sphere the pivotal point came with the United States’ andthen Russia’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty in August 2019. After Washington
had denounced the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, the end of INF
removed the second remaining cornerstone of the nuclear arms limitations
and reductions regime, which was launched by the 1991 START-I Treaty. The
collapse of INF happened against the background of an eight-year break in U.S.Russian negotiations on any START follow-on agreement, which was the longest
pause in fifty years of strategic arms talks. Although both parties fulfilled their
reduction obligations under New START by the February 2018 deadline (thoughwith a number of reservations from Russia), the Treaty will expire in February
2021. The chances for successful negotiations on a new agreement are quite
bleak given the deep disagreements between the two parties on ballistic missile
defenses and other important issues. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration up to
now has been reluctant to extend New START until 2026, which, in line with
Article XIV.2, can be done once for up to five years. In contrast, Russia is clearlyin favor of extending the Treaty.
These developments would undoubtedly damage the global nuclear
nonproliferation regime and undermine the 2020 Review Conference of theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). There are growing
chances of a collapse of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),
which was de-facto operational for twenty-three years, despite not having enteredinto legal force because of the refusal of the United States and a number of othernations to ratify it. The negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT)
and on the prohibition of space arms, which have been stalled for many years in
Geneva, are dying a quiet death.

40Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

The main reason for this crisis is not the technical complexity of strategic
relationships, or the turmoil in world order. The principle factor is a lack ofappreciation for arms control as one of the highest national security priorities by
the new generation of political and military elites on both sides.
Second, in terms of the number of warheads (14,500), the nuclear forces of
Russia and the United States account for about 92 percent of the world’s
nuclear weapons stockpile.6 On the other hand, during the last 30 years, startingwith the INF and START-I Treaties, the strategic nuclear forces of both Russia
and the United States have been consistently and deeply reduced: by about
three times the number of deployed delivery vehicles and by 6 times the numberof warheads.7 Sub-strategic (tactical) nuclear arms have been cut even more
drastically. In parallel, the pace of modernization of their forces had been goingat an unprecedentedly slow and narrow pace until recently. During the same
period, the nuclear capabilities of third countries (primarily of China, India, andPakistan) have been growing steadily both in quantity and quality.
Due to the INF and START treaties of the last 30 years as well as reasonable
modernization programs, Russia and the United States have maintained aclassic relationship based on mutual nuclear deterrence and approximate
strategic parity. Moreover, in line with the agreed principles of strategic stability,
formalized in the U.S.-Soviet joint declaration of 1990, their nuclear balance has
become highly robust at much lower levels of forces in a sense of “removing
incentives for a first nuclear strike”.8
Compared to the situation before START-I, the proportion of highly survivableweapons systems9 increased from 30-40 percent to 60-70 percent. As a result,most realistic models of hypothetical nuclear exchanges demonstrate thatneither side is able to destroy more than 50 percent of the strategic forces of theother, while expending 30 percent more warheads than the number destroyed.10
Last but not least, the level of transparency and predictability has been
unprecedented. While implementing New START, the parties exchanged about
300 on-sight inspections and 18,000 notifications about the state, activities, andchanges to their strategic forces.11
Nonetheless, at present Russia and the United States are “smoothly” getting
engaged in a new large-scale nuclear arms race cycle. This competition, unlike
during the Cold War, will be augmented by rivalry in long-range precision-guided
offensive and defensive conventional systems, conventional and nuclear medium-41

IFSH Research Report #002

range weapons, hypersonic missiles, as well as by a race in the development of
space arms, autonomous drones with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, andcyber warfare assets.
In particular, a follow-on generation of strategic weapon systems was declaredin the famous March 1, 2018, address by President Putin.12 Russia is deploying
the Avangard strategic boost-glide hypersonic system using old SS-19 ICBMs as
a booster and the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic intermediate-range missiles.
The development and testing program includes further the new Sarmat heavytype SS-30 ICBM, the Poseidon long-range nuclear torpedo, and the Burevestnik
nuclear-powered intercontinental nuclear cruise missile.
This massive effort is justified as a response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty in 2002 and ensuing ballistic missile defense programs.13 In particular,
allegedly to assure defense penetration, Sarmat may fly to the continental UnitedStates across the southern polar circle, Avangard will follow a variable trajectoryin the stratosphere, Poseidon will be able to go at a depth of 1,000 meters andexplode near U.S. shores to create a giant tsunami-wave,14 Burevestnik can
indefinitely loiter in the air while choosing its target with the help of AI, andKinzhal may instantly attack Aegis-ashore bases in Romania and Poland.
After the denunciation of the INF Treaty, and in line with the Soviet/Russian
multiple systems tradition, land-based versions of the intermediate-range Kalibrtype cruise missiles, new intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) of the SS26 Rubezh type, and hypersonic medium-range missiles may be deployed in
response to future U.S. land-based intermediate-range missiles. According tosome unofficial proposals, new IRBMs might even be deployed in Venezuela,
Nicaragua, and Cuba.
All this is allegedly needed despite more than 2,000 presently deployed strategic
nuclear weapons (by actual loading of heavy bombers) and almost 2,000
sub-strategic nuclear arms. Whether the above weapons program represents
excessive nuclear posturing or a wise enhancement of deterrence, theaccelerating pace of the bilateral arms race will most likely undermine strategic
stability. This effect transcends through innovations of the military doctrines of
the two superpowers.
Third, during the last decade there has been a tacit but profound transformationof U.S. and Russian nuclear postures that had emerged by the late 1980s.

42

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Back then, leaders came to recognize that “nuclear war cannot be won andmust never be fought”.15 Based on this understanding, the concept of strategic
stability was elaborated as a state of strategic relationship, which removes
incentives for a nuclear first strike.16 Although never formalized, there emerged
a shared understanding that any use of nuclear weapons, even if limited, would
most probably escalate to global mutual annihilation. These ideas formed thefoundation for a series of strategic reduction treaties during the 1990s and 2000s.
In contrast, current strategic thinking in the United States and Russia seems
to be shifting. Now, the goal is to control nuclear escalation and to compel the
opponent to capitulate or step back in an armed conflict.17 The main noveltyof the current U.S. nuclear strategy and weapons programs is the concept ofa limited or selective nuclear war.18 The concept originates in the 1960s when
massive numbers of tactical nuclear arms had been deployed to Europe andAsia. From the early 1970s onwards, the United States promoted various options
for selective and limited strikes against Soviet military targets,19 but since the late1980s this concept all but disappeared from official U.S. strategic documents.
However, in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, the concept was again emphasized
more forcefully than ever during the last thirty years:“Recent Russian statements on this evolving nuclear weapons doctrine appear
to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons … To addressthese types of challenges and preserve deterrence stability, the United States
will enhance the flexibility and range of its tailored deterrence options”.20 This
concept would rely on the whole panoply of sea-, air-, and possibly mediumrange land-based nuclear and dual-purpose systems.21
Russia played with the very same idea in 2003, when an official document of
the Ministry of Defense announced plans for the “de-escalation of aggression… [by] the threat to deliver or by the actual delivery of strikes of various intensity
using conventional and (or) nuclear weapons.” As such, the document assumed
the possibility of “dosed combat employment of selected components of theStrategic Deterrence Force”.22
The current Russian Military Doctrine postulates: “The Russian Federation shallreserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear andother types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as wellas in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of
conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”. The

43

IFSH Research Report #002

purpose of a nuclear strike is defined as “the infliction of the assigned level ofdamage on an aggressor in any conditions”.23
These formulas do not contain a formal concept of limited nuclear war, but do
not exclude it either. It is not clear when and how exactly the “existence of thestate” can be considered in jeopardy and what “level of damage” to the enemy
might be interpreted as sufficient. However, it has been regularly discussed
in professional military circles, including those associated with governmental
institutions, which advocated “the limited nature of a first nuclear strike, which isdesigned not to harden, but rather to sober up an aggressor, to force it to halt its
attack and move to negotiations”.24
In terms of practical, in contrast to declaratory, nuclear planning, the Chief of
the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, General Valery Gerasimov
remarked: “The policy of military threats from our Western ‘partners’ makes
us respond to a threat with a threat and plan in perspective delivering strikes
against the centers of decision-making and launchers for using cruise missiles
against sites on Russian territory”.25 Apparently, this formula implies preemptive
and selective strikes without specifying nuclear or conventional.
Nonetheless, in his March 1, 2018 speech, President Putin said: “Any use of
nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of small, medium or any
yield at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will
be immediate, with all the attendant consequences”.26 This might mean that, incontrast to the U.S. nuclear doctrine, limited nuclear war is not envisioned in
the Russian doctrine. However, an unequivocal statement rejecting selective
first nuclear use as its own strategy has never emanated from official Russian
circles.
The history of the nuclear arms race and of nuclear doctrines shows that inmany cases the Soviet Union, and later Russia, followed the U.S. example. No
matter how much deterrence concepts are used to justify new capabilities, they
actually lower the nuclear threshold and increase the likelihood of armed conflict
between the superpowers escalating into a nuclear war.
Still worse, a serious discussion of delegating the decision to launch nuclear
weapons based on AI is again underway, recalling the notorious “Dead Hand”
concept from Soviet times.27 From a moral, political, and strategic point of view,
this might sound like the ultimate absurdity. Nonetheless, given the trends of44

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

technological innovations and the propensity for nuclear war fighting in current
strategic thinking, it is in no way impossible.
2.2 THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA
In contrast to its relations with Russia, the United States has never officiallyacknowledged mutual nuclear deterrence with China or accepted that China
would eventually achieve parity with the United States. Apparently, Washington
does not intend to offer such relations as a “gift” to China, the emerging
superpower of the 21st century.
China, for its part, insists on its right for mutual deterrence with the United States,with an emphasis on what in the West is called “minimum nuclear deterrence”.
Beijing has been gradually increasing the number and survivability of its ICBMs
and SLBMs, nuclear and precision-guided conventional intermediate- and shortrange ballistic and cruise missiles.
Besides, China has the largest military shipbuilding (except aircraft carriers) andcombat aircraft manufacturing (except heavy bombers) programs in the world.
Its Air Force and naval aviation command about 4,000 aircraft of various types,
including 700 of the newest models.28 The Chinese Navy is the world’s second
largest after the United States and the largest in the Western Pacific possessing
eight nuclear attack and 60 diesel submarines, 80 large combat surface ships,
50 large and medium-size amphibious ships and 90 small corvettes and missileboats.29 China is increasing its anti-access/area-denial capabilities, which
provide it with expanding sea- and air-control in the Western Pacific.30
In the nuclear realm, independent foreign experts estimate that as many as
about 280 nuclear warheads are attributed to all legs and classes of China’s
nuclear forces.31 During peacetime, most of these warheads would be stockpiled
separately from the missiles. However, China has also adopted a continuous
duty cycle for the DF-31/31A (CSS-10) ICBM missile brigades, clearly keeping
these systems ready for immediate use upon the authorization of the Chinesepolitical leadership. This means that the missiles in their launch containers will
have permanently coupled nuclear warheads.
In contrast, reputable Russian experts have estimated that since the early 1960s
China has generated 40 tons of enriched weapons-grade uranium and 10 tonsof plutonium, which would be enough to produce 3,600 nuclear warheads.32

45

IFSH Research Report #002

However, most likely half of this fissile material is being held in stocks and half ofthe 1,500–1,800 warheads that have been produced since then are in storage.
Thus, up to 800–900 warheads and bombs could be available for operational
deployment on delivery vehicles of various types.33
Foreign news agencies and independent experts have periodically reported
that the Chinese military has been building an extensive system of undergroundtunnels. These tunnels, which extend for several thousand kilometers, could becapable of accommodating many dozens or even hundreds of backup groundmobile launchers with ballistic and cruise missiles. No other purpose has yet
been identified for such extensive earthworks.
American estimates forecast rapid growth of China’s nuclear force during the next
decade. According to Robert Ashley, Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency, “Over the next decade, China is likely to at least double the size of
its nuclear stockpile in the course of implementing the most rapid expansion
and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in China’s history”.34 Depending on thestarting point, this future nuclear force level might be between 600 and 1,800
warheads.
Even though such a high level is probably an exaggeration, the Chinese
nuclear capability has probably been underestimated by the international
strategic community. It appears that in all likelihood China has already thethird largest nuclear weapons arsenal after the United States and Russia. In
terms of its nuclear force level, and the technical and economic capability tobuild up its nuclear arsenal rapidly, it is possible that China surpasses all othernuclear weapons states combined, except the United States and Russia. Last
but not least, China is the only nation of the five NPT nuclear weapons states
and a permanent member of the UN Security Council which is totally opaqueregarding any official data on its present nuclear forces and their development
programs. In the past such reservation could have been justified on grounds ofChina’s nuclear inferiority vis-à-vis the two nuclear superpowers and Beijing’s
vulnerability concerns. Nowadays, however, such posturing looks threatening
to China’s neighbors, in particular since Chinese doctrinal documents containrather harsh official statements reflecting its rising military power and expanding
geopolitical ambitions.35
China’s official nuclear doctrine, coupled with total secrecy regarding its nuclear
forces, probably has little to do with practical policy, but represents a massive46

