Global Security Newswire

U.S. President Barack Obama does not intend to use a proposed European missile shield as a bargaining chip in arms control discussions next week with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a senior White House official told the Wall Street Journal yesterday (see GSN, July 1).

Moscow recently suggested it would not pursue significant reductions to its nuclear arsenal unless Washington offered reassurances that it would not pursue a Bush administration plan to field missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"We're definitely not going to use the word 'reassure' in the way that we talk about these things. We're not going to reassure or give or trade ... anything with the Russians regarding NATO expansion [into Georgia and Ukraine] or missile defense," said Michael McFaul, the National Security Council's senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs.

He added, though, that Obama was willing to consider a Kremlin proposal to deploy U.S. missile defenses within Russian borders.

U.S. and Russian leaders still hope to move forward with negotiations on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Journal reported. A new agreement could bar either country from deploying more than 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads on delivery vehicles such as missiles and bomber aircraft. An existing treaty sets the limit at 1,700 to 2,200 weapons (Wall Street Journal, July 2).

Three rounds of talks have been held to date on a new arms control deal.

"We expect that the presidents will note the progress that has been made and will confirm their instructions to finish this work by December, when the current treaty expires," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today.

"I am certain that this treaty, in its final version, will establish all the parameters, including numerical ones," Lavrov said, discussing what reductions a new agreement might impose on warhead and missile counts.

Talks between U.S. and Russian diplomats on a START successor "are proceeding in a constructive and results-oriented fashion," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, July 2).

Obama also intends to seek Russia's cooperation in curbing the threat of nuclear proliferation and in dealing with Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea, the Associated Press reported.

"It's not, in our view, a zero-sum game that if it's two points for Russia, it's negative two for us," McFaul said. "There are ways that we can cooperate to advance our interests, and at the same time do things with the Russians that are good for them as well" (Ben Feller, Associated Press I/Google News, July 1).

Washington and Moscow have a "special responsibility" to counter WMD proliferation and terrorism, Medvedev said in a video statement today.

The Obama administration is "showing its willingness to change the situation and build more effective, reliable, and ultimately more modern relations. We are ready to play our part," he added (Mike Eckel, Associated Press II/Google News, July 2).

"If we have a successful [arms control] negotiation, that will put a big positive on a relationship that has been pretty troubled over the last five or six years," Steven Pifer, a former U.S. diplomat now with the Brookings Institution, told AP. "It's important that they are reducing their nuclear arsenals if they are going to have any credibility when they are making argument to other countries not to acquire nuclear weapons."

"Without Russian pressure, the plan for missile defense in Europe will likely die on its own. But if Russia tries to exert pressure, it will have the opposite effect," added Pavel Podvig, a research associate with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

A START replacement would allow Russia to maintain a strategic balance with the United States without having to spend money to replace weapons that date back to Soviet times, noted Alexander Pikayev, an arms control analyst with Russia's Institute for World Economy and International Relations.

"Practically all Soviet-built missiles will have to be written off over the next decade, and building replacements will be quite costly," Pikayev said (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press III/Yahoo!News, July 1).

Another nuclear expert said Moscow could cut nuclear weapons while still maintaining a "huge gap" between the size of its deterrent and those of smaller, developing countries, RIA Novosti reported.

Nuclear weapons remain "the backbone of Russia's political, and to some extent economic, influence," said Sergei Karaganov, head of the Council for Russia's Foreign and Defense Policy.

"We could go as low as 1,600, or even 1,500 warheads. This is acceptable, especially if we increase their effectiveness and reduce the response time. We are also ready to reduce the number of delivery vehicles by several times," Karaganov said (RIA Novosti, July 1).

"Because Russia and the United States together possess about 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, it is important that they show leadership in reducing their own nuclear arsenals," added James Goodby, a former U.S. diplomat who participated in the START talks with the Soviet Union.

Closer U.S.-Russian ties would have "a profound effect on the negotiating environment with" Iran and North Korea, he told AFP (Alexander Osipovich, Agence France-Presse II, July 2).