Russia Calls for Simpler START

The United States and Russia should not permit the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to lapse without first drafting a less complex successor pact, a senior Russian official said last week (see GSN, July 3).

“In our opinion, we should not allow a vacuum in the sphere of strategic arms control,” said Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky of the Russian Defense Ministry.  “So far, the United States has not responded.”

The 1991 treaty — which commits the United States, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to curb their strategic arsenals — is set to expire in December 2009.

Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have eliminated all their strategic armaments.  Only the United States and Russia maintain weapons covered by the treaty, which limits them each to no more than 1,600 strategic delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads.

“The new treaty should envision restrictions on the deployment of strategic offensive forces only on the state’s national territory,” Buzhinsky said.  The new treaty must include verification procedures, he said.

Russian and U.S. officials earlier this month affirmed a mutual commitment to drawing down their strategic arsenals and to framing a new arms limitation treaty (RIA Novosti/Spacewar.com, July 23).

“You have Russia and the United States, and both have to reduce their nuclear capabilities,” said Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces.

“What you want is to be able to deliver a first strike while minimizing your potential enemy’s ability to do so,” Baluyevsky said last week, according to RIA Novosti.

“To achieve that, you need to encircle the enemy’s territory with offensive and missile defense bases. … This is normal military logic.  The only problem is that this is the logic of a past era — the Cold War, and standoffs between blocs in Europe,” he added (United Press International, July 20).

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