PoliticoTrump administration orders assessment on bolstering nuclear warheads as talks with Russia stall

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Daniel Lippman, Bryan Bender and Lara Seligman on politico.com on September 28, 2020.

The Trump administration has asked the military to assess how quickly it could pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto bombers and submarines if an arms control treaty with Russia is allowed to expire in February, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

The request to US Strategic Command in Nebraska is part of a strategy to pressure Moscow into renegotiating the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before the US presidential election, the people said.

In making the request, the Trump administration wants to underscore that it is serious about letting the treaty lapse if Russia fails to meet US demands. The negotiating team is leery that Russia is dragging out the talks in the hope that Joe Biden – who has pledged to extend New START under what Moscow believes will be more favourable terms than what this White House is offering – wins the election.

“It’s a clear signal that the costs for not negotiating before the election are going to go up,” said one of the people, who requested anonymity to relay sensitive discussions. The Trump administration is “trying to create an incentive, and it’s a real incentive, for the Russians to sit down and actually negotiate.”

The request for the assessment came in the last two weeks from a group of officials at the National Security Council and State, Defence and Energy departments that’s supporting Ambassador Marshall Billingslea in negotiations with Moscow to try to replace New START before it runs out in February.