The Makings of a Deal?

by Cheryl Rofer

The United States and Russia have been talking about extending the START I agreement to keep track of nuclear weapons reductions leading to the 2012 deadline for the Moscow Treaty.

The Moscow Treaty did not contain any verification provisions, because George Bush didn’t want any treaty at all, since (he said) friends don’t have treaties on such things. So the provisions of START I have been used for verification of the Moscow Treaty reductions. Ronald Reagan, whose inheritor Bush seems to believe he is, said “Trust but verify.” That is actually a Russian saying, and they still believe it, so they have been pushing to extend START I, which lapses at the end of 2009. The US has been as finicky about the talks as North Korea has been about its nuclear talks, but one more session was held just before the holiday break.

I found most news reports on the session confusing, but I think I have deciphered them, with Walter Pincus’s help. There are aspects that remain confusing, but we have to consider that this is the Bush administration we’re talking about.

The bottom line is that the American proposal was surprising to the Russians (and to me as well), and that the talks are dead until we have a new president. To greet that new president, Russia has offered some carrots and some sticks.

What the US Proposed

Rood said the United States wanted to change START's method of factoring delivery systems into warhead limits because "that doesn't always correspond to the same number of nuclear warheads that you possess."

The United States earlier this year proposed to take the nuclear warheads off some missiles and replace them with conventional warheads. We have also been using the sometimes-nuclear-armed B-52s as high-altitude conventional bombers in Afghanistan.

Since a country would not be able to look at a missile or bomber and tell whether it carried nuclear or conventional weapons, this could be a way to escalate to a nuclear exchange very quickly. It would be the other side’s “fault,” of course, but that wouldn’t matter in the carnage. Exchanging a nuclear payload for a conventional one is a dumb idea.

START counts delivery systems, rather than the warheads themselves, because neither country wants to let the other look inside their missiles and airplanes, or inside the bomb casings. The United States has been as reluctant as Russia on this point. But suddenly John Rood, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, proposed counting warheads.

Was this because he knew that the proposal would be so unacceptable to Russia that the talks would break down? That would be consistent with the John Bolton approach to arms control. Or was it because the administration is determined to go ahead with that very bad idea of replacing nuclear payloads with conventional? Or do they just not care, with less than a month left in power, and decided it would be fun to leave Barack Obama with one more mess?

If we are to go to limits of nuclear weapons in the several hundreds, and if those numbers are to be of all nuclear weapons a country possesses, rather than just those that are deployed, verification will have to shift from counting delivery vehicles to counting warheads. So introducing the concept in the negotiations could be a good thing even if we can’t expect something so radical to be accepted the first time around.

I guess the administration’s motivation or intent in introducing this idea doesn’t matter. The Russians seem to have decided that, too. After the perfunctory things that diplomats say after an unsuccessful round of talks, the Russians seem to be setting the stage for President Obama with carrots and sticks.

The Carrots
The commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces said that Russia might stop development of some new missiles if the US decided not to deploy missile defense bases in Europe. Note that he’s talking about missiles in the future, not existing missiles.

The Russian Defense Minister has put forward a plan to decrease the numbers of officers and overall personnel in the armed forces. Russian defense ministers have been saying this kind of thing since the breakup of the Soviet Union and have not yet managed to do it.

Both of these measures would be helpful to Russia as the price of oil drops, leaving much less in its budget.

The Sticks
Russia plans to add 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, along with short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Pravda, always ready to exaggerate, says that Russia has a “monstrous” new ballistic missile.

Russia has been decommissioning liquid-fueled missiles, so it’s not clear whether these 70 new missiles will be a net increase. And the budget for this increase is to come from within the existing budget; oil revenues are unlikely to support an overall increase.

Obama’s Opportunities
George Bush’s unnecessary belligerency and dislike of arms control treaties has set up a number of opportunities for the next president. Neither the carrots nor sticks offered by Russia are particularly impressive, but the fact that they are putting them out there indicates that they are willing to negotiate.

The antimissile emplacements in Poland and the Czech Republic have little or no use beyond goading Russia, and they are not wanted by citizens of those countries or most of the rest of Europe, so giving them up is a small move. If the Russians will give up some missiles, even if they are future missiles now under development or missiles that are not yet in Kaliningrad.

Reconsideration of that Russian offer of a radar station in Azerbaijan might be a good idea.

And we can hope that the START extension talks will resume with good faith efforts on both sides to come to an agreement. The simplest would be to extend START for another three to five years, even though both sides would like to simplify some of the START requirements.

Obama’s most recent statement on negotiating with the Russians:

The United States and Russia should seek real, verifiable reductions in all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons—whether deployed or nondeployed, whether strategic or nonstrategic. I am committed to working with Russia and other nuclear-weapon states to make deep cuts in global stockpiles by the end of my first term. This process should begin by securing Russia’s agreement to extend essential monitoring and verification provisions of START I prior to its expiration in December 2009. As president, I will also immediately stand down all nuclear forces to be reduced under the Moscow Treaty and urge Russia to do the same.

Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment’s notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation. I believe that we must address this dangerous situation—something that President Bush promised to do when he campaigned for president back in 2000, but did not do once in office. I will work with Russia to end such outdated Cold War policies in a mutual and verifiable way.

A couple of carrots there, along with a commitment to extending START.

Simply setting up, and carrying out in good faith, talks with the Russians on these topics would contribute to the Russians’ sense of partnership in reducing the nuclear danger and being respected as a major power. That would make them easier to work with in many ways.