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

propaganda effort, much like that of the Soviet Union from the 1960s until thelate 1980s. For strategic professionals, studying American nuclear posture
documents is an interesting job. Reading Russian military doctrines requires
a lot of patience. But exploring Chinese defense statements is an agonizing
experience indeed. The 2019 White Paper underlines the fundamental principleof its defense policy: “To strengthen China’s national defense and military in the
new era, it is imperative to comprehensively implement Xi Jinping’s thinking onstrengthening the military, thoroughly deliver on Xi Jinping’s thinking on military
strategy”.36 Accordingly, the Paper defines China’s military doctrine, which“adheres to the principles of defense, self-defense and post-strike response,
and adopts active defense”. It highlights that “we will not attack unless we areattacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked.”37 It further declares: “China
is always committed to a nuclear policy of no first use of nuclear weapons at any
time and under any circumstances, and not using or threatening to use nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones
unconditionally … China does not engage in any nuclear arms race with anyother country and keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required
for national security.”38
Nonetheless, the situation with China is much more contradictory, than its
doctrine of nuclear No First Use would portray. It is commonly believed that a
nuclear power that makes a nuclear no first use pledge should rely on a secondstrike capability. However, according to information available abroad, China’s
deployed nuclear forces are too small and vulnerable (about 148 ICBMs and
SLBMs with a little more than 150 nuclear warheads and 96 nuclear IRBMs)39
to be able to launch a retaliatory strike after a hypothetical disarming missile
attack by the United States employing many hundreds of nuclear warheads andthousands of conventional precision-guided weapons. Besides, China’s strategic
nuclear forces would be incapable of launch-on-warning operations due toinsufficient combat readiness of missiles, their vulnerability, and an inadequate
effectiveness of the Chinese early warning and C3I systems. Beijing works to
improve its forces and C3I capabilities, but its progress is not impressive. At
the same time, its No First Use doctrine stands since many decades. In fact,
the Chinese second-strike capability would be viable only if a large numberof nuclear weapons are stored in the underground tunnels, ensuring that thisadditional stockpile is highly survivable and unknown to a potential adversary.
This stockpile would not be available for immediate use but might be launched
as a delayed retaliation.

47

IFSH Research Report #002

After abrogation of the INF Treaty, the United States is contemplating development
and deployment of intermediate-range cruise missiles, ballistic, and (or) boostglide hypersonic arms in the Western Pacific. Washington’s official position isthat, “We will not stand idle. We will take the necessary steps to ensure our
security and that of our allies and partners. And that includes testing anddeveloping systems to respond to the challenges we face …”.40
According to American experts, China’s theater-range missiles undermine thecredibility of American extended deterrence protecting allies and partners. In
times of crisis, the vulnerability of high-value, forward-deployed forces, including
aircraft on the ground and ships in port, to a devastating strike could compel
the United States to relocate military units to areas beyond the reach of Chinese
missiles. Anti-ship versions of such missiles can hit U.S. aircraft carriers andships equipped with SLCMs and Aegis missile defense systems; thus, forcing
them to stay out of range.41 If forward bases were rendered either unusable orinaccessible, the United States would be compelled to fall back on Hawaii orAustralia, thousands of kilometers from the frontlines.42
Allegedly, that is why the United States considers a number of possible militarycountermeasures previously forbidden under the INF Treaty. The primary missile
systems considered for deployment are the ballistic Precision Strike Missile(PrSM) with a range of 700 km and/or a ground-launched cruise missile on thebasis of the Tomahawk BGM -109G with a range of 1,000 km.43 Both systems
are expected to be armed with conventional warheads. In view of the distances
between possible basing areas and mainland China or North Korea, anotherproject may involve a ground-launched intermediate-range ballistic missile withtrajectory shaping vehicles (TSVs) possessing a maneuvering capacity to honein precisely on a target. An alternative system may be a boost-glide IRBM,44
presently called the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW). Its range is
expected to be 4,000 - 6,800 km and it could be ready for deployment in 2023
or 2024.45
According to proponents of such systems, they have serious advantages
compared to existing sea- or air-launched analogues. First, aircraft, ships, andsubmarines are much more expensive platforms than ground-based missile
launchers. Second, in contrast to air and naval platforms, which require time toreach their firing positions, forward-deployed ground-launched missiles could
constantly hold enemy targets at risk from where they are stationed. With shortflight times, they would be able to attack mobile units and high-priority targets.

48

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Third, ground-launched theater missiles are difficult to find and to attack, forthey can use camouflage techniques against air and space reconnaissance andbe protected by air and missile defense systems. Fourth, ground-based missile
batteries have logistical demands but do not require specialized facilities thataircraft and naval vessels need to rearm and refuel. Sixth, a modestly sized landbased missile force could destroy parts of enemy air defenses, thereby opening
the way for heavy bombers and fighter-bombers to attack their targets.46
From a military point of view, planning large-scale conventional war with China– one that would not quickly escalate to the nuclear level – is a highly dubious
proposition even if, as always, framed in the theology of extended deterrence.
As recognized in the U.S. 2018 Nuclear Posture Review: “China is developing
capabilities to counter U.S. power projection operations in the region and to deny
the United States the capability and freedom of action to protect U.S., allied, andpartner interests. Direct military conflict between China and the United States
would have the potential for nuclear escalation.”47
The main problem for Washington would be finding bases for the deploymentof a sufficient number of ground-launched missiles. Ideally, they would be
deployed in Japan (including Okinawa), South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines,
and in Australia. However, for domestic political and foreign policy reasons, thisis unlikely to be welcomed by either of these countries. Also, Australia is too far
away at 4,000 to 5,500 km, while Taiwan and South Korea are too close (50-130km) and thus militarily highly provocative as a missile basing area. Thus, theonly assured basing location would be Guam, an American island territory in theWestern Pacific 50 km long and 12 km wide.
If the United States plans to counter the 2,000 intermediate- and short-range
missiles, which are ascribed to China, how many missile launchers may bephysically deployed on this small territory to gain all the above advantages
without presenting a densely packed lucrative target for a preemptive Chinese
massive missile attack with conventional munitions (to say nothing of nuclear
warheads)? A few dozen or a hundred?
A harsh reaction to this deployment in the form of missiles build-up would
not only come from China, but from Russia as well, if it is within reach of U.S.
missiles. Moscow would feel justified to target American missile bases as well.
Suggested Russian deployment areas in Asia include the South Kuril Islands,
Maritime province and Chukotka.48 The latter is the only place from where

49

IFSH Research Report #002

Russian IRBMs can reach American strategic targets in Alaska and California.
This may create a somewhat similar threat to the U.S. homeland as compared toAmerican intermediate-range missiles deployed in Europe and Asia with regards
to Russia.
America and China clearly have a relationship based on mutual nuclear
deterrence. However, the nuclear balance is still heavily asymmetric in favor of
the United States with respect to the quantitative and qualitative parameters ofstrategic nuclear forces and ballistic missile defenses, as well as C3I systems.
Consequently, there is no parity in the strategic balance of the two states andalso no formally recognized state of mutual assured destruction, which served
as the basis of U.S.- Russian strategic stability and arms control talks.
The United States might be able to destroy 90 percent of China’s identified
strategic and sub-strategic nuclear forces in a hypothetical disarming(counterforce) strike.49 The missile defense system that is being deployed andenhanced in Asia and the Pacific by the United States and its allies might becapable of intercepting some of the surviving Chinese nuclear missiles. Still,
American losses after a Chinese nuclear retaliation against American cities(countervalue strike) could be in the millions.
Washington’s response to such a contingency is analogous to its strategy in ahypothetical conflict with Russia, but in contrast to that, is implicitly relying on
U.S. nuclear superiority: “Our tailored strategy for China is designed to prevent
Beijing from mistakenly concluding that it could secure an advantage throughthe limited use of its theater nuclear capabilities or that any use of nuclear
weapons, however limited, is acceptable. The United States will maintain thecapability to credibly threaten intolerable damage … such that the costs incurred
as a result of Chinese nuclear employment, at any level of escalation, would
vastly outweigh any benefit.” 50
The fact that China is building up its nuclear forces establishes a significant,though unspoken, incentive for the United States and its allies to develop a
missile defense system in East Asia. Although the immediate justification of thissystem is to intercept North Korean missiles, Washington quite probably seeks
to deploy a BMD system in the region to obstruct and delay China’s acquisitionof a robust nuclear deterrent potential (not to mention strategic parity with
Washington) with a guaranteed capability for retaliation. For obvious reasons,
China has been even more concerned about these developments than Russia

50

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

has been worried about NATO’s BMD system. China’s response is to develop a
C3I complex, BMD penetration aids, hypersonic and anti-satellite systems, andits own air and missile defenses.
U.S. offensive conventional weapons are also a source of major concern in China,
especially with regard to precision-guided sea- and air-based cruise missiles
combined with space-based reconnaissance, targeting, and communication
systems. The prospects of hypersonic high-precision conventional boost-glide
systems cause even larger concern for China. The Chinese are also worried
about the U.S. experiments with the secret X-37B spacecraft that took place inApril 2010.
The likelihood of a U.S. counterforce attack using precision-guided conventional
weapons undercuts China’s sacramental nuclear doctrine based on an
unconditional commitment not to use nuclear weapons first, to which it attaches
great political importance. If Beijing makes an exception for the case of an
attack against its nuclear forces with conventional weapons, then, in essence,
the Chinese nuclear doctrine would not be different from that of Russia or anumber of other states, and it would lose its unique political advantage.
2.3 RUSSIA AND CHINA
There are three principle drivers pushing Russia and China towards ever-closer
cooperation. One is that both have economic and security interests in cooperation
within a bilateral context, being close historic neighbors with a long and highly
controversial history and a 4,500 km common border. A new confrontation (tosay nothing of armed conflict) would be extremely detrimental for both sides. The
second is that they are presently opposing U.S. leadership in the Euro-Atlantic
and Asia-Pacific trans-regions and both are expanding their influence against
the West in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The third motive is thenature of their national political systems. They are not in any sense embarrassing
each other, but are clearly distinct from the Western liberal democracies, which
are perceived as an imminent threat in Moscow and Beijing. True, the same
was the case in the 1960 -1980s, when the two neighboring nations had been
the worst enemies in the world. But at that time they were bitter rivals for theleadership in the communist world while China was struggling to get out of theformer subjugation to the USSR. At present, there is no communist world whileboth states are striving for stronger positions in their respective relations with
the West.

51

IFSH Research Report #002

Sino-Russian strategic relations have been more controversial and ill-defined
than between the United States and China or between Russia and the UnitedStates. Officially, neither of these two “strategic partners” recognizes mutual
nuclear deterrence in their strategic relations. At the same time, they are notformal allies and apparently do not cooperate on nuclear weapons operations ordevelopment. The much recognized joint patrol of Russian and Chinese bombers
in East Asia in July 2019 was a purely symbolic demonstration to impress theAmericans and their allies.51
On October 3, 2019, Vladimir Putin emphasized the “unprecedented level ofmutual trust and cooperation in an allied relationship of strategic partnership”
and disclosed an agreement with China on helping it to build an early-warning
system.52 Reportedly, the $60 million contract aims to develop only the software
for a future Chinese system. As of now, there are no plans to cooperate indeveloping and deploying hardware or to share data from Russian early-warning
satellites and land-based radars. In principle, this cooperation could enhancestrategic stability. Given its growing nuclear arsenal, it would be dangerous if
China would stay “deaf and blind.”
Still, this step goes beyond previous cooperation on sales of weapons and civil
nuclear technologies. Joint early-warning systems can only exist among close
military allies like is the case between the United States and some of its NATO
allies (Great Britain and Denmark). If such cooperation between Russia andChina were to expand, it would imply a tectonic shift in the regional and global
balance of power. The worst possible consequence would be if China were to
rely on such a system to adopt launch-on-warning as a version of its own No
First Use commitment. The probability of inadvertent nuclear war due to false
alarm or a technical glitch would grow exponentially were all three great nuclear
powers to implement such strategy.
A cooperative early-warning complex just as a joint BMD system is incompatible
with mutual nuclear deterrence, which probably will remain in a latent formin Russia-China strategic relations. Possibly some parts of Russia’s strategic
nuclear forces, as well as some of its sub-strategic nuclear weapons, may be
assigned to a deterrence mission vis-à-vis China. Interestingly enough in thecontext of Russia’s criticism of the INF Treaty during the years 2007- 2018, China
had been mentioned together with a number of other non-INF nations possessing
intermediate-range missiles. After the abrogation of the Treaty, Russia apparently
intends to deploy nuclear and conventional IRBMs in Siberia and the Far East in52

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

response to possible U.S. deployments in the Western Pacific. Simultaneously,
those future missiles would be technically capable of targeting many Chinese
military and civilian sites. This might be tacitly seen as an asset by the Russian
military and, at the same time, as a liability for their Chinese “strategic partners.”
Most probably, a part of China’s strategic and medium-range nuclear forces also
target Russian urban-industrial centers. Nonetheless, Russia retains a significant
superiority over China in strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, which willcontinue for the foreseeable future.
Even though mutual nuclear deterrence has taken somewhat of a backseat inlight of closer political relations between the two powers, Russia, similarly to
the United States, has never recognized the Chinese claim of strategic parity or
mutual nuclear deterrence. In any case, considering the political and strategic
aspects of their relations, Russia and China have even less of a sound basis
for initiating mutual nuclear arms limitation talks between them than the UnitedStates and China.
Nonetheless, Russia should have an interest in limiting China’s strategic andsub-strategic nuclear and conventional systems. Whatever the political relationsof the two neighbors in the future, Russia’s conventional inferiority in the East willprobably grow more worrying for Moscow.
Taken together, strategic relations between the three great powers areasymmetrical and lack any political or strategic common ground in terms ofstrategic stability and parity. The “triangle” is unequally sided and qualitatively
irregular (Figure 1).
Figure 1.
The strategic triangle:
Russia, the United States,
and China.

