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U.S.-Russia: Nuclear Treaty Is Weak, Short-Lived, Officials Say By David Ruppe According to the treaty language, until that time, neither country would be explicitly required to remove any warheads from active service, the experts said. The following day, each country could begin returning thousands of warheads to active service. “We could be at 2,200 on December 31, 2012 and be back up at 6,000 on Jan. 2, 2012,” said Thomas Graham, a former senior U.S. arms control negotiator. “The treaty doesn’t require compliance after the last day it is in force.” Graham added the text contains no verification provision to check that the countries are moving toward the treaty goal up until that day, or had reached the goal. Those are two of a number of several details analysts say could enable either party to easily avoid making any significant or lasting reductions of thousands of operationally deployed warheads, the purpose of the treaty stated by U.S. officials. “Obviously it’s very thin gruel. All it says is each party agrees they will do what their president said in a speech Nov. 13, 2001, with respect to strategic nuclear weapons,” said Graham. A senior Bush administration official, while acknowledging the treaty allows for greater flexibility on how each party can pursue cuts and withdraw from the treaty, took issue with criticism the treaty is set up to be skirted easily. “The analysts that are looking at it from that perspective are living in the past. That clearly is a Cold War analysis that presumes the relationship between the two parties is one of mistrust,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. The senior official said if either country did not intend to move toward the treaty goal, it would be obligated by international law to declare that intention. U.S. officials say they plan to begin to further negotiate details on definitions and a verification provision in coming months as they try to hammer out a “bilateral verification agreement” with Russia. “START I didn’t need a bilateral verification agreement, because every detail was in the treaty,” said National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton. Anton expressed uncertainty about what form that agreement would take. “I don’t envision it will be a treaty,” he said. More Lenient Withdrawal Another detail adding flexibility, experts said, is the fact that the accord does not contain a “supreme national interest” clause for withdrawing from the treaty, making it easier for either country to withdraw from this treaty than from previous U.S.-Russian arms control agreements. In START I, for example, if a party wishes to withdraw, it is required to explain how “extraordinary events” have caused the treaty to jeopardize the country’s “supreme national interests.” That notice must be delivered six months before the withdrawal can take effect. Under the new treaty, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, either side may cite “its national sovereignty” and withdraw with only three months notice. Either side can withdraw “for any reason,” said a U.S. official critical of the text, who also asked not to be identified. What Will the Treaty Reduce? The absence of the phrase “operationally deployed” in the treaty language also creates unprecedented ambiguity about what warheads will actually be reduced and how. Senior U.S. officials had used that language repeatedly since Bush and Putin announced the proposed reductions last November (see GSN, Jan. 10). Bush administration officials had negotiated for removing thousands of strategic nuclear warheads from active, operationally deployed status. The countries could then dispose of the warheads as they each saw fit, for instance, by putting them into storage or totally dismantling them. The treaty language says instead each party shall “reduce and limit strategic nuclear warheads, as stated by the president of the United States of America on Nov. 13, 2001, and as stated by the president of the Russian Federation on Nov 13, 2001, and Dec. 13, 2001, respectively,” which was when the phrase “operationally deployed” was originally used by President Bush. Russia’s senior negotiator of the treaty said last week Russia had insisted the “operationally deployed” phrase was not included in the treaty text because it opposed that plan. “The Americans seem to have said that the missiles and the warheads must not be destroyed, they must be mothballed and be capable of swift redeployment on the carriers and be rapidly returned to the battle-ready forces,” said First Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky in a May 24 interview with reporters. “You understand that we could not accept such conditions and we did not accept them. And today in the treaty neither directly nor between the lines on the pages of the test you will not see the words ‘operationally deployed warheads,’” he said. The two countries apparently continue to disagree over the definition of the phrase used. Baluyevsky suggested Russia interprets it to mean both countries must fully eliminate the capability to use all but 1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads — by destroying the strategic delivery systems that would enable either country to deliver more than that. “I wish to say that the juridical ‘truth’ and the juridical rules as laid down by the treaty is on our side. It is not we who would have to explain to the world community the way we understand a particular article of the treaty,” he said. For further information, see: Moscow Treaty (U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty) State Department Fact Sheet on Arms Reduction Treaty Treaty Text (State Department) START I
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