#11
Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozrenie
May 24 - 30, 2002
IS IT SURRENDER OR TRANSITION TO PARTNERSHIP?
Moscow should use the "window of opportunity"
Author: Sergey Rogov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE NEW INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF A BILATERAL DIALOGUE ON STRATEGIC ISSUES WILL PROBABLY AID IN RESOLVING NOT ONLY THE ARMS CONTROL PROBLEMS THAT HAVE REMAINED OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THE LATEST TREATY, BUT ALSO IN FURTHER DEVELOPMENT AND STRENGTHENING OF PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE US.
The visit of President George Bush to Russia is an important landmark in development of Russia-US relations in the 21st century. The agreements signed in Moscow lay the foundation for a new partnership model of cooperation between the two countries, which used to be irreconcilable ideological and geopolitical opponents through the second half of the 20th century.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the positions of Moscow and Washington on a number of key international political issues have become considerably closer. International terrorism was declared the major threat for the security interests of both the US and the Russian Federation. In the course of military operation against the Taliban regime and bin Laden's organization in Afghanistan, intelligence and military departments of both countries began an unprecedented cooperation. At the November 2001 summit of President Vladimir Putin and President George Bush, it was first announced that Russia and the US had common ideological values, both are devoted to democracy and market economy.
However, that breakthrough was not secured and institutionalized by means of new mechanisms for Russia - US cooperation. Establishment of another Russia - NATO Council was almost six months delayed, in the meantime the North Atlantic Alliance continued its preparations for expansion to the East.
Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty, as well as refusal to put into effect START 2 and the Treaty on total and complete prohibition of nuclear testing, plus the unwillingness to meet the agreements on chemical and biological events caused a threat of an entire destruction of the existing international armament control. There was a real possibility that the "opportunity window" that opened in autumn 2001 could close in spring 2002.
In this situation signing another judicially obligatory agreement on strategic armaments plays an important stabilizing role not for Russia-US relations only, but also for securing strategic stability in the world.
Despite the breakup of bipolar system of international relations, the US and Russia still possess 90% of all nuclear weapons on the planet. If the bilateral Russia-US regime for controlling armaments falls apart, there will be no chance in the future to create a multilateral regime, which is absolutely necessary for securing a strategic stability in the new system of international relations, where China is actively modernizing its nuclear systems. China is likely to become a new super-power; India and Pakistan have also started an intensive nuclear race - both countries are on the verge of a war; France and Great Britain also have their own nuclear arsenals; as well as Israel owns "a bomb in the cellar". So, creation of such a new regime is necessary for prevention of further proliferation of weapons for mass annihilation.
It is an open secret, that the radical right wing of the US Republicans, who have stable positions in the present US administration, especially in Pentagon, thinks that any international- legislative obligations restrict the US's freedom of action, and that the "only superpower" cannot benefit by weapons control, as no other country including Russia is able to survive through an arms race with the US and to create symmetrical threat to the United States. These circles insisted on withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in December last year, although it is likely to take Pentagon several years to establish new more or less efficient anti-missile defense system.
That is why the fact of singing a new strategic armament agreement undoubtedly has a very positive meaning. Apparently, it is a serious success of the Russian diplomacy, which managed to receive from Washington not only another political declaration, but new mutual obligations. That is why the radical right wing of the Washington administration are not very exited about the new agreement, as several months ago they were completely convinced that they had "forever buried" armament control. However, these circles cannot openly oppose against George Bush's administration, which makes ratification of the agreement in the US Senate in its coming in effect next year highly possible.
Present meeting of President Bush and President Putin became the forth Russia-US summit over the past year. At the same time, a new agreement that formally assigns equal status of Russia and the US in the area of strategic offensive weapons was signed the first time over the past decade (since the presidency of Bush-senior).
Although in the present system of international relations the Russian Federation is not a superpower any longer, and it is aggregated considerably weaker that the United Stated, the fact that Washington acknowledges only Moscow, not Beijing, Tokio, Berlin, London, or Paris, as an equal nuclear partner demonstrates that Russia still has strong positions while resolving global strategic issues. Undoubtedly, the new agreement strengthens Russia's positions not only in its relations with the US, but with other force centers on the world arena as well. The "only superpower" does not consider it necessary to sign any nuclear restricting agreements with them - moreover, it never discusses these issues with them.
Another serious concession the present administration made is rejection of prohibition of separate individually aiming warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles. As is known, this prohibition was a corner stone since singing START 2 by Bush-senior, which became the main stumbling block during its ratification in the Russian Duma in 1990s. At the same time, it was often forgotten that this prohibition became a reason for liquidation of almost 300 missiles of this category in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which secured for Russia the role of the only heir of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. At present, rejection of such systems is extremely unprofitable for Russia not only because of strategic, but also because of financial reasons. Without separate individually aiming warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles, in ten years Russia is hardly likely to possess even a 1,000 of warheads on its strategic carriers. While the new agreement makes it possible for Moscow to start development of both mobile and blast Topol-M missiles with separate individually aiming missiles.
Finally, certain political circles in the US are discontent with the fact that the new agreement does not take tactic nuclear arms in consideration. According to the US's data, currently Pentagon stores at its stocks 1,200 to 2,000 tactic nuclear weapons, while Russia has several times more weapons of this type. As is known, the present Russian military doctrine makes a much greater stress on nuclear containment than Pentagon.