RUSSIA

Symmetric Deterrence

Latent Deterrence

CHINA
U.S.

Asymmetric Deterrence

53

IFSH Research Report #002

3. PROSPECTS FOR NUCLEAR ARMS LIMITATIONS
However inferior in nuclear forces in comparison to the United States andRussia, at present, China is the only country that has the economic and technicalcapability to implement a multifold buildup of its strategic potential over thecourse of the next ten to fifteen years. Only by replacing single-warhead missiles
with MIRVed systems China could increase the total number of warheads by two
to three or even more times. This is what happened with the U.S. strategic forces
during the first half of the 1970s and the Soviet Union’s strategic forces in thesecond half of the same decade. Hence, it is worthwhile to take Chinese forcesand development programs into consideration when discussing any future
Russian-American strategic or intermediate-range arms limitation agreements.
China officially opposes any attempt to make an issue out of China on arms control
and will not participate in any negotiation for a trilateral nuclear disarmament
agreement.”53 However, that position might change. In May 2019, its stance wasa flat rejection: “The premise and basis for trilateral arms control negotiations
do not exist at all and China will never participate in them [emphasis addedby the author].”54 This rejection became less categorical in July 2019, after theabrogation of the INF Treaty: “Right now we do not see any conditions or basis
for China to join the negotiation between the U.S. and Russia.”55
Most likely, China’s opaque stance is motivated by a desire not to reveal the actual
size of its nuclear arsenal, which may be much larger than usually estimated.
Besides, Beijing’s foreign and defense policy, underlying its arms control stance,
is obviously determined by an extremely conservative, cautious, and inflexible
bureaucratic apparatus, dominated by the party, the military, and the industry.
This apparatus remains unchallenged at home and abroad. But in time it may
seem worthwhile for China to rethink its stance in order to enhance its global
status and its deterrence potential, as well as to oblige the United States to treat
China as an equal in potential arms control talks.
Two essential preconditions would have to be met to achieve some arms control
progress. First, China would have to see that joining the arms control processpromises substantive strategic gains through trading-off concessions on arms
limitation with other states. Nothing like that was ever offered to China besides
general calls to join arms control. Second, any future agreement must not legalize
China’s strategic inferiority vis-à-vis the two superpowers. These preconditions
should then define what weapons systems should be subject to negotiations.

54

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

The logic of mutual deterrence would first call for bilateral U.S.-Chinese
diplomatic engagement. However, due to the trilateral geostrategic situationand the range of IRBMs (to say nothing of strategic weapons), America, and,perhaps clandestinely, also China would hardly agree on any arms limitations
were Russia not part of such a deal. Anyway, a U.S.-China agreement without
Russia is less likely than a future Russian-U.S. deal excluding China.
Finally, when discussing possible further arms control agreements on various
classes of offensive systems, a time frame of ten to fifteen years should be taken
into consideration. Over this period, China would be able not only to increase thenumber of its nuclear launchers but also to replace its single-warhead missiles
with MIRVed missiles currently under development (DF-31AG, DF-41, and JL-3),
with hypersonic arms, advanced heavy bombers, and long-range cruise missilesof various basing modes.
China possesses about 100 nuclear-tipped ground-launched missiles of thetypes prohibited by the late INF Treaty.56 In addition, China allegedly possesses
up to 2,000 high-precision medium- and short-range conventional missiles,
capable of striking U.S. aircraft carriers and sites in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan,
and Guam.57 Most likely, many of those missiles are short-range systems with lessthan 500 km range, deployed against Taiwan and other nearby zones bordering
China. Still, these missiles are a major concern for Washington.
Half a century of U.S.-Soviet/Russian arms control experience demonstrates
that no party would agree to legalize its inferiority and, at the same time, its
opponent’s superiority. Therefore, negotiations should aim at setting equalceilings for comparable weapons systems. Justifying its withdrawal from the
INF Treaty, Washington is pointing at the perceived threat of 2,000 Chineseintermediate and short-range missiles, most of which are conventionally armed.
Simultaneously, the United States is officially proclaiming its intention to deploy
non-nuclear intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles in East Asia.58
This means that any hypothetical new arms control treaty should cover both
nuclear and non-nuclear ground-launched missiles of corresponding range.
Parity based on the current number of China’s ground-launched intermediateand short-range missiles would imply China’s agreeing to limit its existing
systems in exchange for the United States’ and Russia’s right to deploy 2,000such weapons. If instead missiles are limited at a much lower level or evenentirely prohibited, then, China would lose a lot in exchange for nothing. There

55

IFSH Research Report #002

is no chance that China would accept such a deal, especially in light of theoverwhelming advantage of the two other states in strategic weapons. Hence, thebalance of land-based intermediate or short-range missiles (Figure 2) does notprovide a promising starting point for arms control except under the unrealistic
scenario of the United States and Russia quickly deploying many hundreds or
thousands of such missiles while China refrains from responding.

Figure 2. The balance of ground-launched intermediate and short-range
missiles.
2500

2000

1500

1000

500
9M729?
0U.S.

Russia100 nuclear
intermediate- andshort-range missiles
China

Source: SPIRI Yearbook 2018: Arms, Disarmament and International Security; Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Threads to International Peace and Security. 22 August 2019, New York City.

Hypothetically, if China departs from its current negative stance, it would most
likely want the overall ceiling for such missiles to include both ground and sealaunched cruise missiles. Air-launched cruise missiles might also be included
in China’s bargaining position.59 The United States has about 5,400 cruise
missiles on all of its fleets,60 and Russia probably possesses a few hundredsof them as well (according to official reports, it has recently increased its cruise
missile arsenal thirty-fold).61 Verifying the total number of such missiles (Figure3) would present an enormous challenge. They are deployed in ships’ universal
missile launchers along with anti-aircraft, anti-missile, anti-ship/land-attack,and anti-submarine missiles, and on refitted strategic submarines, as well as in
attack submarines’ vertical launchers or torpedo tubes. Unlike ground-launchedintermediate-range missiles, the deployment of mobile sea-launched systems
is not restricted to a particular region. That means that China would most likely
insist on global ceilings.

56

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Figure 3. The balance of ground- and sea-launched cruise and ballistic
intermediate- and short-range missiles.
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0

U.S.

RussiaChina

Source: SPIRI Yearbook 2018: Arms, Disarmament and International Security; Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Threads to International Peace and Security. 22 August 2019, New York City.

The hypothetical Chinese negotiation position outlined above would be quite
reasonable from an arms control point of view, and would put the UnitedStates – and to some degree, Russia – in an extremely awkward position.
Even if negotiations would end with no result, China would still score a political
victory simply by the fact that no one could blame the Chinese for their morecomprehensive but quite logical position. Successful negotiations, however,would be a big strategic victory for China due to the global limits on both landand sea-based missiles of an appropriate range of all three parties.
Chinese participation in the next START treaty, which the White House is also
talking about, could create even greater problems for the two superpowers. For
instance, China could ask for parity in strategic weapons at its current levels,
which would require a seven to ten-fold reduction in the New START ceilings
on delivery vehicles and warheads. Alternatively, it could insist on its right toincrease its strategic weapons up to the present U.S. and Russian numbers.
Neither of the two options would be acceptable to Washington or Moscow, even
if a long-standing Russian demand of applying limitations on British and French
nuclear forces were satisfied in contrast to the traditional positions of those three
NATO allies (Figure 4).

57

IFSH Research Report #002

Figure 4. Pentagonal strategic balance.
2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0

U.S.

RussiaChina

BritainFranceSource: SPIRI Yearbook 2018: Arms, Disarmament and International Security

Nonetheless, theoretically a compromise is possible. For instance, the next
START treaty could be a trilateral agreement with the current ceiling for
deployed weapons. According to New START, this ceiling is at 1,550 warheads,
but taking into account the actual available cruise missile and gravity bomb loadon heavy bombers, it is in fact around 2,100 - 2,200 weapons. Hypothetically,
the next agreement could set a 2,000 warheads ceiling for strategic land- andsea-based ballistic missiles, gravity bombs and air-launched cruise missiles, aswell as land-based intermediate and short-range ballistic and cruise missiles. It
could also include present and future boost-glide intercontinental and mediumrange systems, intercontinental cruise missiles and long-range underwater
autonomous vehicles.
All the above systems would be limited if they have ranges in excess of 500
km and regardless of whether their warheads are nuclear or conventional. Thatwould also include the U.S. air-launched AGM-158, the JASSEM-ER, and future
X-51 WaveRider missiles as well as the Russian Kh-555, Kh-101, and Kinzhal(if fitted onto aircraft that qualify as heavy bombers). Also included would be
future U.S. and Russian land-based intermediate-range missiles. The number ofthe respective conventional systems is difficult to calculate because it changes
all the time (partly because they are employed in local conflicts). In Figure 5,
they are nevertheless included in both the total number of present warheads
on strategic and intermediate range delivery vehicles and in the ceiling of ahypothetical future trilateral treaty.

58

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Figure 5. Hypothetical integrated INF-START Treaty.
2500

START-INF

2000

New START

1500

1000

500

0

U.S.

RussiaChina

BritainFrance■ 154 Chinese strategic nuclear missiles■ 100 Chinese nuclear intermediate- and short-range missiles
Source: SPIRI Yearbook 2018: Arms, Disarmament and International Security; Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Threads to International Peace and Security. 22 August 2019, New York City.

Under such a treaty China would be allowed to increase its strategic forces(currently around 150 delivery vehicles and warheads), while it would have to
reduce its intermediate-range systems that worry the United States. For theirpart, the two nuclear superpowers would have some latitude in deploying
intermediate and short-range missiles, depending on corresponding reductionsin their strategic systems. All three parties would thus have sufficient flexibility
in planning the mix of their strategic and intermediate- and short-range forces,
as well as their nuclear and conventional systems of appropriate range. To
prevent a rapid build-up of Chinese strategic arms, a sub-ceiling of 500 - 600 on
strategic delivery vehicles (missiles and bombers) and some other structuraland qualitative limitations might additionally be introduced. Verifying such an
agreement would not be more difficult than verifying the INF and START Treaties,
provided new definitions are agreed on for hypersonic and other novel arms.
Sea-launched cruise missiles present a more serious challenge due to themobility of their delivery vehicles and the universality of their launchers, but
the initial solution may be to extend confidence-building measures to these59

IFSH Research Report #002

missiles, regardless of the class of warheads they carry. These measures could
include specific notifications about certain operations of cruise missile ships
and submarines. This might alleviate fears of a sudden cruise missile strike fromthe sea and prevent potentially disproportionate reactions.
A hypothetical treaty would benefit China through recognition of its equal statusof a nuclear superpower, its right to rely on stable mutual nuclear deterrencewith the other two nations, and by the economic benefits of avoiding an arms
race. America and Russia might gain limitations, transparency, and predictability
regarding the Chinese missile build-up in exchange for recognizing China’s
equal nuclear status and in exchange for additional mutual strategic limitations.
From a nuclear disarmament standpoint, all that would seem like a step
backwards. Raising warheads ceilings to 2,000 from zero under the deceased
INF Treaty and from 1,550 under New START would require a lot of explaining
in the UN, including convincing others of the advantage of having more realistic
counting rules for bomber weapons. But it would still be better than a world
without INF, and, perhaps, New START.
Expanding the nuclear arms control format is hard, but hypothetically possible.
However, advocates of a trilateral process need to realize that it requires morethan simply revising the current positions of third nuclear states. The two nuclear
superpowers would pay a much higher price in that case – both in terms of force
limitations, military strategy and politically.
4. CONCLUSION
So far, the idea of multilateral (and in particular trilateral) nuclear arms control has
generated nothing constructive. To the contrary, due to its deceptive simplicity,
politicians, and the public in general, easily accept it and do not object to thetermination of the bilateral arms control process.
Meanwhile, Moscow and Washington face a number of serious issues that shouldbe the subject of arms control negotiations. After the abandonment of the INF
Treaty, the two states should at least commit to not deploy INF-prohibited missilesin Europe and, no less important, agree on appropriate transparency measures.
Next, they should extend New START for a five-year period and immediately
start discussing a follow-on agreement. Further reductions in numerical levels
are secondary. Far more important is that the next treaty includes limits on the60Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

newest nuclear and conventional strategic weapons systems and adopts realistic
counting rules (particularly on bomber weapons) and a strict verification regime.
Only the continuation of bilateral U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control can serveas the political and military basis for eventually shifting to a tri- or multilateral
nuclear arms control format.

