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In the finest traditions of the young Russian parliament, I will start by disagreeing
with your basic premise. I think that the forthcoming June summit will not bring
any breakthroughs. This, of course, does not mean that breakthroughs will come
after the U.S. presidential election. On the other hand, one cannot exclude
a breakthrough in the next year, after the new President moves into the White
House.
Nevertheless, speaking of the June summit, I would like to join opinion of
those who believe that we shall not expect anything dramatic from the summit.
First, due to the political environment. As you know, the Republican and Democratic
contenders have about the same support and both are wary of careless moves.
It is therefore hard to imagine that President Clinton will be ready to sign
serious agreements, which, by nature, imply serious concessions from both sides.
Of course the United States would like to see Russia make such concessions,
thus helping Democrats in their campaign. But Russia too cannot allow itself
to make unilateral steps; it looks forward to see reciprocal steps from the
United States. As such are unlikely to come, I imagine that the presidents will
limit themselves to general statements on this central issue. For example, they
may say that the United States and Russia should address START III and ABM in
one package; they are likely to sign a number of documents addressing economic
issues, international terrorism, Russia-NATO relations, etc.
Where do we stand in the U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue? To certain extent
Russia and the United States switched places. At least in some areas they certainly
did.
Russia, as you are aware, ratified START II and the New York documents last
April. The United States ratified the START II Treaty in 1996. Now we find ourselves
in a quite strange situation. Both the United States and Russia ratified START
II, but they ratified absolutely different treaties. And we, even if we very
much wanted to, would not be able to start their implementation. Five or six
articles of "our treaty" are significantly different from those of
the "American treaty". The revisions concern implementation time-table,
overall levels for deployed warheads. "American treaty" is the basic
agreement, according to which all reductions must be completed by 31 December
2002.
Our position is that as long as we ratified whole package of documents concerning
START II, in their most recent version, in order to move further the United
States has to ratify the 1997 New York documents, as President Clinton promised
at that time. He said that he would submit the documents to the Senate floor
after the State Duma ratified the START II Treaty. Moreover, the START II ratification
law, in the article IX, says that exchange of the instruments of ratification
and beginning of the implementation process shall happen only after the United
States ratifies package of the 1997 agreements.
It may seem that it should be the easiest thing to do for the United States
to ratify the documents it signed, the documents without which we cannot create
a base for serious, effective, and speedy talks on a new package of agreements
- START III—ABM. But, the United States, facing confrontation between the legislative
and executive powers, comparable in its harshness to the one between previous
State Duma and President Yeltsin, cannot move forward. I met with senators and
House representatives during my recent U.S. trip as a member of the delegation
of the Duma Defense Committee and they made it very clear to me that President
Clinton would not submit the documents for Senate ratification, and if he did,
the Senate would reject them, even more happily than it did in case of the CTBT.
Two arguments were raised in our conversations, besides the fact that Republican
majority in Congress cannot stand President Clinton. First, the United States
is not interested in demarcating missile defense systems as in the New York
agreements. For instance, the 4.5 km/sec speed limit on the sea-base interceptor
missiles sympathizes with neither the Bush group, nor the Republicans on the
Capitol Hill. They want to make sea-based interceptors more effective to be
able to use them for boost-phase defense systems. Secondly, although the memorandum
simply clarifies the subject of the ABM treaty, the mere fact of its ratification
will mean, politically, U.S. continued commitment to the ABM treaty. And this
is a very unpopular idea with the Republicans. Both Republicans and Democrats,
although with different level of determination, speak about the need to revise
the ABM treaty, so that the United States could start deployment of the limited
national missile defense system as dictated by the law. In order to do so, the
United States needs to negotiate at least three major modifications to the ABM
Treaty, or, if Russia does not agree to the U.S. proposals, unilaterally withdraw
from it.
We understand the political environment in the United States because we had
the same kind of relations between President Yeltsin and previous State Duma.
On the other hand, the United States was quite right when it told us for years
that disagreements between the Kremlin and the State Duma were our domestic
problems and that we had to resolve them before we could talk about something
else with the U.S. And that is precisely what the U.S. did. It made a decision
that no START III negotiations would start until Russia ratified START II. Likewise,
we would be right to follow the very same principle and tell the United States:
"you deal with your own problems, and when you are finished, we will be
ready to get to negotiations on the next package - START III--ABM. Until you
do so, we cannot start implementing the START II Treaty because we would be
implementing the treaty in its modern version but we would not know what to
ask of you because you did not even ratify the five-year extension protocol".
