A senior US State Department official has categorically rejected claims that Washington and Moscow are informally continuing to abide by the limits of the now-expired New START nuclear arms limitation treaty, saying there is no "gentleman's agreement".
"I don't know of any such agreement," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Yu said on February 17 at the Hudson Institute, responding to a question about whether the two sides were quietly respecting New START restrictions despite the treaty's expiration.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed in 2010 by the United States and Russia and limited each country to 1.550 deployed nuclear warheads. The treaty expired on February 5.
Yu's remarks underscore a tougher U.S. stance on arms control under President Donald Trump, whose administration has allowed New START to expire while seeking to shape what officials describe as a broader, trilateral framework that would include China.
The restrictions of the agreement no longer apply.
New START limited deployed US and Russian strategic nuclear warheads, but did not cover non-strategic ("theater") nuclear capabilities, nor did it impose any restrictions on China.
Juo described these omitted categories as key shortcomings.
"Only two out of six were covered by the treaty," he said, presenting a matrix of US, Russian and Chinese strategic and tactical nuclear forces. With China not restrained by treaties and Russia modernising its non-strategic arsenal, he believes the treaty framework is outdated.
Yu said that Russia had already withdrawn from full deployment, adding that Washington was now free to adjust its nuclear capabilities as needed.
"We are no longer bound by the limitations of New START," he said, adding that all future force decisions would be made by the president and the Pentagon.
US accusations over Chinese test increase pressure
Yu made this statement while further elaborating on US claims that China conducted a yield-generating nuclear test.
The US, he said, knows that China conducted a "supercritical nuclear detonation" on June 22, 2020, near its Lop Nur test site, citing seismic data indicating a magnitude 2,75 event.
"I'm going by the data. I'm a scientist. There's a very small chance that it was anything other than an explosion," Yuo said.
He accused Beijing of using "splitting" techniques to reduce the detectability of such tests, and added that China was preparing tests with projected yields in the hundreds of tons.
China has denied violating the moratorium on nuclear testing.
President Trump has said the United States would return to nuclear testing "on an equal footing" if its competitors continue to conduct high-yield tests. Yu stressed that this does not mean a return to the large-scale atmospheric tests of the Cold War era, but it does mean that Washington will not maintain a strict "zero-yield" policy unless others do the same.
"If adversaries conduct nuclear tests and the United States does not, then America puts itself in an intolerable position," he said.
Yu called the administration's approach "America First arms control," but added that it "cannot and does not mean arms control for America alone."
The administration, he said, will continue to seek strategic stability agreements on a trilateral basis, including Russia and China.
Ahead of the next review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Yu hinted that Washington would pressure Beijing to join the negotiations, rather than relying on bilateral arrangements between the US and Russia.
For now, however, he has made it clear that there is no informal agreement on the implementation of New START.
"There is no such agreement," said Juo.
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