START III: Ratification against a Background of Mutual Suspicion

The State Duma of the Russian Federation has approved a draft law on ratification of the START III treaty. The Federal Council will make a decision on Jan. 26, and a new treaty will become a reality.

The path to the treaty was not easy. All in all, its life is not going to be any easier, either.

The treaty, signed on April 8, 2010, in Prague, replaces the two treaties: the START I (its contractual time expired in December 2009, 15 years after it came into force) signed by the USSR and the U.S. in 1991 and the treaty signed by the Russian Federation and the U.S. on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms in 2002. The treaty has been designated START III; its predecessor, the START II, signed in 1993, was never ratified by Russia.

START III puts limitation on the nuclear potential of both countries to 1,550 ready-to-use weapons. The number of deployed carriers — launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles, submarines and heavy bombers — are limited to 700 for each side. The total number of carriers, including non-deployed, is limited to 800.

On the whole, the treaty is considered equitable. On the one hand, it allows the U.S. to develop their missile defense system. On the other hand, its provisions allow Russia to develop its nuclear strength in such a way that the missile defense system does not pose a threat to the U.S., either as it is now or in the foreseeable future.

Mutually Beneficial

The main positive provisions for Russia are the following.

Unlike START I, the new treaty doesn’t contain limitations on the geographical areas of inspection control of mobile subterranean missile complexes (such as Topol, Topol-M and Yars). Mobile complexes of missile bases are not restricted in terms of the area they occupy, and the number of land-based missiles and deployment areas is included in a base facility.

The treaty imposes strict limitations on an absolute limit of the carriers that, to a great extent, evens the difference between the U.S. and Russia’s capability to support their nuclear potential. Particularly worthy of mention is that ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads fall within the limitations.

Parties are free to define a structure of the nuclear triad and can deploy new types of missiles or other media, under the condition of informing each other.

The treaty does not include limitations on deployment of land-based missiles with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV). This means that Russia retains the group of heavy media types RS-20 and RS-18, and can also develop new missiles with MIRV.

The treaty prohibits stationing of strategic offensive arms outside the national territories of the parties. This guarantees the world that incidents like the Cuban missile crisis will not happen again and substantially facilitates control over the strategic arming of each country.

The absence of limitations in the treaty to deploy missile defense systems, sea-launched cruise missiles and the rules for set-off charges for heavy bombers are favorable to the U.S. According to START III provisions, each heavy bomber has one charge, even though the factual number of charges that can be carried by a heavy bomber, depending on its type, is anywhere from 12 to 24 charges. Thus, the actual total number of live charges for each side will be 2,100 for Russia and about 2,400 for the U.S., with a somewhat larger number of heavy machines. With that, the gap will decrease as American B-1B bombers are withdrawn from the nuclear arsenal and converted into non-nuclear weapons, precluding the use of nuclear weapons without a long period of reconversion.

The Unhappy Come to an Agreement

For all the apparent “equality,” the treaty is subject to criticism both in Russia and in the U.S. The arguments of the critics are amazingly similar. “Ultrapatriotic” groups, in the U.S. and Russia, are expressing concern that START III contains too many concessions to the other side.

At the same time, American critics of the treaty are mostly worried about the fate of the missile defense system that they think is under threat because too much is going into “defensive and offensive arms” in the treaty’s preamble. The main claim from Russia is the lack of legally binding provisions that would limit further development of missile defense systems.

The number of sea-launched cruise missiles and rules for set-off charges of heavy bombers are also under criticism.

As a result, both sides offered final provisions to the treaty during the ratification process. The American Senate adopted a separate resolution on the absence of limitations on the missile defense system deployment. The Russian side, in turn, pointed to the right of Russia to withdraw from the treaty in case there is a violation of the nuclear missile balance between Russia and the U.S.

In fact, the treaty comes into force exactly as it was signed by the two presidents in Prague. Despite all the provisions, this is an important step forward that signifies the most tangible improvement of the Russian–U.S. relationship in the last three years.

Let’s hope that a possible change of administration in the White House in two years will not throw this relationship back to the past: An arms race is the last thing that both countries need now.