U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today signed a "joint understanding" on the broad goals of negotiations aimed at replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, July 2).
(Jul. 6) -
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign the Joint Understanding on Strategic Arms Reduction at a summit in Moscow today. The declaration calls for each nation to reduce its deployed strategic arsenal to between 1,500 and 1,675 nuclear warheads (Jim Watson/Getty Images).
"The joint understanding commits the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic warheads to a range of 1,500-1,675, and their strategic delivery vehicles to a range of 500-1,100. Under the expiring START and the [2002] Moscow treaties the maximum allowable levels of [deployed strategic] warheads is 2,200 and the maximum allowable level of launch vehicles is 1,600," the White House said in a statement.
"The new treaty will include effective verification measures drawn from the experience of the parties in implementing START," the statement says. Diplomats from Moscow and Washington "will continue their work toward finalizing an agreement for signature and ratification at the earliest possible date," it adds.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is set to expire in December (White House release, July 6).
"The United States and Russia must lead by example, and that's what we're doing here today," said Obama, who signed the document with Medvedev at a press conference in Moscow, the Washington Post reported.
Still, some analysts warned that deep rifts persist between Washington and Moscow on arms control issues.
"Right now, there are very serious gaps in the Russian and American positions," said Sergei Rogov, head of the Moscow-based Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies, who has received updates on the negotiations from Russian diplomats.
Russian diplomats want a new treaty to allow roughly 600 nuclear-weapon delivery systems -- such as bombers and ballistic missile launch sites -- on either side, but U.S. negotiators have pushed for an allowance of between 1,000 and 1,100, Rogov said. In January, the United States reported having roughly 1,200 launch systems while Russia declared around 800.
The United States could eliminate some delivery systems by dismantling around 100 disused missile silos, but deeper reductions would require shutting down operational missile sites, pursuing expensive submarine alterations and dismantling bombers involved in non-nuclear activities, the Post reported.
If Obama accepted such compromises, Republican lawmakers "would eat him alive," said Pavel Podvig, an arms control expert at Stanford University.
The Obama administration continues to assess a proposal to field missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. Russia, which has long opposed the Bush administration plan, has said it would not accept significant nuclear arms reductions if Obama moved to deploy the defenses (Fletcher/Pan, Washington Post, July 6).
"We consider these issues are interconnected," Medvedev said in an interview published yesterday, according to Reuters (Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters III, July 5).
The missile defense dispute "is a very visible and politically useful issue, and a lot of people are getting a lot of mileage out of the controversy," Podvig told the Post. "There are people in Moscow who are not really interested in having an agreement."
Stanford University physicist Dean Wilkening has offered alternatives to the controversial missile defense plan. He told the administration that the United States could more effectively counter Iranian missiles by fielding interceptors in Romania and a radar Turkey or by relying on updated ship-based Aegis theater missile defenses due out in 2015, one high-level Obama administration official noted.
Russia would reject potential deployments of U.S. missile interceptors in Romania but would accept the use of Aegis defenses, which it has not deemed a strategic threat, said Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, former commander of the Russian strategic rocket forces (Fletcher/Pan, Washington Post).
Whether Obama would offer a compromise on the matter is an open question, the Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday.
"The administration finds itself painted a little bit into a corner on missile defense," said Andrew Kuchins, a Russia analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"It's simply not very politic right now to be viewed as making any concessions to the Russians, who don't seem to be particularly interested in making concessions themselves." he added (Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor, July 3).
Obama and Medvedev are also expected to discuss Iran's disputed nuclear activities at this week's summit, Interfax reported Friday (see related GSN story, today).
"Russia and the United States are working together, in multilateral formats among others, on their political and diplomatic solution" to the Iranian nuclear standoff, said Sergei Prikhodko, a high-level Kremlin aide.
"We don't want to have a state with nuclear weapons near our border," Prikhodko said. "There is growing understanding of this principled stance and we hope for an adequate understanding of our approach from the public (Interfax, July 3).