61

IFSH Research Report #002

Endnotes
1

President of Russia (2007). Speech and the Following Discussion at theMunich Conference on Security Policy, 10 February 2007, available at
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034(accessed 15 February 2020).

2

Government of the Russian Federation (2012). Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin meets with experts in Sarov, 24 February 2012, available at http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/18248/ (accessed 15 February 2020).

3

U.S. Department of State (2007). Joint U.S.-Russian Statement on theTreaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range
Missiles at the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly, New York,
25 October 2007, available at https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/
ps/2007/oct/94141.htm (accessed 15 February 2020).

4

President of Russia (2019). Plenary Session of the Eastern Economic
Forum, 5 September 2019, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/
president/news/61451 (accessed 15 February 2020).

5

President of Russia (2007), op cit.

6

SIPRI (2018). SIPRI Yearbook 2018: Armaments, Disarmament andInternational Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 235-287.

7

SIPRI (1990). SIPRI Yearbook 1990: World Armaments, Disarmament andInternational Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 3-5;
SIPRI (2018), op cit.

8

Office of the U.S. Press Secretary (1990). Soviet-United States Joint
Statement on Future Negotiations on Nuclear and Space Arms and Further
Enhancing Strategic Stability, 1 June 1990, available at https://bush41
library.tamu.edu/archives/public-papers/1938 (accessed 15 February 2020).

9

These are primarily sea-based and ground-mobile weapons systems by
warheads count.

10 Dvorkin, Vladimir (2017). Offensive arms reductions. In: Arbatov, Alexey,
Dvorkin, Vladimir (eds.). Polycentric nuclear world: New Challenges andOpportunities (Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 2017), pp. 67-68.
[in Russian]62

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

11 Borger, Julian (2019). US arms control office critically understaffed under
Trump, experts say. The Guardian, 1 July 2019, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/us-arms-control-officeunderstaffed-trump?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1561965873(accessed 15 February 2020).
12 President of Russia (2018). Presidential Address to the Federal
Assembly, 1 March 2018, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/
president/news/56957 (accessed 15 February 2020).
13 Ibid.
14 Tukembaev, Choro (2018). Tsunami Aiming at Washington. MilitaryIndustrial Courier, 25 December 2018, available at https://vpk-news.ru/
articles/47228 (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]
15 Soviet Union – United States (1985). Joint Soviet-United States
Statement on the Summit Meeting in Geneva, 21 November 1985,
available at https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/112185a(accessed 15 February 2020).
16 Office of the U.S. Press Secretary (1990), op. cit.
17 Colby, Elbridge (2018). If You Want Peace Prepare for Nuclear War.
Foreign Affairs, 97(6): 25-32; Khramchikhin, Alexander (2019). The
Dangers of the Collapse of the Unipolar World. Independent
Military Review, 11 January 2019, available at http://nvo.ng.ru/concepts/
2019-01-11/1_1029_welt.html (accessed 15 February 2020) [in Russian];Akhmerov, Yevgeny, Valeev, Marat & Akhmerov, Dmitry (2016).
Balloon – A Friend of “Sarmat,” Military-Industrial Courier,
12 October 2016, available at https://vpk.name/news/165525_aerostat__drug_sarmata.html (accessed 15 February 2020) [in Russian].
18 U.S. Department of Defense (2018). Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), p. 21.
19 U.S. Department of Defense (1974). Report of the Secretary of Defense
James R. Schlesinger to the Congress on the FY 1975 Defense Budget
and FY 1975-1979 Defense Program, 4 March 1974, available at http://
history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/annual_reports/1975_DoD_
AR.pdf?ver=2014-06-24-150705-323 (accessed 15 February 2020).
63

IFSH Research Report #002

20 U.S. Department of Defense (2018), op cit.
21 Ibid.
22 Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (2003). The Priority
Tasks of the Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,
available at http://red-stars.org/doctrine.pdf (accessed 15 February 2020).
23 The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2014).
Approved by the President of the Russian Federation on December 25,
2014, No. Pr.-2976, available at https://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029(accessed 15 February 2020).
24 Akhmerov et al. (2016), op cit.
25 Gerasimov, Valery (2019). The General Staff Is Planning Strikes, MilitaryIndustrial Courier, (9): 6. [in Russian]
26 President of Russia (2018), op cit.
27 Lowther, Adam & McGiffin, Curtis (2019). America Needs a “DeadHand.” War on the Rocks, 16 August 2019, available at https://waron
therocks.com/2019/08/america-needs-a-dead-hand/(accessed 15 February 2020).
28 Khramchikhin, Alexander (2013). Attack of the Chinese Aircraft Industry,
Military-Industrial Courier, 20 May 2013, available at https://vpk-news.ru/
articles/15967 (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]
29 Khramchikhin, Alexander (2013). Operation “Overlord,” Beijing Style,
Military-Industrial Courier, 8 April 2013, available at https://vpk-news.ru/
articles/15338 (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]
30 Khramchikhin, Alexander (2013). Chinese Expansion Is Inevitable,
Military-Industrial Courier, 2 September 2013, available at https://vpknews.ru/articles/17276/ (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]
31 SIPRI (2018), op cit.

64

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

32 Esin, Viktor (2012). The Third after the U.S. and Russia: On the Chinese
Nuclear Capability without Understatements and Exaggerations, MilitaryIndustrial Courier, 2 May 2012, available at http://vpk-news.ru/articles/
8838 (accessed 15 February 2020). [in Russian]
33 Esin, Viktor (2012). China’s Nuclear Might. In: Arbatov, Alexey, Dvorkin,
Vladimir & Oznobishchev, Sergei (eds.). The Prospects of Chinese Involvement in Nuclear Arms Limitation (Moscow: IMEMO RAN, 2012), pp. 27-35.
[in Russian]
34 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (2019). Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr.,
Director Defense Intelligence Agency, Russian and Chinese Nuclear
Modernization Trends, Remarks at the Hudson Institute, 29 May 2019,available at https://www.dia.mil/News/Speeches-and-Testimonies/ArticleView/Article/1859890/russian-and-chinese-nuclear-modernization-trends(accessed 15 February 2020).
35 “The South China Sea islands and Diaoyu Islands are inalienable parts of
the Chinese territory … To solve the Taiwan question and achieve complete
reunification of the country is in the fundamental interests of the Chinese
nation and essential to realizing national rejuvenation … China … will neverallow the secession of any part of its territory by anyone, any organizationor any political party by any means at any time. We make no promise torenounce the use of force, and reserve the option of taking all necessary
measures.” The State Council Information Office of the People’s
Republic of China (2019). China’s National Defense in the New Era(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press Co. Ltd., 2019), p. 7.
36 Ibid., p. 10.
37 Ibid., p. 8.
38 Ibid., p. 9.
39 SIPRI (2018), op cit., p. 262.
40 U.S. Mission to the United Nations (2019). Remarks at a UN Security
Council Briefing on Threats to International Peace and Security, 22 August
2019, available at https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a-un-securitycouncil-briefing-on-threats-to-international-peace-and-security/(accessed 16 February 2020).

65

IFSH Research Report #002

41 Cohn, Jacob, Walton, Timothy A., Lemon, Adam & Yoshihara, Toshi(2019). Leveling the Playing Field. Reintroducing U.S. Theater-range
Missiles in a Post-INF World (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic andBudgetary Assessments, 2019), pp. 6-9.
42 Ibid., pp. 8-9.
43 Pifer, Steven (2019). The Death of the INF Treaty has Given Birth to New
Missile Possibilities. The National Interest, 18 September 2019, available athttps://nationalinterest.org/feature/death-inf-treaty-has-given-birth-newmissile-possibilities-81546 (accessed 15 February 2020).
44 Freedberg Jr., Sydney J. (2018). What Weapons Will The US Build After
The INF Treaty? Breaking Defense, 22 October 2018, available at https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/what-weapons-will-the-us-build-after-theinf/ (accessed 15 February 2020).
45 Ketonov, Sergey (2019). Lockheed Martin was Bypassed at Hypersonic,
Military-Industrial Courier, (35): p. 9. [in Russian]
46 Cohn et al. (2019), op cit., pp. 32-33.
47 U.S. Department of Defense (2018), op cit., p. 32.
48 Shirokorad, Alexander (2019). The Doomsday Weapon, Independent
Military Review, (19): 6-7. [in Russian]
49 Estimate by the author.
50 U.S. Department of Defense (2018), op cit., p. 23, 32.
51 Khramchikhin, Alexander (2019). Military Cooperation of Russia andChina, Independent Military Review, (34): 12-13. [in Russian]
52 Reuters (2019). Russia helping China to build missile-attack warning
system: Putin. Reuters, 3 October 2019, available at https://www.reuters.
com/article/us-russia-china-missiles/russia-helping-china-to-build-missileattack-warning-system-putin-idUSKBN1WI20E(accessed 16 February 2020).

66

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

53 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019).
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang’s Regular Press Conference,
Beijing, 6 May 2019, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/nanhai/eng/
fyrbt_1/t1661163.htm (accessed 15 February 2020).
54 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019).
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang’s Regular Press Conference on
May 20, 2019, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celv/eng/fyrth/t1665026.htm (accessed 16 February 2020).
55 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019).
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang’s Regular Press Conference
on July 16, 2019, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/eng/
fyrth/t1681503.htm (accessed 16 February 2020).
56 SIPRI (2018), op cit., p. 262.
57 U.S. Mission to the United Nations (2019), op cit.; Cohn et al. (2019),
op cit., p. 5.
58 Thompson, Andrea & Trachtenberg, David (2019). Hearing on The
Future of Arms Control Post-Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 15 May 2019, available athttps://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/the-future-of-arms-control-postintermediate-range-nuclear-forces-treaty (accessed 15 February 2020).
59 Those are deployed on heavy bombers, which are subject to New START.
China may indicate that those are not counted as individual warheads
under the 1,550 warheads ceiling.
60 They are deployed on four modified Ohio-class strategic submarines, andon 20 attack Virginia and Sea Wolf-class submarines, as well as on 22
Ticonderoga-class cruisers and 76 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
Miasnikov, Eugene (2013). The Air-Space Threat to Russia. In: Arbatov,
Alexey & Dvorkin, Vladimir (eds.). Missile Defense: Confrontation andCooperation (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013), p. 131.
61 President of Russia (2018), op cit.

67

IFSH Research Report #002

The Case for China’s Participation in Trilateral Arms Control
Tong Zhao
1. THE NEED FOR CHINA TO DEEPEN ITS PARTICIPATIONIN ARMS CONTROL
Despite growing international pressure for China to “join” arms control, Beijing
generally dismisses the way the issue is framed. From its perspective, China isalready an active contributor to arms control activities, including its participationin the negotiation and the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty(CTBT), its previous efforts to promote negotiations among the Nuclear Weapons
States to reach a joint No First Use agreement, its participation in various arms
control talks within the U.N. and Conference on Disarmament frameworks, andits help with revitalizing the P5 process to discuss disarmament, among otherthings.1 That said, there are several reasons that China can and should consider
deepening its participation in arms control, as it will serve key Chinese interestsand help promote regional and global stability.
1.1 FACILITATE U.S. AND RUSSIAN NUCLEAR REDUCTIONS
China generally recognizes that the previous bilateral measures by the UnitedStates and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals have significantly improved
China’s security situation. If the two big powers stop the reductions process
and eliminate existing bilateral arms control agreements, China’s security would
inevitably be undermined. In the case of New START, China benefits from thetransparency and verification measures in the treaty. Without them Beijing would
likely have to apply worst-case thinking to its assessment of future U.S. andRussian nuclear arsenals. The longer after the treaty’s expiration, the greater
the uncertainties about the exact U.S. and Russian capabilities. That way, China
could be dragged into a negative action-reaction nuclear competition cycle
among the three countries.2
Over the years, China’s impact on U.S.-Russian bilateral arms control has grown
to the point where it cannot be ignored. In U.S. policy circles, some predict
China’s nuclear arsenal will at least double in the next decade.3 Many American
experts argue that the U.S. must hedge against a scenario in which China will
sprint to parity with the United States. This leads such people to oppose further

68

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

reductions in U.S. forces.4 Even Russian experts and former senior military
officials, who are usually more sympathetic to China’s nuclear policy thanWestern experts, have raised serious questions about whether China’s nuclear
arsenal is indeed as small as most people believe.5 Such doubts likely affectRussian experts’ calculations about the necessary size of Russia’s future arsenal.
Therefore, there is an increasing need for China to recognize the connection
between the transparency and predictability of its nuclear modernization andthe U.S. and Russian incentives to continue drawing down their nuclear forces
and maintain their existing arms control mechanisms.
1.2 MAINTAIN STABILITY AT THE STRATEGIC LEVEL
From the Chinese perspective, the traditional concept of strategic stability isbased on a relationship of mutual nuclear vulnerability. For China, mutual assured
destruction by nuclear weapons provides a foundation to maintain arms raceand crisis stability.6 However, Chinese experts worry that the United States is nolonger committed to the traditional concept of strategic stability or interested in
discussing strategic nuclear security issues by using this framework.7 They view
the shift of U.S. views on this critical issue as evidence of Washington rejecting
a mutual nuclear vulnerability relationship with Beijing. They also observe
persistent U.S. interest in acquiring damage-limitation capabilities against
China,8 capabilities that do not look significantly different from counterforce
first-strike capabilities to Chinese strategists. The perceived decline in the U.S.
political commitment to maintaining strategic stability with China is likely tocause serious Chinese fears about U.S. strategic intentions. This may lead tohigher levels of investment into its nuclear modernization program to ensure theexistence of a de facto mutual nuclear vulnerability relationship.
New challenges also arise at the technical level. Nonnuclear strategic
technologies, such as missile defense, conventional precision-strike weapons,counter space weapons, remote sensing technologies, and cyber weapons,
among others, present potential threats to nuclear weapons systems. Thosechallenges are usually exacerbated by a tendency to overestimate the impact of
new technologies. Chinese and Russian nuclear modernization efforts to offset
the impact of U.S. nonnuclear technologies are often seen by the United States
as excessive and driven by revisionist goals to adopt more aggressive nuclear
postures. And the United States then feels obligated to respond. Divergent
understandings about the impact of new technologies make it much morechallenging to maintain strategic stability.

