The Obama administration's plan to deploy missile defenses around Europe is holding back agreement on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week (see GSN, Dec. 24, 2009).
Washington must offer Moscow additional details on the initiative to avoid undermining Russia's strategic security, he said, warning that failure to do so would force his country to develop new armaments (see GSN, Nov. 25, 2009).
“If we don’t develop a missile defense system, a danger arises for us that with an umbrella protecting our partners from offensive weapons, they will feel completely safe,” Putin said. “The balance will be disrupted, and then they will do whatever they want, and aggressiveness will immediately arise both in real politics and economics.”
It was uncertain whether Putin's assertion marked a formal shift in Russia's stance on the new treaty.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced in July that they would reduce each of their countries' deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 weapons in the new agreement, down from the 2,200-warhead ceiling the sides must each meet by the end of 2012 under another pact. The Strategic Arms Control Treaty expired on Dec. 5; diplomats have said that the sides are nearing agreement on its replacement.
The United States has refused to directly address its missile defense plan while negotiating the new treaty. The initiative would place sea- and land-based versions of the Standard Missile 3 interceptors in and around Europe to counter what Washington perceives as missile threats posed by nations such as Iran.
“While the U.S. has long agreed that there is a relationship between missile offense and defense, we believe the START follow-on agreement is not the appropriate vehicle for addressing it,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in response to Putin's remarks.
One complicating factor in the START replacement talks has been Russia's focus on modernizing its offensive nuclear capabilities, a process it would be required to report on under the new agreement, said Carnegie Moscow Center Director Dmitri Trenin. Washington would not be required to provide such details regarding its missile shield activities. “The whole thing is asymmetrical,” he said.
“It would be a huge obstacle in the talks if Putin now says we need limits on missile defense as part of this treaty. It would be a huge setback, and it would make the treaty very hard, if not impossible, to conclude,” added Steven Pifer, a Russia analyst with the Brookings Institution.
The intent behind Putin's words are likely to remain unclear, though, until the negotiations resume later this month, Pifer said (Ellen Barry, New York Times, Dec. 29, 2009).