Speaking by video at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Donald Trump seemed to open the door for a super deal with Russia and potentially China that would involve both a settlement of the war in Ukraine and a new arms control treaty. “We want to see if we can denuclearize,” Trump said, “and I think that’s very possible.” Some observers praised Trump’s diplomatic ambitions as Reagan-like. Others, however, noted that combining nuclear weapons reduction talks with a potential Ukraine peace settlement is Vladimir Putin’s preferred strategy and would be deeply unwise for the United States. “The Biden administration had refused to mix the two,” observed The New York Times, “fearing that Mr. Putin’s real goal was to trade limits on its nuclear arsenal for the territory he had captured in Ukraine and other concessions.”
Done right, a peace agreement in Ukraine and a nuclear arms reduction treaty would both be welcome achievements. But the Biden administration was smart to refuse to link the two, because Russia needs these deals more than we do, and negotiating them together would weaken America’s leverage.
Russia is in dire straits. According to Ukraine, Moscow has suffered up to 790,000 casualties (wounded or killed) since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022. One U.S. assessment a little over a year ago stated that Russia had lost nearly 90 percent of its prewar army; the manpower shortage is such that the government is paying new recruits bonuses of up to $50,000 just to sign up (in a country where the average monthly salary is about $750). The Russian army has lost so many armored vehicles in the fight that it’s been forced to pull mothballed Soviet-era tanks out of storage depots.
Though Russia’s economy has shown resilience since the start of the war, it is clearly struggling. Inflation, currently at 9 percent, is rising; the central bank recently raised its benchmark lending rate to 21 percent, prompting experts to warn of a wave of corporate bankruptcies. Sanctions and the loss of European markets are forcing the Russians to sell their oil to the Chinese and Indians at bargain basement prices. Few signs of relief are in sight.
Meanwhile, the United States has by far the most successful economy in the world, with inflation and interest rates a fraction of Russia’s. American troops aren’t dying in Ukraine, and U.S. cities, oil refineries, and munitions plants are not under attack by Ukrainian drones. Our allies in Europe (and not only there) are unified in their desire to thwart Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine since they know perfectly well that a Russian victory there represents a massive threat to their security.
Taken together, these developments make this the perfect moment to pressure Russia into concessions over Ukraine at the negotiating table. Indeed, if the aim is to get the best deal for Ukraine, the best return on our investment in aiding that country, and the best chance of shoring up the postwar rules-based order that has kept much of the world at peace for decades, the smart move would be to supply Ukraine with even more, and more advanced, weaponry ahead of any negotiations. (Obviously, these are not Trump’s aims.)
Nor is it in the interests of the United States and our allies to rush into a deal on nuclear weapons. When he talks about his desire to “denuclearize,” Trump seems to be referring to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which is up for renewal in 2026. That treaty, negotiated by the Obama administration in 2010, capped the number of nuclear warheads Russia and the United States could have in their arsenals. The agreement also put limits on the “triad” of ways those weapons can be delivered —from land via intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), sea via submarines, and air via bombers. In 2023, Putin formally suspended Russia’s participation in the treaty to protest U.S. support for Ukraine. But tellingly, he has stuck to the terms of the agreement. And he is likely to continue to do so even if the treaty expires next year for a simple reason: It would cost Moscow an enormous amount of money to expand its nuclear arsenal, money it doesn’t have.
Russia has already invested heavily in modernizing its nuclear triad, which is allowed under the treaty, and the Kremlin is telling anyone who will listen that it has exceeded its own targets. Yet even the most cursory analysis shows that such claims aren’t worth the paper they’re written on; the Kremlin is far behind on getting the submarines and bombers needed for a credible deterrent, and it’s still largely relying on Soviet-era missiles for the land-based leg of its defense. The fact that Russian prosecutors have seen fit to arrest a number of leading missile engineers on treason charges doesn’t exactly boost trust in the quality of the country’s nukes. It’s worth recalling that Putin and his entourage spent years before 2022 boasting about their vast and efficient “modernization” of Russia’s conventional forces. The war in Ukraine has revealed that claim for the tragic mockery that it was.
The United States is also spending heavily to modernize its nuclear triad. It is upgrading its ICBM missile silos, developing new Sentinel ICBMs to replace half-century-old Minuteman missiles, deploying B-21 stealth bombers to take over from B1 and B2 bombers, and building Columbia class nuclear submarines to replace older Ohio class subs. These upgrades have been plagued by scandalous delays and cost overruns, but the reliability of U.S. weapon systems is nowhere near as questionable as Russia’s. Moreover, the United States has the tax base to continue its modernization effort and expand its arsenal if needed, while Russia does not. That fact strengthens the U.S. position similarly to Ronald Reagan’s military buildup: the Russians know we can outspend them.
Time is another reason not to link talks over nuclear weapons with Ukraine. Nuclear reduction treaties are highly technical and can take many years to negotiate. The war in Ukraine is a more urgent matter. Even with continued support from their allies, the Ukrainians can’t hold out forever.
Putin has made his strategic priorities on Ukraine eminently clear. He wants to retain the territory he has illegally occupied in Ukraine; he wants to control the government in Kyiv, and he wants to keep Ukraine neutral (making its security de facto subject to Russian dictates). And above all else, he wants to negotiate one-on-one with his American counterpart, serving Putin’s desperate need for respect as the head of a putative superpower. The Biden Administration stuck with admirable consistency to the slogan of “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” The current American president’s version so far sounds more like this: “Trump to Kyiv: Drop Dead.”
Putin’s goals on nuclear weapons are less clear. Wendy Sherman, Biden’s former deputy secretary of state, who conducted nuclear arms reduction talks with the Russians before they invaded Ukraine, told The New York Times that a follow-on to the New START treaty “is likely low on his list” compared to extricating himself from the disaster in Ukraine.
But a potential arms deal is a useful carrot to dangle before Trump, whose ego is such that he has complained that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize more than Barack Obama. If Trump agrees to rope Ukraine peace talks in with nuclear weapons reduction negotiations, as Putin wants, it increases the chances that he will give away the farm, as he has done in the past. In 2018, Trump agreed to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, elevating Kim’s international stature to convince the dictator to stop developing nuclear weapons and provocatively testing long-range missiles. North Korea continued both programs and, in 2020, unveiled a new, larger ICBM capable of carrying multiple warheads and hitting much of the United States. In 2020, Trump signed what he called a “historical trade deal” to end a trade war with China that he himself started. The deal committed China to purchase $200 billion of additional US exports over the following year. In reality, China purchased no additional U.S. exports.
Negotiating the reduction of nuclear forces is always worth doing in its own right. But no one should be holding the fate of Ukraine hostage to the alleged benefits of an arms treaty with Putin’s shaky empire. The Russian dictator has painted himself into a corner. Trump would be a fool to help him out of it.