69

IFSH Research Report #002

To avoid a nuclear arms race and maintain strategic stability is clearly in China’s
interest. But it would become harder to achieve that interest if China waits longer
to engage in arms control and cooperative security measures that help containthe arms competition before it further intensifies. Whether the United States iswilling to accept a mutual vulnerability relationship with China may be a functionof whether it perceives China as a status quo power as opposed to a revisionist
power that embraces aggressive intentions. From the U.S. perspective, arevisionist power that seeks to change the status quo may be less deterrable bymutual vulnerability as it has an inherent incentive to provoke; and thus the UnitedStates may have to develop the capacity to stop any attacks that aim at forcefullychanging the existing security landscape. For this reason, it has not been very
productive for China to complain about the lack of explicit acknowledgement ofand commitment to mutual vulnerability by the U.S. side. Rather, there may be
more effective ways for China to influence U.S. thinking on mutual vulnerability
by taking measures that can help assure the United States of China’s strategic
intentions.
In the nuclear area, China’s benign strategic intention can be shown bydemonstrating that it has no plan to increase its nuclear forces to a level
inconsistent with a minimum deterrent doctrine, or to raise the status of its
nuclear weapons in national security strategy, or to broaden the scenarios ofpotential employment of its nuclear weapons. Chinese participation in arms
control measures that can provide transparency and put some tangible limit
on some of these activities would be a convincing demonstration of Chinese
intention.
Arms control is needed to regulate the development and/or deployment of
new technologies or at least help narrow the perception gap between states on
the nature or degree of the threat posed by new technologies against nuclear
weapons systems. This can help manage the intensity of arms competition bycontaining the severity and prevalence of worst-case scenario thinking thatdrives nuclear modernization investments.
Furthermore, the impact of the introduction of new technologies on conflict
escalation and crisis management is far from being fully understood by decisionmakers in the main possessor states of such technologies. The scholarly
community has started to examine the potential impact, including conducting
research on, for example, how conventional hypersonic weapons may create
new ambiguities that can lead to inadvertent escalation,9 how the entanglement

70Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

of nonnuclear technologies and nuclear weapons systems may cause
misunderstandings and misjudgment in military crises,10 how the incorporationof artificial intelligence (AI) into strategic warning may undermine the system’s
reliability and affect strategic stability,11 and how the use of cyber technologies
against each other’s nuclear command and control system can generate newpathways to misperceptions and overreactions.12 A general consensus isemerging within the Western scholarly community that such risks are serious
and need to be addressed systematically and sooner rather than later. In themeantime, the Chinese counterparts are following such research but do notappear to have arrived at the same level of concern and urgency as their Westerncolleagues.
At the government level, there is clearly lack of awareness and appreciation ofsuch risks. Defense procurement decisions and military doctrines are being
made without considering these potential risks. It is almost inevitable that when
great power competition grows, states focus more of their attention on how to
improve their military effectiveness. Thinking through how some of the newcapabilities may exacerbate escalation dynamics becomes a secondary priority.
The introduction of dual-capable ballistic missile systems that can deliver
either nuclear or conventional warheads is one example of this worrisome
trend. Such missile systems have greater operational flexibility and efficiency
on the battlefield but they also present a challenge for an enemy to accurately
understand the nature of the threat it faces during a crisis. If a confused enemy
overreacts, one’s own security would be severely undermined as a result of
inadvertent escalation. Awareness of such risks does not come automatically,
especially not for countries like China, which does not have first-hand experienceof serious nuclear crises and military incidents involving nuclear weapons. As
a result, arms control talks would be quite necessary to raise risk awarenessamong experts, military strategists, and political decision-makers. Only afterstates share a common understanding of the risks, would it be possible for themto have serious discussions about how the development and/or deployment of
new technologies can be regulated to address these risks. With great powercompetition on the rise, the need to prevent arms competitions from introducing
new escalation risks that threaten everyone and undermine strategic stability
becomes ever more pressing.
Arms control is also an imperative for big powers to assure each other about
their strategic intentions at a time when their overall relations become morecompetitive and distrust grows. In the case of China, the intensifying competition

71

IFSH Research Report #002

with the United States saw the rise of the view in Beijing’s security policy circles
that Washington has adopted a strategic goal of undermining and destabilizing
China and is willing to use all means at its disposal to preserve U.S. “hegemonic
power” and “global dominance.”13 At the same time, U.S. suspicion of China’s
strategic intentions has deepened and there is growing concern about an
expansionist and revisionist China seeking to replace the United States anddictate international rulemaking in the future. Against this background, it is evenmore important that America and China make every effort to assure each otherabout their strategic nuclear security objectives. A reaffirmation of the sharedgoal of maintaining strategic stability and joint arms control efforts to regulate
their strategic forces for the achievement of this common objective can help build
confidence that at the fundamental level they have no intention to threaten thevery survival of each other or to challenge their most critical security interests. All
that could happen, despite the continuous existence of serious disagreements
and disputes over other issues.
1.3 MANAGE CONVENTIONAL COMPETITION
The conventional military competition among the great powers is even moretroublesome than their nuclear competition. Unlike at the nuclear level, there
is no shared vision of respecting mutual vulnerability, maintaining arms racestability, and preventing military conflict at the conventional level. In some cases,
the great powers embrace competing visions about the desired end states of
their conventional military balance. China believes the only way to secure its
territorial integrity in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and over the Taiwan
Strait is to acquire conventional military superiority over its regional rivals andover the United States in parts of the West Pacific, so that when it becomes
necessary for China to use physical means to defend its perceived territorial
integrity, its regional rivals could do nothing and the United States would bedeterred from even trying to intervene. China sees it as a legitimate strategy toadvance a defensive objective, but it requires a regional conventional militarybalance that is in China’s favor and would by no means be acceptable to China’s
rivals and the United States. For those actors, their security (and survival, insome cases) relies on a regional conventional military balance that nevercompletely favors China. Such incompatible visions almost guarantee that future
conventional competition will be exceptionally intense.
So far, China does not seem to be bothered by the lack of arms control
institutions to mitigate or regulate the ongoing conventional military competition72

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

in the Asia Pacific region. As China’s GDP growth rate has been much higher
than all its regional rivals, including the United States over the past decades,
Chinese experts have shown a high level of confidence about China’s capability
to outcompete its rivals in the conventional military domain. Time appears to be
on China’s side and it only needs to be patient. However, this optimism does
not take into account a few issues that would have a negative impact on China’s
security.
China’s conventional military superiority would work against its efforts to maintaina stable nuclear relationship with the United States, for at least two reasons. First,
from the Chinese perspective, the foundation of a stable nuclear relationshipwith the United States is for Washington to acknowledge and accept a de facto
mutual nuclear vulnerability relationship with Beijing. However, one importantreason that the United States has refused to do so is opposition from its allies
such as Japan, who worry that a stable U.S.-China relationship at the nuclear
level would embolden Chinese military aggression at the conventional level. For
countries like Japan, it is important that the U.S.-China nuclear relationship is
not 100 percent stable so that China would have to worry about the risk of aconventional conflict escalating to the nuclear level and thus be deterred frominitiating conventional aggression against its neighbors. The more successfully
China establishes regional conventional military superiority, the more worried
Japan and other U.S. allies will become, and therefore the more strongly theymight lobby against Washington accepting mutual vulnerability or maintaining
strategic stability with Beijing. This would undermine China’s core nuclear policy
objective.
Second, the same logic impels U.S. regional allies to oppose Washington
embracing a No First Use (NFU) policy. The Obama administration decided not toadopt NFU largely because U.S. allies argued that China’s growing conventional
capabilities and increasing willingness to flex its conventional military muscle
made a conventional-only U.S. military response appear too weak and too late
to stop a massive Chinese conventional attack. Further increasing China’s
conventional superiority would make the United States even less likely to adopt
a policy of NFU. This would be very problematic for China who has long sought amutual NFU agreement with the United States and other nuclear weapons states.
Beijing sees such an agreement as the most important nuclear risk reduction
and arms control measure. However, it appears China has not recognized thisinternal mismatch between its nuclear and conventional policy goals.

73

IFSH Research Report #002

Furthermore, China’s conventional military superiority could create greaterinterest among concerned U.S. allies about developing indigenous military
nuclear capabilities. In some quarters of Japan’s security policy circles, aconnection has long been made between the Chinese conventional military
threat and Japan’s need for its own nuclear weapons.14 South Korea has grownwary of China’s conventional capabilities and wants to hedge against future
uncertainties, especially after experiencing harsh punishment from Beijing
because of the deployment of a THAAD missile defense system.15 Australia’s
growing concern about China’s conventional military capability has led to voices
calling for an independent nuclear deterrent, including from a former deputy
secretary of defense.16 Against the background of declining U.S. security
commitments to its allies, such proliferation risks appear to increase. As a result,
China’s security interests could be significantly undermined.
All the above are important reasons for China to participate in the cooperative
management of conventional military competition in the Asia Pacific region. Direct
China-U.S. discussions on concepts to promote mutually acceptable regional
conventional arms control measures would be useful for this purpose. But that is
not the only reason for great power cooperation on the conventional balance. In a
post-INF world, the United States has incentives to deploy land-based INF-range
conventional missiles in the Asia Pacific region to counterbalance the growing
Chinese conventional capabilities. However, such missiles may end up becoming
a greater threat to North Korea, whose security would be more seriously affectedby U.S. conventional precision strike weapons than that of China. Consequently,
North Korea would likely choose to further enhance its nuclear and strategic
conventional strike capabilities.17 Such North Korean reactions would not only
directly worsen the security environment in Northeast Asia, but have additional
ripple effects on China. As the military threat from North Korea grows, the UnitedStates, South Korea, and Japan would have stronger incentives to deploy missile
defense and even preemptive deep-strike capabilities against the DPRK. China
and Russia would likely view such capabilities as a threat to their own nuclear
deterrent. In other words, an intensified U.S.-China conventional competitionin the region could worsen the security dynamics vis-à-vis third parties (North
Korea, in this case), which would then destabilize the great powers’ nuclear andoverall security relations. Due to the stakes involved, it is time for China and theother great powers to include in arms control talks the issue of managing theirgrowing conventional competitions.

