In February 2021 expiring Russian-American Treaty on strategic offensive arms SNV-3, signed in Prague in 2011 by the presidents of Russia and the United States. The contract can be extended for 5 years, but Washington has pointedly rejects such a possibility. This position is criticized not only in Russia but in the United States. So, honorary Professor of the faculty of political science Columbia University, doctor of science Robert Legvold (USA) believes that the start-3 should be preserved.
His position, the expert said in an interview published on the YouTube channel of the International Luxembourg forum on preventing nuclear catastrophe.
According to American political scientist, start-3 will certainly need to renew.
“This is extremely important, – the expert believes. – Because if we lose this last pillar of the regime of arms control…, will be destroyed not only a system of control over nuclear weapons between the US and Russia, but the very prospect of such control, among other new nuclear powers.”
the Professor recalled that the establishment of a mechanism of control over nuclear weapons “gone fifty years, and this process was grueling and sometimes painful from a political point of view.”
the breakdown of control mechanism in the collapse of the start-3 will lead to the fact that all the parameters of the nuclear missile arsenals of USA and Russia “will get out of control.” This, he said, “will create a very unstable and potentially dangerous international situation”.
“so Would endanger strategic stability, at a certain level will increase the risk of nuclear war between some countries, and we will live in a different world,” concluded Robert Legvold.
According to him, the world is becoming increasingly fragile: “the Risk of nuclear war is growing, and the chances of a nuclear disaster, that is, nuclear war is now greater or as great as at any time of acute tension during the cold war, particularly during the Cuban missile crisis.”
