Surprise U.S.-Russian Disarmament Negotiations

The post-Bush era has begun: the United States and Russia are again holding disarmament talks which could include the U.S. missile defense system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States and Russia began unannounced negotiations in Geneva aimed at a further reduction in strategic nuclear weapons. The first round of the negotiations will last through the coming week, according to diplomatic sources. The goal of the talks is a follow-up agreement to the Start-2 treaty scheduled to expire in 2009. George Bush Sr. and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed Start-2 in 1993. Both nations subsequently reduced the number of long distance nuclear weapons by half, down to 3000 warheads for Russia and 3500 for the United States. The Start-3 treaty will call for an additional reduction of 1000 warheads.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns met Wednesday at the Kremlin to put finishing touches on an agenda to discuss the construction of missile defense systems scheduled to begin in December. The tone of the discussions between the USA and Russia was focused. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is willing to forego the stationing of short-range missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave provided the incoming U.S. President is willing to scrap plans for a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. “We are prepared to negotiate a zero-option solution,” Medvedev said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro on Thursday. According to news agency reports, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates rejected Moscow’s suggestion that the U.S. abandon plans for the missile shield system as unacceptable, noting that the greatest threat to Russian security stemmed from Iranian missiles that the American system is designed to counter.

According to the Bush administration, the interceptor missiles and the radar system they require would be ready for deployment in 2014. Incoming President Barack Obama has expressed reservations about the technical feasibility of a shield against long-range ballistic missiles. Tests of the system conducted during the past eight years have almost all resulted in failure.

Obama wants NATO allies to take part in research for the system and to wait to see how relations with Iran develop. He must also take into account the high cost of such a project. During their meeting, Obama avoided discussing the subject with Polish President Lech Kaczynski. Russia feels that locating of American launch pads within 60 miles of its borders is a provocation.

Russia rejected an offer to permit observers at the construction sites as insufficient. Russia accuses Bush of trying to create “done deals” in order to limit his replacement’s future options. The director of the missile defense program, General Henry Obering, warned Obama against abandoning the project in eastern Europe, saying such a step would “seriously damage American interests” and “strongly undercut America’s leadership role in NATO.” In any case, the General is leaving Pentagon next week. Before stepping down, he accused Obama’s team of “spiritually living in the pre-2000 era,” when Bill Clinton postponed plans for a missile defense system.