It is quite clear - today, the US has a colossal advantage in regular weapons; moreover, it is the only country in the world that started producing latest high-precision long-range regular weapons. At the same time, currently Moscow lacks financial means for equipping the Russian army with weapons of the 5th generation. That is why non- strategic nuclear weapons, in particular, the arms of aviation carriers, such as Tu-22M bombers, and front aviation, play a much more significant role for Russia than for the US.
As the new agreements stipulates of 1,700 - 2,200 warheads limits for strategic arms only, according to some US experts, now Russia will totally have a greater amount of nuclear warheads than the US, due to large amounts of tactical weapons.
Of course, it would be incorrect to consider the new agreement to be ideal for Russia. Moscow also had to make a number of significant concessions to come to a compromise. In my opinion, it was possible to avoid some of them if the tactics of negotiations was different, more thorough, and if Russia's major requirements and positions had better arguments while discussing them with the US partners.
It seems to me Russia accepted too quickly the 1,700-2,200 strategic warhead limit suggested by the US, while the 1,500 or fewer warheads limit which was announced in 2000 is more favorable for Russia. Evidently, it was possible to suggest to the US reduction of all strategic armaments down to 1,000 warheads. Such a public position would give not a propagandistic advantage only, but would also make it possible to discuss both reducing quantitative parameters, and making qualitative changes to the nuclear containment model.
It should also be admitted that basing on the aforementioned "Nuclear policy review", the contents and structure of the US's nuclear forces allow Washington to plan any options for using nuclear weapons like during the Cold War, including mass preventing counter- offensive attack. Meanwhile, during his election campaign in 2002, Bush-junior suggested reduction of nuclear forces alertness. Unfortunately, having become the president, he agreed with the Pentagon's position that severely objected to reduction of the alertness level. As a result, the US suggested a concept of "operatively developed nuclear forces", which stipulates maintaining of all nuclear forces in high alertness. Why did not Russia suggest to the US maintaining of only 500-700 warheads in high alertness, while the rest would be in "low" or even "null" alertness. Such an approach would create a considerably more stable situation in the nuclear containment model than the existing situation which have preserved since the Cold War.
Besides, the situation is deteriorated by an absence of distinct rules for counting warheads. In particular, Pentagon is against including into the limits the arms that are temporarily dismantled from strategic nuclear submarines on due repairs. This will allow the US to have several hundreds more nuclear warheads above the 2,200 level.
An even more serious failure is the US's refusal to demolish platforms, on which dismantled and stored warheads are placed. This refusal contains a "reversibility potential" danger, while the number of dismantled warheads is not very important here. Apparently, if there are no platforms, there will be no place to install reserve warheads on.
According to various appraisals, the new agreement will make it possible for Pentagon to possess approximately 4,000 reserve nuclear warheads. It is almost twice as much as the number of "operatively developed weapons", though it is slightly fewer than the number of warheads the US currently stores, which is 5,000-6,000 warheads. Besides, US's nuclear enterprises store components for almost 20,000 dismantled warheads. However, according to some experts, the US does not recurrently assemble nuclear weapons. That is why there are no reasons to consider these components to be part of "reversibility potential".
In these terms, pressure of the US's radical right wing in favor of resuming nuclear testing in order to create new weapons, in particular, for striking "overprotected" underground objects, is very disturbing.
The US Energy Ministry recently received such instructions, and consequently, corresponding funding.
Resuming nuclear testing would have extremely bad international consequences. The decision of Pentagon to research the possibility of using nuclear weapons in anti-missile defense also raises serious concerns. As is known, over past decades the US has intensely carried out serious scientific researches on national missile-defense system without using nuclear weapons. Now, it is said that only a nuclear explosion can completely destroy a warhead with biological charge. However, a number of experts believe that the matter is inefficiency of national missile-defense system means based on non-nuclear energy sources, which the US has developed. Undoubtedly, US's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will negatively affect strategic stability. At the same time, until the end of this decade the US will be unable to create a large-scale well developed national missile-defense system. Over this period, the new agreement on strategic offensive arms will provide enough stability of the strategic balance. However, the situated may seriously deteriorate if Washington starts forcing development of its national missile defense system with the use of nuclear weapons.
The documents signed during the summit point at the need to take into account mutual correlation of strategic offensive and defensive weapons. However, even this is not enough to compensate for rejection of international legislative restrictions of the ABM Treaty. Nonetheless, the new agreement makes the situation in Russia-US strategic relations rather predictable and stable, despite several obvious drawbacks.
Preserving of the regime of inspection and verification, which START 1 stipulates, is also very important. Although this regime stipulates excessive details in some areas and leaves large gaps in other areas - for instance, no inspection of annihilation of platforms is stipulated - overall, it provides for enough transparency in the nuclear area.
It is possible to suppose that the newly established Russia-US commission will also play an important role. Such an institutionalization of a bilateral dialogue on strategic issues will probably aid in resolving not only the arms control issues that remained outside the scope of the latest treaty, but also in further development and strengthening of partnership between Russia and the US.
(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova)
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