Screaming Skull
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01 Jul 2009
- Russia and the US will pledge to begin slashing their nuclear arsenals by up to a half when President Barack Obama makes his first state visit to Moscow next week.
Agreement on a December deadline for the start of decommissioning, expected to be imposed on Monday when Mr Obama meets his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, will be hailed in both Washington and Moscow as a breakthrough in efforts to revive relations between the two Cold War rivals.
Although no concrete figure is likely to be set during the American president's three-day visit, observers say the two sides are hoping to cut their respective arsenals by up to 50 per cent, to between 1,000 and 1,500 deployed warheads.
Both countries claim currently to have about 2,200 missiles primed for deployment, with thousands more either in reserve or awaiting dismantlement.
The declaration will allow both leaders to claim a foreign policy success.
The Kremlin needs a new deal to replace the Cold War START treaty more than the Americans. With most of its nuclear arsenal already technically defunct, military experts believe that Russia will only be able to maintain 500 deployed warheads by 2020.
A new treaty, strongly resisted by President George W Bush, would allow to Russia to maintain parity with the United States and with it its last claim to genuine superpower status.
For Mr Obama, a deal would allow him to boost his credentials as a president committed to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
Yet, although his visit will be couched in the language of diplomacy and partnership, Mr Obama has been told to expect a frosty welcome from his Russian hosts.
Fresh from a triumphant trip to the Middle East, where he projected soft American power by reaching out to adversaries in the region, Mr Obama hopes to bring the same message of reconciliation to Russia.
The Russians, however, have greeted the overtures coolly, claiming that the atmosphere between the two countries remains too poisoned to hope for the swift improvement in ties that the Obama administration has advocated.
"A crisis of trust developed between us in recent years," Sergei Lavrov, Russia's hawkish foreign minister, wrote this week. "Our political relationship became too adversarial. Overcoming this legacy will take time."
Under the tutelage of Vladimir Putin, president from 2000 to 2008, Russia gradually adopted an increasingly belligerent anti-American stance and the rhetoric of the Cold War again rose to the fore.
With two young presidents in office on either side of the Cold War divide, optimists had hoped that fresh leadership could see a reversal of the alarming deterioration that has characterized the East-West relationship.
Yet Mr Putin, now prime minister, remains the dominant force in Russian politics and observers believe he has restrained his successor's more liberal tendencies.
Nor have most areas of contention been resolved.
Russia remains angry over a vague offer by Nato to promise eventual membership to Ukraine and Georgia as well as over US plans to erect a missile defence shield in central Europe that the Kremlin believes would give the United States an edge in a nuclear war.
Despite suffering its worst economic downturn since the rouble crash of 1998, Russia has lost none of its ambitions of staging an international resurgence.
More worryingly, the Kremlin has shown signs of disengagement from the rest of the world.
Last month, Mr Putin effectively shelved Russia's long-standing application to join the World Trade Organisation. Some analysts are predicting it could soon withdraw from the Council of Europe, meaning that Russia would no longer be bound by the European Court of Human Rights, seen by activists as the last civilizing influence on the country's increasingly enfeebled judicial system.
Mr Obama will try to placate Kremlin hostility with charm. Observers say he is even unlikely to push Russia either over its failure to abide by ceasefire provisions that ended last year's war in Georgia or its insistence in expelling international peacekeepers from the region.
Even so, Russia has shown little desire to make concessions of its own, critics say. Despite next week's planned joint declaration, hopes for reaching a disarmament deal have been jolted after Mr Putin insisted on linking it to the far more contentious issue of missile defence.
"The Russians are playing hardball," a western diplomat said. "There is a risk that no meaningful progress will be made on any substantive issue."
US and Russia to cut nuclear arsenals by up to a half - Telegraph
