US Officials Give Confusing Comparisons Of US And Russian Nuclear Forces

2020年10月22日[更新]

在里面ir effort to paint the New START treaty as insufficient and a bad deal for the United States and its allies, Trump administration official have recently made statements suggesting the treaty limits the US nuclear arsenal more than it limits the Russian arsenal.

新的开始imposes the same restrictions on US and Russian strategic nuclear forces.

During avirtual conferenceorganized by the Heritage Foundation on October 13, Marshall Billingslea, special presidential envoy for arms control, stated: “What we’ve indicated to the Russians is that we are in fact willing to extend the New START Treaty for some period of time provided that they agree to a limitation, a freeze, in their nuclear arsenal. We’re willing to do the same. I don’t see how it’s in anyone’s interests to allow Russia to build up its inventory of these tactical nuclear weapons systems with which they like to threaten NATO…We cannot agree to a construct that leaves unaddressed 55 percent or more of the Russian arsenal.”

一周后，an interviewBillingslea在国家公共广播电台上补充说：“新的起点限制……在我们威慑的整个美国阿森纳中，有92％”，但“仅覆盖45％或更少的俄罗斯阿森纳……”

最后，在10月21日，国务卿米哈尔·庞培（Michal Pompeo）重复这个话题是：“特朗普总统明确表示，对于美国或我们的朋友或盟友来说，新的起点本身并不是一件好事。俄罗斯核武库中只有45％受到数值限制，对美国和我们的北约盟友构成威胁。同时，该协议限制了92％的美国武器库，这些武器均受到新开始协议所包含的限制。”

Pompeo and Billingslea didn’t specify what they meant by “arsenal” and the reaction from nuclear weapons analysts – ourselves included – was bewilderment. Most assumed “arsenal” was referring warheads, but the numbers don’t seem to fit with the percentages and descriptions in the statements. Interestingly, the percentages and categories seem to work better for launchers, unless one does a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

Matching Comparison With Warheads

我们的第一步是分析陈述，看看我们是否可以使它们与我们对核武库的大小和组成的理解相吻合。如果我们假设百分比和描述是指弹头数字，那么我们会看到以下潜在选项：

Option 1:The 45% refers to New START warhead limit for deployed strategic warheads (1,550). If this were the case, then Russia’s entire stockpile would only consist of 3,445 warheads, which we doubt.Our estimate是4,310。对于美国来说，1,550只占美国库存的41％，而不是Billingslea所说的92％。

选项2：45％的人是指可将其装入洲际弹革人和SLBM的战​​略弹头数量，而不是炸弹武器。新的起点是在部署的洲际弹道导弹和SLBM上的实际弹头数量，而不是轰炸机基地上的弹头数量。根据我们的估计俄罗斯军队,他们的洲际弹道导弹可以加载1136 warheads and SLBMs can load 720 warheads, a total of 1,856 warheads. That would constitute 43% of the total stockpile of 4,310 warheads (our estimate). It would of course be embarrassing if the US officials have been using our numbers instead of those of the US Intelligence Community. Even so, that methodology does not fit with the 92% comparison used for the United States. US ICBMs and SLBMs can load a maximum of 2,720 warheads, by我们的估计，占库存的72％。Billingslea明确表示，美国的比较包括“整个”阿森纳。

选项3：The 45% refers to the total number of strategic warheads in the Russian arsenal (deployed and non-deployed). If that were the case, then the remaining 55% of 3,025 warheads would be non-strategic warheads, far more than the “up to 2,000” stated in theNuclear Posture Review。And it would imply a total stockpile of 5,500 warheads, far more than the number of warhead spaces on launchers.

选项4：百分比来自简单的后面计算。俄罗斯45％为1,550（新的起始限制） / 1,550（储备） + 2,000（战术）。美国92％是1,550（新的起始限制） / 1,550（储备） + 150（战术）。这些数字不完全匹配库存和陈述，但可以解释比较。（我们要感谢Pavel Podvig提出此选项。）

Billingslea和Pompeo都将俄罗斯的限制与影响美国武器库的限制进行了比较，但他们对此进行了不同的描述。

Billingslea表示新开始“限制……92％整个美国阿森纳, of our deterrent…” (emphasis added). Since we know the approximate size of the total US stockpile (about 3,800 warheads), 92% would constitute 3,496 warheads, far more than the treaty’s limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. But the count would be close to the number of strategic warheads that can be loaded onto strategic launchers (3,570 by our estimate), leaving about 300 non-strategic warheads.

Pompeo said that New START “restricts 92 percent of America’s arsenal受到限制” (emphasis added), which is different than what Billingslea said because it doesn’t appear to include non-deployed strategic warheads or tactical warheads, two categories that are not subject to the treaty limits.

