Realignments in US-Russia nuclear agreements refocus attention on India’s nuclear doctrine

Since taking office in 2017, US President Donald Trump’s chaotic stint has heralded some of the most substantive changes in geopolitics since 9/11. From Israel to North Korea, his polarising decisions will shape global events long after his term concludes. However, when historians write about his presidency, special attention will be paid to nuclear arms control. On this front, Trump has presided over a return to the 1960s, as virtually all bilateral nuclear arms control agreements between Russia and the US have lapsed.

Unshackled from qualitative and quantitative caps on their nuclear programmes, the two countries are goading each other into an arms race that is likely to affect every major military power.

The watershed came in February 2019 when the Regan-era Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty signed in 1987 – which restricted the deployment of nuclear missiles with a maximum reach of 5,500 km by the two nations – was allowed to lapse. Beginning in 2014, as Russia developed intermediate range nuclear missiles, an ambivalent White House instead of holding Russia to account, demanded that a renewed Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty should also include China – effectively sealing its fate.

New START

As the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, also known as New START, which places absolute limits on the...

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