John Bolton visits Moscow amid fears of new US-Russia arms race

The US National Security advisor John Bolton has flown into Moscow to outline America’s expected withdrawal from a landmark arms control deal, amid fears it will push the two powers into a new arms race.

The move to leave the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement, coming days after Russian president Vladimir Putin raised the idea of the potential for nuclear apocalypse, puts a question mark over the future of other treaties and international nuclear arms control more generally.

On Saturday, Donald Trump insisted the INF treaty no longer served any purpose. Russia had violated its terms, he said and insisted he was not about to let them “do weapons” while he was not allowed to.

According to the United States, Russia has been testing mid-range missile systems, specifically banned by the treaty, “for years”. According to Russia, the US itself is in violation of the treaty. Its MK41 “missile shield” defence systems can, says Moscow, be used for medium-range nuclear Tomahawk missiles.

In his daily briefing on Monday, the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov accused the United States of “eroding the foundations of the [INF] treaty” and “making the world a more dangerous place”.

Neither side has released public evidence of their claims but, with presidential prerogative in force, nor do they need to.

Just as much as the original 1987 treaty was driven by the ideological convictions of Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev – who discussed eliminating all nuclear weapons at one point – its rejection is being pushed by different personalities with very different convictions.

The appointment of John Bolton, a known sceptic of arms control treaties, is reported to have been a major factor in hardening positions in the White House.

In the course of his two-day trip in Moscow, President Trump’s national security advisor is scheduled to talk with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council. According to Russian media, he will also be granted an audience with Vladimir Putin himself, provided talks go well. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that such a meeting is in the works.

Fyodor Lukyanov, an expert close to the Russian foreign policy elite, told The Independent that Mr Bolton’s surprise visit was being interpreted as a “basic courtesy” call. Moscow understood John Bolton was “someone who represented Trump”, and thus would not “want to ruin relations”.

Few in Moscow seemed to be mourning the demise of the treaty.

According to Mr Lukyanov, the development, while unwelcome, was not a seen as a “major problem” or “catastrophe” by insiders. The agreement had “lost sense for both sides”, he said. Russia might even welcome the “PR advantage” of its main adversary administering the final rites first.

Vladimir Frolov, a former Kremlin advisor, suggested the Trump administration may even have fallen into a trap set by Vladimir Putin. The Russian president had long angled for this outcome, he said. Many inside the security and military complexes consider Gorbachev’s treaty a betrayal of the country’s strategic interest.

“The treaty worked in Nato’s favour as soon as it eliminated intermediate-range ground missiles,” Mr Frolov told The Independent. “Nato always held an advantage with the submarine and air missiles that are not covered by the treaty.”

Few expect the Trump administration to stop with the INF treaty. Most now assume it will be accompanied by the non-renewal of the New Start treaty for the reduction of strategic nuclear arms, which runs out in 2021. There had been some hope that the Trump administration would agree to extend the treaty, says Mr Lukyanov, but Moscow is now resigned to a different outcome.

The independent military analyst Alexander Golts said the fates of both treaties were closely intertwined. It was “no accident” that the original Start deal began to be developed shortly after the ICN treaty, he said.

“We seem to be heading into a non-controlled arms race, the kind that we last saw in the early 1980s,” says Mr Golts. “Nobody knows how much Putin is bluffing, but the level of idle chat about nuclear weapons is unprecedented, even compared to Soviet times.”

Speaking at the Valdai conference on Thursday, President Putin unexpectedly raised the prospect of a nuclear apocalypse. He emphasised that Russia would not initiate the first strike, but had systems in place to “retaliate and destroy” an aggressor.

“We would be victims and would go to heaven as martyrs,” he told the hall of experts. “The others would just snuff it, and wouldn’t [even] have time to repent.”

The president’s rhetoric brought back memories of the destructive rush to arm that over half a century cost hundreds of billions of pounds, fed paranoia on both sides, and eventually bankrupted the Soviet Union.

On one level, the new arms race has already begun. Two weeks ago, at a meeting of Nato defence ministers, US defence secretary James Mattis said Washington would be compelled to answer Moscow’s “cavalier disregard” of the INF treaty. The Kremlin’s Mr Peskov meanwhile said Moscow would immediately take necessary steps to “restore strategic balance”.

Vladimir Frolov said a repeat of history was possible, but not inevitable. The US was likely to step up deployments of treaty-compliant submarine-launch and air-launch missile systems, he said. But it had neither the missiles nor the consent from allies to develop new military capabilities in Europe. Russia, meanwhile, would probably respond by increasing the number of cheaper ground-launched systems. But what it would not do was “repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union”.

Mr Lukyanov said “perspectives and personal histories from the Soviet era” would combine to ensure there would be no repeat of a “crazy race”.

“Moscow understands there are no winners in nuclear war,” he said. “But where the war can be won is in the economy, information and cyberspace.”