74

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

1.4 ECONOMIC NECESSITY AND INTERNATIONAL IMAGE
New economic realities present additional reasons for China and other great
powers to work together on arms control. For the foreseeable future, economic
prospects do not look particularly bright for America, Russia, or China. After
decades of fast economic growth, deep structural problems with China’s
economic and financial systems have started to emerge and deteriorate. The
looming stagnation, deep government debts, a lurking housing bubble, China’s
fast-aging society, unprecedented trade conflicts, and growing decoupling
between Chinese and Western economies, among other critical issues, areforcing people to accept that the era of China’s rapid economic growth is behind
us. There are growing concerns among some economists that an economiccrisis may be around the corner.18 In contrast, over the previous years of material
abundance, high levels of confidence within the Chinese expert community
and the general public about China’s long-term capability to out-invest andoutcompete its main rivals in defense capabilities were widespread. It is uncertain
how quickly the new economic realities today will change people’s perceptions,but rational decision-makers need to be cool-headed and far-sighted about theeconomic implications for China’s defense policy. They need to think about andprepare for a future in which they would have much fewer resources to invest in
military modernizations than before.
As an example, in a post-INF world, can the United States, Russia, and China
really afford a massive reciprocal buildup of INF-range missiles? If decisionmakers take prudent consideration of the economic realities they are likely toface in the future, a joint arms control effort to prevent a costly arms race thatwould not improve anyone’s security should look more appealing.
Increased Chinese participation in arms control could also generate important
political benefits. Chinese experts see its strategic competition with the UnitedStates as a comprehensive and long-term process. One important element iscompetition for influence in international rule setting and for global leadershipin shaping and maintaining key international institutions. Arms control is an
important part of international institutions and China has already shown interest
in improving its image as a responsible power by showcasing its support for
the international arms control agenda. Especially at a time when Washington
is withdrawing its participation in existing arms control regimes and voluntarily
vacating its long-standing leadership role in this arena, China may step in,hoping to establish its image as a more responsible future leader in global

75

IFSH Research Report #002

affairs and a stronger supporter of multilateralism. Recent examples are China’s
efforts to revitalize the P5 process on nuclear disarmament as well as the publicannouncement to initiate domestic legal procedure for China’s accession to theArms Trade Treaty.19 Looking into the future, as more members of the international
community explicitly call for China’s participation in arms control, a positive
response from Beijing could help China win international support and favorable
reputation. This would augment Beijing’s efforts to build up international soft
power. As China’s military power to defend its global economic interests expand,
China’s cooperation in arms control could reduce incentives for others to build
up military power to balance China. For the international community, competition
between the great powers over international leadership on arms control would
be much more favorable and welcome than unconstrained competition overmilitary power.
2. POSSIBLE APPROACHES TO CONDUCT TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL
Admittedly, although there are strong arguments for China to deepen its
participation in arms control, trilateral arms control with the United States andRussia is not necessarily the only way to do so. Nonetheless, trilateral arms
control can provide unique benefits, which this paper seeks to identify andanalyze.
From China’s perspective, U.S.-Chinese bilateral arms control may inadvertently
reinforce the impression of a formal rivalry relationship resembling that of
the U.S.-USSR relationship during the Cold War. Beijing wants to avoid that
impression. A trilateral mechanism can help. Moreover, China may have greater
confidence about its capability to protect its key interests in a trilateral process
than in bilateral U.S.-China negotiations. Russia could help support China’s
positions on issues of common concern such as missile defense and spacebased weapons.
Politically, trilateral arms control diplomacy can help raise China’s status as amajor global military power on par with the two former superpowers, somethingthat may be appealing to Chinese leaders who have invested in militarymodernization to help raise China’s international status and to rally domestic
support. The achievements of military modernization have been selling points toprove the advantages of the Chinese model and the competence of its politicalleadership. Trilateral arms control could also promote China’s image as asupporter of multilateralism in international affairs.

76

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

2.1 PRECONDITIONS TO A TRILATERAL PROCESSThe greatest obstacle for China to deepen participation in arms control is theperception that the other parties, especially the United States, may seek to use
arms control to help win great power competition against China. Within China’s
security policy circles, the long-standing majority view has always been that
arms control is simply “a tool to maintain [U.S.] hegemony.”20 Such a view gets
reinforced by senior U.S. officials emphasizing the intent to use nonproliferation
and arms control policies to help achieve America’s great power competition
strategy.21
Persuading Chinese leaders to join trilateral arms control will require the UnitedStates to set a mutually acceptable objective. Using arms control to advance
one’s military advantage vis-à-vis China is a nonstarter for Beijing, especially as
Washington cannot force China into any arms control deal. Cooperative arms
control is only achievable if all parties accept the goal of managing rather than
winning competition.
From this perspective, any arms control approach to be offered to China mustbe mutually beneficial and involve give and take from all parties. An approachthat imposes constraints on China alone, will never work. The following are somearms control proposals that China could view as generally balanced and worthyof consideration. None of the proposed options would be easy to negotiate. The
level of technical complexity would dramatically increase as countries movefrom a general political willingness to explore common interests to substantive
negotiations on an implementable agreement. The purpose of these options,however, is to identify some general approaches through which trilateral arms
control talks could be seriously considered. Thus, these options are meant to
be balanced, fair, and equitable, seeking to take into consideration the mostimportant security needs of all parties involved. The aim is to frame an approachthat none of the three could immediately reject without exposing itself to the restof the world as mal-intentioned.
2.2 TRILATERAL ARMS CONTROL: FOUR SPECIFIC PROPOSALSThe least ambitious proposal would be to prevent a reciprocal INF-type missilebuildup in the Asia Pacific region. Instead of the U.S. deployment of INF-type
missiles in the Asia Pacific, most likely followed by a possible Russian deployment
and a response by China that could include a considerable increase in its INF-

77

IFSH Research Report #002

type missile arsenal, all three could choose to maintain the status quo of their
existing INF-type missile capabilities in the region. This would include nuclear
and conventionally capable INF-type missiles. Such an arrangement would not
only save them from a costly new INF-type missile competition that would not
make any of them safer; it could also contribute to avoiding the likely political
troubles associated with Washington convincing its regional allies to deploy
such missiles on their territories and Beijing’s retaliatory responses.
Additionally, the three countries could choose to negotiate whether hypersonicboost-glide weapons, which may not be covered by the INF definition, should
be included in a status-quo freeze. They could also think about whether suchan arrangement should be expanded to the global level, beyond the Asia
Pacific region.
A second option would be to set an equal ceiling for all INF-range (500-5,500km)
ground- and air-launched missiles, including nuclear and conventionally capableones. This would address a key U.S., and to a lesser extent Russian, concern
about China’s large INF missile stockpile. Including air-launched INF-range
missiles, in which the United States currently possesses a clear advantage andwhere Russia has also some advantage over China, would also be attractive to
Beijing. Of China’s total number of INF-range ground- and air-launched ballistic
and cruise missiles, 1,250-2,650 are ground-launched missiles.22 In addition tothat, China possesses a small number of air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs)
and an even smaller number of air-launched ballistic missiles that are underdevelopment and may soon be introduced. The United States has no groundlaunched missiles within this range limit but is procuring more air-launched cruise
missiles such as the JASSM-ER and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).
Together with the existing U.S. Air Launched Cruise Missiles and Conventional
Air Launched Cruise Missiles, the total number of U.S. INF-range ground- andair-launched missiles will reach or exceed 2,000 in the near-term future.23 Russia
reportedly has deployed a small number of INF-range 9M729 ground-launchedcruise missiles (GLCMs) and has hundreds of ALCMs, in addition to a small
number of newly introduced Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles that may qualify as airlaunched ballistic missiles.24 Therefore, an equal ceiling would give Russia somebenefit by allowing it more room to expand such missile stockpiles, but given
Russia’s much smaller defense budget and overall GDP, the chances for Russia
to grow its INF-range ground- and air-launched missile arsenals significantly are
not very high.

78Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and BeijingThis proposal does not include sea-launched INF-range missiles, for a numberof reasons. One is that the existing capability gaps between the three countries
in this realm are too great to make any equal ceiling agreement feasible.
According to assessments by Russian experts, the United States can deploy amaximum of more than 6,000 INF-range Tomahawk cruise missiles on various
naval platforms.25 The Russian and Chinese numbers are in the hundreds or
fewer. The second reason has to do with the traditional bureaucratic resistanceagainst transparency and other arms control measures by navies including the
U.S. Navy. Additionally, the United States and Russia view their air- and sealaunched INF-range missiles as a key component of their global military power
projection capability. If they are going to limit their air-launched INF-range missiles
in exchange for China limiting its ground-launched missiles, which only affectcertain parts of the Asia Pacific, they may have a strong incentive to keep theirsea-launched INF-range missiles out of such a trade to preserve their existing
advantages in global power projection.
In this proposal, an equal ceiling for all three countries would leave them withconsiderable freedom and flexibility to decide how each country would like tomix their ground-launched and air-launched missile arsenals. Where to set an
equal ceiling for all three countries would be a product of negotiations. The
ceiling could be set as low as the same level of the current size of Chinese andU.S. stockpiles of ground- and air-launched INF-range missiles, in which case it
would constitute a freeze arrangement. It could also be set higher than current
stockpiles, in which case it would become a capping agreement. In either case,such a proposal could serve as the starting point for the three countries to think
about how to manage their competition over INF-range missile capabilities.
A third option would combine the INF and New START frameworks. The mostobvious way to achieve this is to set an equal ceiling for the total number of
deployed ground-launched INF- and intercontinental-range ballistic missile(ICBM) launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers, and heavy
bombers. In doing so, the three countries could adopt the same method as
under New START to impose an equal upper limit on the total number of ICBM
launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers. The only difference is thatthe scope of controlled weapons would be broadened by including INF-range
ground-launched ballistic missile launchers as well. In doing so, the three
countries can put themselves under the same equal ceiling with relative ease,without making substantial changes to their current capabilities.

79

IFSH Research Report #002

According to their most recent data submission, the United States and Russia
currently have 668 and 513 deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, andheavy bombers, respectively; and both of them have no INF-range land-based
ballistic missile launchers. China operates about 570 land-based INF- andintercontinental-range ballistic missile launchers,26 48 SLBM launchers with 24
additional ones to be deployed on two new SSBNs soon, as well as about 20
H-6 bombers,27 the total number of which is 662 and is on the same scale asthat of the United States and Russia. Such an equal ceiling for all three countries
would not immediately reduce any of their existing capabilities but could include
them all in one arms control framework on an equal footing. It would address
the U.S. and Russian concerns about both China’s INF-type missiles and its
strategic nuclear forces. In doing so, it would meet the two principle demandsby the Trump administration for China to join INF and New START in some form.
It would also avoid creating the impression that China is forced into an unequalarms control agreement as a junior partner of two former superpowers.
There are many opportunities for the three countries to finetune the specificscope of weapons systems they might want to include under such an equalceiling. For instance, they could think about whether to also add INF-range
GLCMs and/or hypersonic boost-glide and/or intercontinental-range cruise
missiles to the overall limit. The numbers of such weapons systems that are
already deployed and may be deployed in the future will not be very large andshould be relatively easy to be incorporated into such an agreement. This overall
limit could first serve as a trilateral capping agreement. Should the strategic
environment and the political will allow for it, it could gradually evolve into afreeze and later into a joint reduction agreement.
A fourth and more appealing option to China (and Russia) is to include kinetic
missile defense interceptors into an overall ceiling. To some extent, this would
help address Russian and Chinese concerns about the impact of U.S. missile
defense on their strategic nuclear deterrents. One way to do so is for the three
countries to negotiate an exchange ratio between one offensive missile and thenumber of kinetic interceptors that could intercept it with a certain high level ofconfidence, so that a country has the freedom to deploy interceptors as long as
it cuts a corresponding number of offensive missiles to keep its overall number
of weapons within the central limit.
For instance, the United States appears to operate under the assumption thatfour Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) would have to be fired against each80Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijingincoming ICBM in order to secure a certain probability of success.28 If a general
ratio of 1:4 is agreed for all INF- and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles andinterceptors that are capable of countering such missiles, then in exchange forevery four additional interceptors the United States deploys, it would need to cut
one offensive missile from its existing stockpile. The United States does not plan
to deploy a very large number of GBIs, but it may deploy hundreds of SM-3 and
THAAD interceptors in the future, in which case the exchange mechanism maygive Russia and China useful leverage to pressure the United States on its missile
defense programs but still leave considerable room for Washington to makeflexible decisions on the tradeoff between deploying missiles and interceptors.
All the above four proposals seek to provide politically acceptable options for thethree countries to start talking about arms control. Due to their existing high levelof distrust and China’s particular lack of experience in implementing arms control
verification, all the proposed ceilings and central limits are meant to come in theform of political commitments at the early stage of a trilateral process. Verification
measures are not included in these initial proposals and could be elaborated
at later stages of a trilateral process. Thus, nuclear and conventionally armed
missiles are not particularly distinguished in the above proposals. That said,
nothing prevents the United States and Russia from continuing their existing
mutually beneficial bilateral transparency and verification measures under New
START, even after a trilateral agreement is reached.
2.3 CAPACITY BUILDING ON VERIFICATION, DOCTRINES,
AND A RULES-BASED ORDERAs mentioned above, even though the three countries can start discussions
on arms control, that process may eventually come to a stage when serious
verification measures need to be considered. China has less experience withdesigning and implementing verification measures than the other two countries.
This has caused China to be more skeptical about the overall utility of arms
control as a cooperative security arrangement.
An argument often heard within the Chinese security community is as follows:
Even if China enters an arms control agreement with stronger parties such as
the United States and Russia, such an agreement would inevitably favor thestronger parties because they have better technological capabilities to continue
developing prohibited technologies in secret whereas China would end up being
the only one constrained by the agreement.29 Among other things, this popular81

