ABANDONING RESTRAINT WHEN WORLD IS ON EDGE

If the New START lapses on February 4, there will be no pact limiting the American and Russian nuclear forces for the first time since the early 1970s

- M K BHADRAKUMAR

THE war in Ukraine is certain to be a definitive event for the coming one-year period—both directly and in terms of its fallouts.

A combination of ‘fortuitous’ circumstances strengthens the Russian position significantly through the first month of the new year, and puts it in a sort of ‘win-win’ situation. Moscow did not orchestrate such circumstances, but wouldn't lose the opportunity to calibrate its positioning either. Private channels are buzzing.

First of all, the Kremlin and the White House are in unison that what they were striving to put together on parallel tracks—a format for the first-ever security talks between Russia and Ukraine with the participation of American representatives, and the far more challenging roadmap to improve the wider aspects of the Russian-American relationship—should not get derailed.

Both Russia and the US have lobbies who disfavour or oppose rapprochement. But what distinguishes the present times is that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have much in common. Both are Great-Power statists, and rational self-interest is not the only motive for their action, as Max Weber once put it long ago. Both are conservative politicians and subscribe to a ‘besieged fortress’ mentality. Putin, the friendly, cooperative spymaster with nerves of steel, has chosen the route to intensify his engagement with Trump in a pragmatic decision.

But the clock is ticking and only a week is left for the expiry of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) on February 4. Lapse of the 2011 treaty would mean all bets are off in the trajectory of Russia-US relations—as, for the first time since the early 1970s, there will be no legally binding limits in US and Russian strategic nuclear forces. Putin’s September 22, 2025 initiative—formally proposing a one-year voluntary extension of New START’s central limits—is lying on Trump’s desk awaiting response.