[Ed. – Heads explode. But I was wondering if Trump would be the one to seriously advance this. It’s right up his alley. New START was a deeply flawed treaty from the get-go and should not be extended. The way for Trump to retain leverage is to let it expire in 2021 and leave both Russia and China with the prospect of a U.S. unconstrained by that treaty, in a second Trump term. Force modernization for the U.S. would move faster and more effectively than in either of the other two nations.]
The Trump administration has informed Moscow that the U.S. is open to holding a summit with other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in hopes of pushing for three-way arms control pact with Russia and China, a senior administration official said Friday.
The New START treaty, the last major arms-control treaty remaining between the U.S. and Russia, expires in 2021. There has been talk of negotiating an extension to the existing treaty, but the White House thinks the next generation of arms control must also include China, which is expected to at least more than double its stockpile during the next decade
Russia has asked the U.S. to extend the New START treaty for up to five years, but Moscow also has embraced the idea of bringing China into an agreement.
