Senior Russian officials yesterday said they welcome recent comments from the Bush administration that offensive strategic arms reductions proposed last year could be made through a legally binding agreement (see GSN, Feb 6).

On Tuesday, U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell said that the arms reductions proposed by U.S. and Russian Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin could be made legally binding, a shift from previous U.S. views.

Powell’s comments could help pave the way for the two countries to draw up an agreement before Bush’s planned visit to Moscow in May, said Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of staff of the Russian armed forces (Michael Wines, New York Times, Feb. 7).

“Washington’s readiness to draw up a legally binding document on strategic offensive arms suggests that reason is gaining the upper hand in our relations,” Baluyevsky said.

“Under these conditions we shall be able to prepare an agreement which will suit both sides and will be met with understanding by the international community.  It is precisely these decisions that the latter expects from the two top nuclear powers,” he said (Interfax/BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Feb. 6).

Some analysts, however, said it is unlikely that any arms reduction agreement would be crafted that soon.

“Even if there’s a political agreement for a treaty — such as there was for the [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II] — it would still takes many months for a group of experts to do all the paperwork,” said defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

“Those who worked on the START I and START II treaties say it takes at least a year to hammer out the details,” Felgenhauer said.  “The small print is the most important part.  Arms agreement treaties are full of appendices pertaining to each type of weapon, each warhead and delivery system.  The verification process also has to be agreed on.  That takes a lot of working out” (Gregory Feifer, Moscow Times, Feb. 7).

Differences Still Remain

Significant differences still remained between the United States and Russia that would have to be negotiated before any agreement could be reached, experts said.

There is yet no agreement between the two countries over the issue of making any reductions irreversible, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.  He added that there is also no agreement on a verification system for any reductions.

Additionally, the United States does not agree with the Russian idea that any reductions should be tied to U.S. plans for a missile defense shield, Kimball said.

“The Bush administration will at all cost avoid any limits on missile defenses,” he said.  “The Russians’ bottom line is that they want to establish a kind of firebreak between where we are today and some future deployment of weapons in space, which they view as an even greater threat” (Wines, New York Times, Feb. 7).

Policy Shift?

Experts said they were unsure how much Powell’s comments reflect a change in the U.S. stance on strategic arms reductions.

“One would like to hope that this is the first symptom of a warming [in the U.S.-Russian relationship] after the cooling off that was felt previously,” said Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Center.  “I think conclusions can be drawn only after … some concrete proposals have been made and after there has been a real discussion of those proposals.”

“The question is how much Powell’s words are an expression of his personal view, as opposed to that of [U.S. Vice President] Dick Cheney, [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice or [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld,” Felgenhauer said. 

Powell’s remarks could instead be seen as more targeted toward other countries, Markov said.

“It’s a real concession that shows America’s readiness to more or less play by the rules,” he said.  “It assuages concerns about American unilateralism.  The world was very concerned about Bush’s desire for only an informal arms control agreement” (Feifer, Moscow Times, Feb. 7).

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