IFSH Research Report #002

view reflects a serious level of distrust about the effectiveness of verification
measures to ensure compliance with arms control obligations or timely detectionof violations. Many Chinese security experts do not seem to have given thought
to the historical fact that although the level of U.S.-USSR strategic distrust during
the Cold War was even higher than in current U.S.-China relations, the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union were able to negotiate and implement a series ofsignificant arms control agreements and were able to maintain a sufficiently highlevel of confidence and trust through verification.
If measures could be taken to help Chinese security experts appreciate thegenerally successful history of bilateral U.S.-Russian arms control endeavors
and to understand how verification measures can be designed to overcome the
distrust gap at the political level, an important obstacle against China’s more
active participation in arms control would be removed. These measures could
start with inviting Chinese observers to U.S.-Russian arms control inspection
activities. To increase Chinese interest to participate, no reciprocal demandshould be made on China to also provide transparency and to open up its own
facilities to foreign visitors, as the goal of such exercises should be to help
build capacity, which, over the long run, could prove beneficial to all parties.
The United States and Russia could start inviting Chinese observers to their
New START on-site inspections and Open Skies flights, though the latter would
require consent from other treaty members as well.
It would also make sense for the United States and Russia to share with
their Chinese colleagues their experiences with providing transparency andimplementing confidence-building measures (CBMs) in the nuclear field. This
could include their experiences with setting up bilateral CBMs such as themissile- and space-launch notification agreements that include both pre- andpost-launch notifications, as well as the exchange of telemetry generated during
missile flight tests that seeks to provide openness and transparency. China’s
long-standing opposition to transparency and CBMs is deeply rooted in its
history and culture of military secrecy,30 especially in the area of strategic arms.
One important benefit of a trilateral arms control process should be for the moreexperienced parties – the United States and Russia – to share their positive
lessons learned from participation in existing bilateral CBMs to the newcomer
and to help China overcome its habitual concerns.
Capacity-building measures need to include both vertical and horizontal efforts:
vertical measures help Chinese experts develop deeper understandings and/or

82

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

new perspectives; and horizontal measures help build such capacity across alarger number of Chinese experts within the security community. In the case ofarms control verification, China is generally supportive of international scientificcooperation to develop arms control verification technologies, but China’s levelof participation in international arms control verification initiatives and programs
is modest. One of the reasons seems to be that the Chinese community of arms
control experts with sufficient technical background is too small to support a wideand deep Chinese participation in various international initiatives like the IPNDV.
The workforce is stretched thin and has a hard time keeping up. Therefore, it
is important to help cultivate a larger number of Chinese experts, including thenext generation. This requires extensive engagement among the U.S., Russian,and Chinese security policy and arms control communities in a sustainable
manner over a long period. More Chinese experts supportive of the positiverole of verification measures could mean an increased interest in exploring
the possibility that future Chinese nuclear weapons and delivery systems aredesigned and manufactured in ways to facilitate transparency measures andeven accommodate inspections without divulging sensitive information. Such
deliberation and exploration at the technical and operational levels could takeplace already now to prepare for future options for the political decision-makers
when they are ready for more arms control cooperation.
Vertical capacity building could help address mismatched understandings
about each other’s nuclear policies and thus remove obstacles for arms control
cooperation. For instance, the majority view of the Chinese security community
is that the United States, under the Trump administration, reemphasizes lowyield tactical nuclear weapons in order to more easily threaten other countries
with nuclear weapons (in other words, to deliberately lower the threshold fornuclear use) and to build up U.S. nuclear warfighting capabilities.31 When theother side is driven by a nuclear warfighting doctrine, Chinese experts do not
see the value of arms control. For them, the right thing for China to do in thiscase is to enhance further its own nuclear capabilities to counterbalance theU.S. developments. However, the United States believes its nuclear policy
readjustment is due to a growing interest in recent years in the Russian military
doctrine to use tactical nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts, which, in turn,
Washington wants to deter with its low-yield tactical nuclear weapons.
Trilateral arms control discussions should therefore focus on talking throughthe differences in the three parties’ perceived nuclear policies of each other.
Especially for countries where substantive internal policy debates rarely take83

IFSH Research Report #002

place, the questions and challenges posed among the three behind closed
doors can be useful to stimulate new perspectives and provide opportunities
for reflecting on potential inconsistencies and ambiguities in one’s own doctrine
and policy. On recent occasions when Chinese experts had the opportunity
to watch U.S. and Russian experts having in-depth debates over the alleged
Russian “escalate to deescalate” strategy, they saw that there is more substanceand nuance to this debate than it originally appears. More importantly, althoughthese Chinese experts did not necessarily share the U.S. view that Russia has ade facto “escalate to deescalate” nuclear strategy, they did seem to appreciate
the fact that these are genuine concerns widely shared within the U.S. policy
community. Such appreciation of the perspectives of “the other”, by itself, could
help reduce the suspicion that Washington simply uses the Russian policy as an
excuse to build up U.S. nuclear warfighting capabilities. Substantive discussions
about each other’s nuclear doctrines and thinking in a trilateral setting can offersome unique benefit in containing worst-case thinking and developing empathy,
both of which are necessary conditions for serious arms control talks.
China has long embraced the view that the only sensible way to conduct arms
control is for all main nuclear weapons states to accept relationships of mutual
vulnerability first and to adopt a minimal nuclear deterrent strategy with a doctrineof solely using nuclear weapons to deter nuclear attacks. To reject such proposals
is seen as contradictory to arms control. However, China does not yet recognize
the connection between some of its own military strategies and the reluctanceof some other nuclear powers – especially the United States – to accept mutual
nuclear vulnerability and the sole purpose doctrine. As mentioned above,
America’s and its allies’ concern about China’s efforts to achieve conventional
superiority in its neighborhood coupled with the perceived growth of China’s
military assertiveness at the conventional level is a major barrier for Washington
to embrace those nuclear policies that China desires. Such issues need to bethoroughly examined in future talks. Even if it is impossible for all three parties toreach common ground on these issues, achieving awareness and appreciationof each other’s’ perspectives as a result thereof, would be worth the effort.
Another element of capacity building could be educating the nuclear policy
communities in all three countries to appreciate the importance of a rulesbased nuclear order. Genuine interest in arms control is only possible if there isconfidence that everyone is interested in building and maintaining a rules-based
nuclear order that can better protect the respective national security interests ascompared to a messy arms competition. At least in China, such confidence does84

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

not yet exist. The dominant view within the Chinese security community is that
all the other big powers are driven by a “might makes right” doctrine and thatthe nature of international relations is power politics. In a perceived world system
where the law of the jungle applies, nationalistic analysts insist that a bigger
nuclear arsenal will win China greater international respect.32
The most effective way to debunk such problematic perspectives is to developbalanced and nuanced understandings about the history of nuclear diplomacy,
about each other’s nuclear development programs, their underlying assumptions,and each other’s nuclear policy deliberations as well as the various factors that
contribute to the internal debates and calculations. From the very beginning,a trilateral arms control discussion should devote sustained efforts to sponsor
deep, substantive, and extensive dialogues to talk through these nuanced
issues. The goal should not be to generate quick changes to official policy or
attitude. Rather, it would be to foster the development of balanced and nuanced
perspectives. Over time, rational voices may gain momentum over simplistic andcynical perspectives, and support for a collective effort to build and maintain arules-based global nuclear order may prevail.
2.4 STRATEGIC STABILITY AND RISK REDUCTION
In the near term, there are areas where trilateral efforts that focus on maintaining
strategic stability and reducing the risk of nuclear use could start sooner thanthe capacity building measures outlined before. From the Chinese perspective,
to maintain arms race stability means to consolidate de facto mutual nuclear
vulnerability relations and to prevent other countries from acquiring disarming
first strike capabilities against itself. To maintain crisis stability means to avoid
nuclear conflict through crisis prevention and management. Chinese officials
and experts are highly supportive of these goals as they help secure China’s
key interests.33 That said, to effectively maintain strategic stability would require
substantial efforts by China and the other two parties to reflect on their own
thinking and practices and to jointly resolve key obstacles.
One obstacle of maintaining crisis stability has to do with countries’ different
perceptions of conflict escalation dynamics. For example, China appears
generally sanguine about the prospect that conventional conflicts can beeffectively controlled and will not easily escalate to the nuclear level. At the sametime, China is pessimistic about the prospect of controlling nuclear escalation,
including a widely shared belief that once the nuclear threshold is crossed with85

IFSH Research Report #002

even one nuclear weapon employed, there would be no way to control further
escalation, and even a very limited nuclear conflict would quickly and inevitably
develop into all-out nuclear war.34 The majority view in the United States seems
to be exactly the opposite. Many American experts worry about the risk of
inadvertent escalation of conventional conflicts to the nuclear level but seemto believe that even after the nuclear threshold has been crossed there would
still be opportunities to manage a limited nuclear conflict without causing all-out
nuclear war. In previous discussions, such divergent beliefs in pre- and postnuclear use escalation risks and dynamics sometimes caused the different
parties to talk past each other.
One way to improve the effectiveness of these discussions would be to firstraise mutual awareness of the differences in views and assumptions aboutcrisis stability risks. It would be helpful to seek to understand the sources ofdivergent perspectives. Such understanding might help stimulate self-reflection
on one’s own thinking and beliefs. One possible reason, for instance, that
the United States is less confident about countries’ capabilities to effectively
prevent conventional conflicts from escalating to the nuclear level is its firsthandexperiences of serious military crises during the Cold War that almost led to
inadvertent nuclear use. But Chinese leaders have much less experience in thatregard and therefore largely dismiss how incidents, ambiguous signaling andmisjudgment, or the fog of war could undermine the top leaders’ capacity tounderstand and control military developments on the battlefield. Furthermore,
China has rarely fought on foreign soil over the last three decades and Chinese
leaders have not gone through the experience of accepting significant losses
in conventional wars, which raises the question of whether China may be lessinclined to escalate if it suffers unprecedented losses in a future conventional
conflict.35 The awareness of such issues could encourage China to adopt a more
open attitude towards cooperative measures with other parties on conventional
escalation management. Similarly, a deeper understanding by the United States
about the Chinese reasoning of why a limited nuclear conflict could hardly becontrolled might encourage Washington to reexamine the wisdom of relying
too much on the hope of effectively managing a nuclear conflict after it breaks
out as opposed to putting more emphasis on preventing any nuclear use in thefirst place.
Another obstacle comes from non-nuclear strategic technologies, which posethe greatest threat to arms race stability among the three countries. Their verysignificant and genuine disagreements about the level of impact from technologies

86Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijingsuch as missile defense on the credibility of their respective nuclear deterrent
are the primary drivers of Russian and Chinese current nuclear modernization
efforts. There needs to be a joint effort to narrow such disagreements throughsubstantive exchanges at the expert level, especially on key disputes that involve
all three countries, such as the one over the extent to which the U.S. THAAD
missile defense system’s radar in South Korea may affect Russian and Chinese
strategic nuclear forces. Here, a joint trilateral technical effort at the unclassified
level could be useful.
Non-nuclear strategic technologies also pose challenges to crisis stability byintroducing potentially new pathways to the inadvertent use of nuclear weapons
in a conventional conflict. The growing great power competition makes decisionmakers focus mostly on the potential military benefits that new technologies
might provide. Yet, as discussed above, the introduction of such technologies
also presents some real risks that could make nuclear conflict more likely.
Those risks have not been fully understood and appreciated by decision-makers
as well as their civilian and military advisors. One important step to maintaincrisis stability among the three countries, therefore, would be to jointly raiseawareness of such risks. Due to the level of technical complexity involved inthese issues, the three countries should consider setting up joint expert working
groups to examine each of the main areas where non-nuclear technologies
could introduce new nuclear risks. These areas of non-nuclear technologies
may include, but are not limited to, ambiguities stemming from conventionaland dual-capable hypersonic missiles; risks of cyber interference with nuclear
communication, command, and control systems; possible confusions caused by
the entanglement of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons systems; and potential
misuse of AI in strategic early warning and nuclear decision-making systems.
Even unilateral risk reduction measures aimed at reflecting such considerations
in each country’s military planning and defense procurement projects could bevery helpful.
A trilateral discussion on the alert status and practices of their nuclear forces
could also contribute to crisis stability. There appears interest in some quartersof the Chinese military to argue for China’s shift toward a launch-under-attack
or launch-on-warning (LUA/LOW) posture – for further improving the credibilityof China’s nuclear retaliatory capability.36 As China makes more efforts to build
its own early warning system (with increasing Russian assistance), China’s
traditional thinking on the pros and cons of adopting LUA/LOW posture may
change. The United States and Russia have kept their strategic nuclear weapons

87

IFSH Research Report #002

on operationally available status during peacetime for their own unique reasons,but they also have rich experiences of going through dangerous incidents with
their early warning systems and important lessons for caution that they could
share with Chinese military experts in a trilateral setting. At least, they could help
introduce to China the necessity of enhancing effective crisis communication
between nuclear rivals through measures such as setting up nuclear risk
reduction centers.
3. CONCLUSION
China stands to benefit from participating in such exchanges, if it keeps an
open mind to recognize the invaluable lessons it can obtain and if it avoids theothers’ mistakes. It should have no fear to adopt near-term confidence-building
measures and to start considering longer-term arms control options. No one canforce China into unfair arms control deals. China’s ever advanced hard powerand diplomatic skills should give itself strong confidence that it can negotiate
good arms control agreements that can better protect its own security interests
than in an alternative world of uncontrolled and unlimited military great powercompetition. Trilateral arms control with the United States and Russia is one
option for China to think about its future cooperative security strategy. Nothing
prevents China from simultaneously considering other forms of arms control
cooperation such as participating in a P5 multilateral arms control process orentering bilateral talks with America. These options are not mutually exclusive.
For China, what it needs now is to demonstrate the political will to start exploring
all possible options, including trilateral ones. As China begins to “take center
stage in the world,”37 it will be hard to imagine its top leader’s grand vision of“building a community with a shared future for mankind”38 can be achieved
without engaging in cooperative arms control measures in the future. Early
preparations for this future are in China’s interest.

88Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

Endnotes
1

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People’s Republic of China (2019).
Maintaining Global Strategic Stability, Reducing Risks of Nuclear Conflicts– Statement by H.E. Mr. Fu Cong, Director-General of the Departmentof Arms Control of MFA at the 16th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International
Security, 16 October 2019, available at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_
eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1708326.shtml(accessed 16 February 2020).

2

Manzo, Vince (2019). Nuclear Arms Control without a Treaty? Risks andOptions after New START (Washington, DC: CNA, 2019), p. 52.

3

U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (2019). Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr.,
Director Defense Intelligence Agency, Russian and Chinese Nuclear
Modernization Trends, Remarks at the Hudson Institute, 29 May 2019,available at https://www.dia.mil/News/Speeches-and-Testimonies/ArticleView/Article/1859890/russian-and-chinese-nuclear-modernization-trends(accessed 15 February 2020).

4

Cossa, Ralph A., Glosserman, Brad & Santoro, David (2016). Reachingan Inflection Point? The Tenth China-U.S. Dialogue on Strategic Nuclear
Dynamics, Issues & Insights, 16(20): 1-18.

5Arbatov, Alexey (2014). Engaging China in Nuclear Arms Control.
Carnegie Moscow Center, 9 October 2014, available at https://carnegie.
ru/2014/10/09/engaging-china-in-nuclear-arms-control-pub-56886(accessed 16 February 2020).

6

Hu, Yumin & Ma, Yingjie (2017). The New Strategic Relationship between
China and America and the Trust between America and Russia in Nuclear
Issues, Journal of Ocean University of China: Social Science Edition, (3):65-73 [in Chinese]; Luo, Xi (2019). Arms Control Issue Moves up on ChinaU.S. Strategic Dialogue Agenda List, World Affairs, (9): 62-63. [in Chinese]

7

The 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review Report does not repeat the previous commitment to maintaining strategic stability relationship with China
or Russia. According to participants to P5 nuclear doctrine dialogues in
2019, U.S. officials explicitly rejected the term strategic stability.

89

IFSH Research Report #002

8

Talmadge, Caitlin (2019). China and Nuclear Weapons. Brookings Institution, September 2019, available at https://www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2019/09/FP_20190930_china_nuclear_weapons_
talmadge-1.pdf (accessed 16 February 2020).

9

Acton, James M. (2013). Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions About
Conventional Prompt Global Strike (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013).

10 Acton, James M. (2018). Escalation through Entanglement: How the
Vulnerability of Command-and-Control Systems Raises the Risks of an
Inadvertent Nuclear War, International Security, 43(1): 56-99; Acton,
James M., Arbatov, Alexey, Dvorkin, Vladimir, Topychkanov, Petr,Zhao, Tong & Bin, Li (2017). Entanglement: Chinese and Russian
Perspectives on Non-Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Risks (Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2017).
11 Fitzpatrick, Mark (2019). Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Command
and Control, Survival, 61(3): 81-92.
12 Futter, Andrew (2016). Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons:
New Questions for Command and Control. RUSI Occasional Papers,
15 July 2016, available at https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/
cyber-threats-and-nuclear-weapons-new-questions-command-and-control(accessed 16 February 2020); Unal, Beyza & Lewis, Patricia (2018).
Cybersecurity of Nuclear Weapons Systems; Threats, Vulnerabilities andConsequences. Chatham House Research Paper, January 2018,available at https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publicati
ons/research/2018-01-11-cybersecurity-nuclear-weapons-unal-lewis-final.
pdf (accessed 16 February 2020).
13 Chen, Dingding (2019). Common Methods and Fundamental Reasons ofWestern Countries’ Containment of China. People’s Forum Network,
14 June 2019, available at http://www.rmlt.com.cn/2019/0613/549434.
shtml (accessed 16 February 2020) [in Chinese]; Ouyang, Jie & Huan,
Xiang (2019). China’s Development Momentum Is Unstoppable. People’s
Daily, 23 July 2019, p. 3. [in Chinese]90Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

14 Kulacki, Gregory (2019). The Next Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Union ofConcerned Scientists, 8 August 2019, available at https://allthingsnuclear.
org/gkulacki/the-next-hiroshima-and-nagasaki(accessed 16 February 2020).
15 Private conversations of the author with senior South Korea defense
experts, 2018-2019.
16 White, Hugh (2019). How to defend Australia. Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, 2 July 2019, available at https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-todefend-australia/ (accessed 16 February 2020).
17 Panda, Ankit (2019). New U.S. Missiles in Asia Could Increase the North
Korean Nuclear Threat. Foreign Policy, 14 November 2019, available athttps://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/14/us-missiles-asia-inf-north-koreanuclear-threat-grow/ (accessed 16 February 2020).
18 Lambert, Hal (2019). Is China About to Cause the Next Asian Economic
Crisis? Realclear Politics, 13 August 2019, available at https://www.real
clearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/13/is_china_about_to_cause_the_next_asian_economic_crisis_140996.html (accessed 16 February 2020).
19 Guo, Xiaobing (2019). Why Is China Acceding to the Arms Trade Treaty,
World Affairs, (21): 56-57. [in Chinese]
20 Sun, Xiangli (2001). Development and Evolution of Arms Control, World
Economics and Politics, (5): 50-55. [in Chinese]
21 Ford, Christopher (2019). Countering Russian Intimidation and Aggression and Building a Better Security Environment: Testimony before the U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 3 December 2019, available athttps://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/120319_Ford_Testimony.
pdf (accessed 16 February 2020); Rood, John C. (2019). Written Testimony for the Honorable John C. Rood to the Senate Armed Services
Committee (SASC), 5 December 2019, available at https://www.armedservices.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Rood--Allvin_12-05-19.pdf(accessed 16 February 2020).

91

IFSH Research Report #002

22 U.S. Department of Defense (2019). Annual Report to Congress: Military
and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019,
2 May 2019, available at https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/02/
2002127082/-1/-1/1/2019_CHINA_MILITARY_POWER_REPORT.pdf(accessed 16 February 2020), pp. 44, 117.
23 U.S. Department of Defense (2019). Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Budget
Estimates: Air Force Justification Book, Volume 1 of 1, Missile Procurement, March 2019, available at https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/Portals/
84/documents/FY20/PROCUREMENT/FY20_PB_3020_Missile.pdf?
ver=2019-03-18-152808-823 (accessed 16 February 2020), pp. 59 et seq.;
U.S. Air Force (2019). Agm-86b/C/D Missiles, published 24 May 2010,
updated August 2019, available at https://www.af.mil/About-Us/FactSheets/Display/Article/104612/agm-86bcd-missiles/ (accessed 16
February 2020); Lockheed Martin (2017). U.S. Air Force Awards
Lockheed Martin $413 Million for Jassm®-ER Production. Lockheed
Martin, 1 June 2017, available at https://news.lockheedmartin.com/201706-01-U-S-Air-Force-Awards-Lockheed-Martin-413-Million-for-JASSM-RER-Production (accessed 16 February 2020); Kristensen, Hans M.
(2014). W80-1 Warhead Selected for New Nuclear Cruise Missile.
Federation of American Scientists, 10 October 2014, available at https://
fas.org/blogs/security/2014/10/w80-1_lrso/ (accessed 16 February 2020).
24 Arbatov, Alexey (2019). A New Era of Arms Control: Myths, Realities andOptions. Carnegie Moscow Center, 24 October 2019, available at https://carnegie.ru/commentary/80172 (accessed 16 February 2020);
Kristensen, Hans M. & Norris, Robert S. (2019). Russian Nuclear
Forces, 2019, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 75(2): 73-84; Persson,
Gudrun (ed.) (2016). Russian Military Capability in a Ten-Year Perspective–2016 (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency, 2016), p. 45.
25 Miasnikov, Eugene (2013). The Air-Space Threat to Russia. In: Arbatov,
Alexey & Dvorkin, Vladimir (eds.). Missile Defense: Confrontation andCooperation (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013), p. 130-131;
Arbatov (2019), op cit.
26 U.S. Department of Defense (2019). Annual Report to Congress, op cit., p. 117.
27 Kristensen, Hans M. & Korda, Matt (2019). Chinese Nuclear Forces,
2019. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 75(4): 171-178.

92

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

28 Lewis, George (2012). Ballistic Missile Defense: How Many GMD
System Interceptors Per Target? Mostlymissiledefense, 23 May 2012,
available at https://mostlymissiledefense.com/2012/05/23/ballisticmissile-defense-how-many-gmd-system-interceptors-per-target-may23-2012/ (accessed 16 February 2020).
29 Private discussions by the author with senior Chinese experts, 2018-2019.
30 Wu, Riqiang (2016). How China Practices and Thinks About Nuclear
Transparency. In: Li, Bin & Zhao, Tong (eds.). Understanding Chinese
Nuclear Thinking (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2016).
31 Li, Xianrong & Yang, Min (2018). U.S. Will Further Enhance Nuclear
Warfighting Capability. People’s Liberation Army Daily, 1 March 2018,p. 11. [in Chinese]
32 Global Times (2017). Editorial: DF-41 Reportedly Deployed, China Will
Gain More Respect. Global Times, 24 January 2017, available at https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnK0065 (accessed 16 February 2020)[in Chinese]; Global Times (2016). Editorial: Strengthen Strategic Nuclear
Capability: China Must Not Hesitate. Global Times, 23 December 2016,
available at https://opinion.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJZl6W(accessed 16 February 2020. [in Chinese]
33 Fan, Jishe (2019). Trilateral Negotiations on Arms Control? Not Time Yet.
China-U.S. Focus, 13 September 2019, available at https://www.chinaus
focus.com/peace-security/trilateral-negotiations-on-arms-control-not-timeyet (accessed 15 February 2020); Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thePeople’s Republic of China (2019). Maintaining Global Strategic Stability,
op cit.
34 Cunningham, Fiona S. & Fravel, M. Taylor (2019). Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation, International Security, 44(2):61-109.
35 The author thanks George Perkovich for raising this point.

93

IFSH Research Report #002

36 Kulacki, Gregory (2016). China’s Military Calls for Putting Its Nuclear
Forces on Alert. Union of Concerned Scientists, January 2016, available athttps://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/02/China-HairTrigger-full-report.pdf (accessed 16 February 2020).
37 BBC (2017). Xi Jinping: Time for China to Take Centre Stage. BBC,18 October 2017, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asiachina-41647872 (accessed 16 February 2020).
38 Cao, Desheng (2019). China helping world to create shared future.
China Daily, 20 August 2019, available at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
global/2019-08/20/content_37503404.htm (accessed 16 February 2020).

94

IFSH Research Report #002

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

IFSH Research Report #002

Trilateral Arms Control? Perspectives from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing

RESEARCH REPORT#002

ABOUT THE AUTHORSABOUT THE INSTITUTE

Ulrich Kühn (editor) is Head of the Arms Control and Emerging Technologies program at
the Institute for Peace Research and Security
Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH).
			
kuehn@ifsh.deDavid Santoro is Vice President and Director
for Nuclear Policy at Pacific Forum, a nonprofit foreign policy think tank based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
			david@pacforum.org

Alexey Arbatov is Head of the Center for International Security at IMEMO, a former participantof the START-I negotiations (1991), and member of the Russian State Duma (1994-2003).
			arbatov@imemo.ru

Tong Zhao is a Senior Fellow in the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear
Policy Program based at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.
			zhaot2005@gmail.com

Copyright Cover Foto: iStockphoto
Text License: Creative Commons CC-BY-ND (Attribution/NoDerivatives/4.0 International).
IFSH – Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg
Beim Schlump 83 20144 Hamburg Germany Phone +49 40 866077 - 0 ifsh@ifsh.de www.ifsh.de

The Institute for Peace Research and Security
Policy (IFSH) researches the conditions forpeace and security in Germany, Europe andbeyond. The IFSH conducts its research
independently. It is funded by the Free andHanseatic City of Hamburg.
Funded by:

Trilateral Arms Control?

Perspectives from
Washington,
Moscow, and Beijing

ULRICH KÜHN (ED.) / ALEXEY ARBATOV /DAVID SANTORO / TONG ZHAO | 03/2020