Matching Comparison With Launchers

我们的下一步是分析ze the statements to see how they compare with the number of launchers that can deliver nuclear warheads.新的开始limitsboth sides to no more than 800 strategic launchers in total, of which no more than 700 can be deployed at any given time.

在里面最新集合数字released by the US State Department, the United States is listed with exactly 800 launchers in total, of which 675 are deployed. Russia is listed with a total of 764 launchers, of which 510 are deployed.

While complaining about limits on US and Russian weapons, neither Billingslea nor Pompeo mentions this US strategic advantage of 165 deployed launchers, a number that exceeds the number of Minuteman IIIs in one missile wing and corresponds to more than half of the entire Russian ICBM force.

对于美国，如果800个总战略发射器占美国所有核发射器的92％（“整个”阿森纳），那么这将暗示存在另外70个发射器，这可能是可能指的是非战略战斗机分配的任务带重力炸弹。

For Russia, if the 764 total strategic launchers constitute 45% of all its nuclear launchers, that would potentially imply that Russia has 1,698 total nuclear launchers, of which 934 would be launchers of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

我们还不知道是否是这种情况。但是，如果Billingslea和Pompeo提到的百分比，如果它们指的是发射器而不是弹头，则除非采用上述选项4计算。特朗普政府对俄罗斯开发新类型的战略范围武器的开发尤其重要，这些武器不受《新起点条约》的涵盖，就像批评俄罗斯的非战略核武器没有任何军备控制协议所涵盖的那样。

Context and Recommendations

The comparisons and descriptions of Russian and US nuclear forces presented by Billingslea and Pompeo are confusing. Some might suspect “fuzzy math” but until we see otherwise, we suspect the comparisons use real data. Option 4 above might represent the most likely explanation although it doesn’t fully match the stockpiles and descriptions provided by the officials.

When it comes to nuclear negotiations, it is incredibly important to be precise with official words and statements, in order to avoid misunderstandings or mischaracterizations. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has a habit of cherry-picking or spinning statistics in an apparent attempt to make existing and equitable arms control agreements seem like “bad deals” for the United States. Given this track record, we should view their statements here with skepticism and ask for clarification if they’re referring to warheads or launchers. We have done so but have not yet heard back from the State Department.

一年的新起点延长总比没有扩展要好，但是它比五年的延长效果还要糟糕，因为它会对继续限制力量水平的承诺产生不确定性，并不必要地缩短谈判跟进安排的时间。没有技术需要缩短扩展。如果达成了一项新交易，那么旧的交易将掉下来。

弹头上的冻结将是一个热情的新步骤，俄罗斯对这个想法的接受是一个突破，因为它为将来建立这一想法的可能性打开了可能性。但是，如果没有验证，冻结将不会具有太多的信誉或效果，尽管它希望“门户监视”特朗普政府没有提出有关如何运作或获得莫斯科协议的计划。验证弹头冻结的验证要比验证新的开始条约本身要复杂得多，而且一年可能不足以完成工作。美国军事和情报界是否签署了俄罗斯检查员的监视，以监控美国弹头进出设施？美国在欧洲的盟友是否同意允许俄罗斯官员监视美国空军存储核弹的基地？

Russia’s acceptance of a one-year New START extension and a declaration to freeze warhead levels is a significant compromise from its previous offer to unconditionally extend the treaty by five years with no warhead freeze.

The Trump administration’s “offer” of a one-year extension of New START and a one-year warhead freeze with no verification at the outset represents an astounding walk-back from its previous statements. Trump has repeatedly called New START a “bad deal” and the whole point of the talks was to “fix” what the administration claimed was inadequate verification, incorporate Russia’s new strategic weapons into the agreement, and get China onboard. And how many times have we heard that you can’t trust Russia because they violate every arms control agreement they have signed? Yet here we are. None of those “fixes” are attached to the one-year treaty extension and the administration now says it is willing to sign on to a warhead freeze without agreed verification measures with the Great Cheater.

There is nothing wrong with trying to broaden arms control to other weapons categories and countries. We strongly support that. But the last-minute flurry and attempts to shorten extension strongly suggest that the Trump administration has been more focused on creating chaos and to appear tough on Moscow and Beijing than to create nuclear arms control progress. The one-year timeline unnecessarily constrains both countries and could well mean that they would be in pretty much the same situation one year from now.

不方便的事实是，新的起点正在按照设计，并保留绝大多数俄罗斯和美国战略武器库，以防止任何一个国家将成千上万的额外弹头上传到其部署的导弹上，并在本来不可预测的世界中提供可预测性的可预测性。

Additional background information:

• Status of world nuclear forces, September 2020
• United States nuclear forces, 2020
• Russian nuclear forces, 2020
• At 11th Hour, New START Data Reaffirms Importance of Extending Treaty

This publication was made possible by generous contributions from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New Land Foundation, the Ploughshares Fund, and the Prospect Hill Foundation. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.