Has a New Arms Race Started Already?

25 years after the end of the Cold War, the West has convinced itself that Russia is threatening Europe, while Russia feels that she is being surrounded, and sees NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe as a direct threat. Is an arms race unavoidable?

Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow and specialist in US defense and foreign policy at The Brookings Institution, and Dr. Binoy Kampmark, a senior lecturer in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne join the program.

The first half of the program focuses on the situation with conventional arms being deployed in Europe. Both speakers express that the ‘ERI’ and ‘Atlantic Resolve’ programs whereby NATO is deploying about 5,000 troops into Poland and the Baltic States are more of a psychological than a military threat to Russia, although that is not the way they are seen in Russia. Dr. Kampmark points out that the Russians have causes for concern given: the debate around whether or not the West gave assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand when the Soviet Union was disbanded, the deployment of ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe, and the missile defense system which is not ostensibly meant to be directed at Russia, but which is part of broader scheme of NATO deployment which is troubling for Russia.

Michael O’Hanlon says that military planners are paid to analyze worst case scenarios, and see that although the number of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltics may at present be small, NATO and the US are gaining experience in moving troops around. Russian military planners are wondering what Western forces may be pre-stocking in Europe, that can be added to at short notice later on. The new US Virginia class attack submarines and the new generation of long-range bombers (B21) are also discussed. Michael O’Hanlon comments that these programs were planned at a time when US – Russia relations were better and were actually conceived as a counter threat more against China than Russia. Dr. Kampmark says that America seems to be currently concerned that it is not keeping up with military modernization programs in Russia and China, thus providing the ingredients for an arms race, and has allocated large amounts of money for these purposes.

The main choice as regards the future is between the US continuing to hold on to the idea of being the most important global power, which, in the view of the US as Michael O’Hanlon points out, is done to maintain international stability. But this is not the way that other countries see that. Dr. Kampmark says that the ‘holding onto the crown’ strategy is causing destabilization, and is preventing the possibility of cooperation to counter global threats such as that of Daesh.

The second part of the program concentrates on nuclear arms. The main question which is discussed concerns what President Trump will do in terms of the modernization of the US nuclear missile program. Michael O’Hanlon provides an update as to what exactly is going on in Congress this week as regards this issue. Dr. Kampmark points out that international arms control agreements which reduce the number of missiles do not necessarily mean that the destructive power of nuclear weapons has been reduced, as more powerful, multiple warheads can be housed in one missile. Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to test weapons in the same way as previously. Michael O’Hanlon points out that Russia has been somewhat reluctant to reduce its nuclear capacity as it has such a massive land area to defend. This is difficult to do using conventional forces alone.

It seems that an arms race in conventional weapons has already started, however, a nuclear arms race has yet to be initiated in full. At the present time, as Michael O’Hanlon comments, “we have a bit more US-Russia competition than we had during most of the past 20 years, but I would not go so far as to call it an all-out arms race because I would point out that the United States is spending amount 3.5% of its GDP on its military, and Russia is spending about 4%, that’s much less for both countries than in the Cold War.”

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