Focus: Russia and the United States
United States and Russia announce replacement treaty aimed at reducing nuclear arms should be ready by year's end; talks marked by cooperation and confidence-building
Summary:
The United States and the Russian Federation announced they would present a new treaty, aimed at replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) -- the prevailing nuclear arms agreement between the two countries that was set to expire in December 2009. The announcement came at the close of a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore, and occurred following discussions between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. According to United Stated officials, the leaders of the United States and Russia agreed on the broad outline a new treaty, which could be signed in December 2009 when President Obama was expected to travel to Europe to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Both the United States and Russia characterized the bilateral negotiations as positive, pragmatic and cooperative.
Background:
In April 2009, United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to forge a new nuclear arms reduction pact, which would not only replace START --the treaty signed by former United States President George H. W. Bush and former Soviet President Michel Gorbachev -- but also expand upon its parameters, with an eye on increased disarmament.
Then, in July 2009, at a summit in Moscow, President Obama and President Medvedev agreed to cut the number of nuclear warheads in the possession each country to between 1,500 and 1,675 over the course of the next seven years. Russian President Medvedev described this particular objective as "reasonable." The agreement was expected to set the foundation for a later treaty to be forged, which would replace START as noted above. Speaking from the Kremlin in Moscow, President Obama explained that he intended to move toward nuclear arms reduction and greater bilateral engagement saying, "We must lead by example, and that's what we are doing here today." He continued, "We resolve to reset U.S.-Russian relations so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest."
In October 2009, United States officials were in Russia for missile defense negotiations with Russian counterparts. Speaking ahead of the negotiations, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the United States and Russia must advance strategic arms reduction. In an interview with Russia's Channel Once, President Medvedev said, "While dealing with non-proliferation, we must simultaneously deal with the limitation and reduction of strategic offensive potentials -- both carriers and nuclear warheads." Medvedev continued, "Today we have the chance to advance this process. We will be dealing with this. And I call on our American partners to do the same."
With the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty set to expire on Dec. 5, 2009, President Medvedev said he believed Russia and the United States could reach a new strategic arms reduction accord. He observed, "There is definitely a chance for the agreement, since the new U.S. administration has demonstrated interest in this issue." Medvedev also said he did not support the expansion of nuclear weapons states recognized by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Striking a tone harmonious with his American counterpart, President Barack Obama, President Medvedev said, "We are against the extension of the nuclear club. Otherwise the situation will get out of control. The world without nuclear weapons is an ideal which should be on our agenda."
President Medvedev also reiterated his appreciation for President Obama's decision to scrap the Bush-era missile defense shield plan, calling President Obama's new missile shield plans "sensible." He additionally noted that Russia was eager to extend missile defense cooperation with the United States and Europe.
On Oct. 13, 2009, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lvov. In addition to the issues related to a new successor treaty aimed at strategic arms reduction, the two diplomats also discussed the matter of missile defense. Secretary Clinton addressed the Obama administration's plan to scrap the Bush-era missile defense system in Eastern Europe saying, "On the question of the missile shield, we are very open to cooperation with the Russians. We have made this clear to them. We believe that a joint missile defense would make sense."
Negotiations and Bilateral Relations
In November 2009, nuclear arms reductions negotiations were on the agenda at a meeting between the leaders of the United States and the Russian Federation. At issue was the crafting of a new agreement that would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) -- the prevailing nuclear arms agreement between the two countries -- which was set to expire in December 2009.
Ahead of negotiations with Russian President Medvedev, during a news conference in Japan with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, United States President Obama signaled his country's readiness to move forward on the issue of joint disarmament saying, "We are already taking steps to bring down our nuclear stockpiles in cooperation with the Russian government."
As noted above, days later, the United States and the Russian Federation announced they would present a new treaty, aimed at replacing START. The announcement came at the close of a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore, and occurred following discussions between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. According to United Stated officials, the leaders of the United States and Russia found concurrence on the broad outline a new treaty, which could be signed in December 2009 when President Obama was expected to travel to Europe to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
As reported in the Associated Press, President Obama said that he and his Russian counterpart had made "excellent progress" on the new treaty negotiations. President Medvedev said his objective was to "finalize the text of the document by December." While acknowledging that technical details were yet to be worked through, President Obama said, "I'm confident that if we work hard and with a sense of urgency, we'll be able to get that done."
With such a tight timeline in the offing, Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said he did not anticipate any significant obstacles that foresee could not be resolved before December 2009. According to the Associated Press, he described the urgency motivating both American and Russian negotiations saying, "Neither side wants to go without a new agreement for very long."
The news agency, Itar-Tass, cited Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko, who described the timeline on the agreement as follows: “We are working in order to prepare the treaty within the timeframe about which the presidents spoke."
Prikhodko also lauded the spirit of engagement from the Obama administration in the United States saying, “We are satisfied at present with the nature of the open, pragmatic and future-oriented dialogue that is developing with the new administration: it allows us to hope for the continuation of the joint work on issues where solutions have not been found yet.” He continued, “Each meeting of President Medvedev with Barack Obama give a considerable impulse to the interaction in bilateral affairs, contributes to confidence building, understanding on key issues." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the current climate of bilateral relations as follows: “The two presidents absolutely agree that we should overcome the stagnation in relations between Moscow and Washington that was observed during the Bush administration when good personal relations did not transform in any way into something really partnership-like."
The White House has not denied the existence of disagreements between the United States and Russia on certain elements of the proposed agreement to replace START. As noted by Itar-Tass, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, Mike Hammer, explained that both countries were working to resolve the existing disagreements. Echoing some of the sentiment expressed by Prikhodko and Lavrov, Hammer characterized relations with the Russians as constructive, and he noted that both the United States and Russia were committed to the December 2009 deadline, given the imperative of increasing global security and advancing the objective of global non-proliferation.
Indeed, President Obama's call for nuclear disarmament was one of the key rationales behind the Nobel Committee's decision to award him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. At the time of its announcement, the Nobel Committee said that it “attached special importance to President Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” To that end, the committee noted that Obama’s vision and work related to a nuclear weapons-free world has "powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.”
Editor's Note:
The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was forged between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. START prohibited its two signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads on a total of 1,600 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers. START has been regarded as the most complex and substantial arms control treaty in history. It was signed just months before the collapse of the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, and its entry-into-force was delayed as a result. An annex was crafted, which enforced the terms of the treaty upon the newly-independent states of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, and called for the transposition of nuclear arms from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to Russia for disposal.
-- Denise Youngblood Coleman Ph.D.
Houston, Texas
November 15, 2009
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