We would be right to say so, but the time goes on, the June summit will soon
be over, the presidential election will be over and we will have to think what
to do next. In this respect we need to come to understanding what is more important
for us - be firm, or try to look at the problem again and find a possible compromise
after the American presidential election.
We would be very right, politically, logically, legally, to take a firm stance,
but we do not have time, levels of our forces go down while the Unites States
can maintain its at current levels for as long as it wishes. Perhaps it would
make sense for us to demonstrate wisdom and try to find a compromise with the
United States. For example, our START II ratification law does not say that
we cannot conduct negotiations with the United States until it ratifies the
New York documents. Given the fact that ratification of the New York documents
is very unlikely, no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election, it would
probably make sense to broaden the scope of new negotiations by including the
1997 New York agreements, as well as START III and ABM in the agenda.
Few words with respect to ABM and START III. Russia could agree to the revision
of certain provisions of the ABM treaty which would allow the United States
build a base in Alaska and then the second base, probably in North Dakota. But
we should say that we do not see this as an open-ended process, that we will
not agree to further build-up of the missiles defense system because in that
case it would mean a system not only against third countries, but also against
China and then against Russia. Such plan should be agreeable with the United
States, since neither funding nor system readiness is sufficient for more sophisticated
system, at least until 2012-13. We should be able to agree on this.
What modifications to the ABM Treaty does the U.S. seek? First, it wants to
change Article I which bans deployment of a missile defense system covering
the territory of the country, because the two-base system the United States
has in mind, one base in Alaska, one - in North Dakota, will be aimed at defending
entire territory of the country. Second, the United States wants to change the
rules which place restrictions on radar and interceptor-missile locations. There
are couple other smaller issues. What could Russia get in return if it agreed
to U.S. proposals? Quite obviously, reduction of the START III ceilings to 1,500,
which is maximum we can afford, and right to deploy Topol-M and new land-based
missile, currently in the development stage, with MIRV. This would enable us
to maintain 1000-1500 deployed warheads after ten years and release some funds
badly needed for sea-based component and C3I. This could be a compromise
which would automatically resolve other issues. We could also negotiate with
the Americans on TMD - being allowed to deploy strategic missile defenses they
would not insist on deployment of high-speed (over 4.5 km/sec) sea-based interceptor
missiles. Besides, all START II issues would be covered automatically, since
deeper reductions under START III, in about the same time-table as defined in
the START II extension protocol, would address the problem of which START II
treaty (one ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996 or one ratified by Russia in
2000) to implement.
With the technical solution appearing to be so simple, there are huge political
problems. First, the United States does not want to reduce below 2,000 deployed
warheads. This is a largely technical issue but given the conceit and arrogance
with which the United States treats other countries, such technical issues are
quite important for them to put international political agreements under jeopardy.
Going from 2,000 to 1,500 would require switching from triad to dyad, with all
the associated political, economic, and other interests clashing at once in
nationwide debates. This is of course not what the United States wants, and
not what the JCS wants. Besides, reducing to 1,500 would pose a serious question
- what to do with the naval component. At such a low level it would be difficult
for the U.S. to maintain deployment at both Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Being
able to deploy only at one of the two oceans, a question arises whether to target
China or European part of Russia. Such a decision would require revision of
SIOP. Neither the Administration, nor the civilian leadership of the Pentagon
was able so far to convince the JCS to reduce the target START III ceiling to
1,500.
As you know on our side too there are serious concerns regarding ABM. Article
III of the START II ratification law is very straightforward: U.S. withdrawal
from the ABM Treaty, or violation of it, will be a reason for our withdrawal
from START II. President Putin pledged during ratification in the State Duma
that the ABM Treaty will be adhered to and that Russia will not allow any changes.
And if the United States goes for unilateral modifications, adequate measures
will be adopted by Russia, and not only in strategic area, but in other spheres
as well.
Therefore, it is not clear at all whether new American administration and Putin’s
administration will be able to create favorable conditions for a compromise.
And we may face serious obstacles.
In conclusion I would like to say that there were times when political situation
was favorable, but technical problems prevented agreements from being implemented.
For example, because of the technical problems we were not able to conclude
a comprehensive test ban treaty in 1963; limitation of missile defense systems
in 1970s could, in principle, have lead to ban on MIRVed ICBMs, but technical,
in the first place, issues prevented us from reaching such agreement. Now we
face opposite task. Technical problems can be solved, but political situation
in Russia and in the United States, and our disagreements in the international
arena make such an elegant technical solution incredibly difficult to accomplish.
To Alexei Arbatov's page
To Carnegie Moscow Center Homepage
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Non-proliferation
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