#6162
[Second Issue of the Day]
#3
The Russia Journal
March 29-April 4, 2002
Marking end of an era
By ALEXANDER GOLTS
Moscow and Washington look to be heading fast toward a new strategic arms limitation agreement. "Negotiations were very productive and we managed to resolve a number of serious differences," said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Bolton after the talks he held with his Russian counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov. Mamedov, for his part, assessed prospects for an agreement to be signed during George Bush’s visit to Russia in May as "very optimistic."
Only recently, the differences between the two sides seemed insurmountable. Above all, this concerned the issue of operationally deployed warheads. When the United States announced its plans to cut its nuclear arsenal to 1,700-2,200 warheads, it said that this would be done by a process of "unloading." Single warheads would replace multiple warheads on surface missiles, for example. Strategic missiles would be removed from four nuclear submarines and several dozen bombers would have their missiles removed. The nuclear submarines would be re-equipped to perform other, non-strategic tasks, while the bombers would be taken out of service. As for the warheads, they would be stockpiled.
In the Russian interpretation, however, this is called not reduction, but maintaining return potential. Washington hasn’t abandoned these plans and says it will keep the warheads and their delivery vehicles so as to respond in the event of unexpected change in the international situation. None of this was to Moscow’s liking. Indeed, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that these plans amounted to no more than a virtual arms reduction.
But talk of "return potential" has suddenly died down. U.S. ambassador to Moscow Alexander Vershbow and then Mamedov said that the future agreement could take the form of a three-to-four-page additional protocol to the START I Treaty, the last strategic arms-limitation treaty officially in force.
That both sides should refer to the START I Treaty suggests that the Americans have found some loophole in this treaty enabling them to avoid liquidating the warheads up for the cut. It’s not just chance that in November, when he announced that Russia had fulfilled its obligations under START I, Yury Baluyevsky, first deputy head of the General Staff, said he wasn’t happy with the way the Americans had counted warheads.
This was followed by a statement from Ivanov during his visit to the United States that if such a loophole exists, Russia could also begin stockpiling warheads. This, it seems, became the foundation for a new Russian-American agreement. If this is so, then Moscow has simply made concessions to Washington.
The fact is that delivery vehicles were always the most important component of all strategic arms limitation agreements. This was why the number of warheads that could be deployed on a particular delivery vehicle was always set very strictly. The idea was always to reduce the number of missiles rather than the number of warheads.
The Americans know full well that by the beginning of the next decade, Russia will be forced to take all its heavy missiles off duty. The Topol-M missile-production program is practically at a standstill. Rumors that President Vladimir Putin has given the program the green light in order to maintain parity with the United States seem doubtful. Even when former Chief of the Missile Forces Igor Sergeyev was Defense Minister, no more than 10 new missiles a year came on duty.
In this situation, it doesn’t matter how many warheads Russia stockpiles, it still won’t have the delivery vehicles on which to deploy them. To put things frankly, Russian and American diplomats are now working on an agreement that will give legal form to unilateral U.S. strategic-arms reduction. Russia’s participation isn’t so much out of military necessity as out of U.S. President George Bush’s desire to do something nice for Putin and keep the illusion of a bilateral agreement. Moscow, meanwhile, has virtually nothing to bargain with.
What’s important to remember is that this strategic-arms agreement will probably be the last signed by Russia and the United States. When the Los Angeles Times published excerpts of a Pentagon report on U.S. nuclear-arms policy, hysteria broke out in Russia over the idea that U.S. military officials still conceive of nuclear war against Russia. But few pointed out that such a turn of events could be envisaged only if Russia returned to a totalitarian regime. Hysterical commentators also neglected to say that the report makes it clear the United States does not see any direct military threat from Russia and that this is the foundation for the Americans’ new nuclear strategy. Washington has decided that Russia is no longer dangerous.
This would be worth celebrating if it weren’t for the fact it does away with what has long been the foundation of Russian-American relations. Our two countries’ relations have been based on a system of treaties reducing strategic arms – and reducing a mutual threat. But now that Washington has decided this threat is highly minimal, it no longer pays as much attention to Moscow. The era of nuclear confrontation is over. Even possessing the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal doesn’t automatically make Russia a great power, but Russian diplomats have placed too much hope on this status for too long.
The Sept. 11 events and Moscow’s active participation in the anti-terrorist operations have given Russia the chance to show that it is still an important player for the United States. But this is a temporary factor and it’s no good counting on a repeat of such circumstances in the future. So instead of concentrating on doomed-to-fail disputes about operationally deployed warheads and return potential, Moscow should turn its efforts to establishing a new agenda for Russian-American relations not based on mutual deterrence.
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