The Price of the Question

General O’Reilly didn’t say anything new in his speech. The director of the Defense Missile Agency described the same policy for missile defense that the president of the U.S. approved in 2009. But it is an important reminder nevertheless: Missile defense can become either an area of strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Russia, or a source of renewed tension between them.

The topic of missile defense cooperation has become popular lately. There are discussions on various ways of linking the U.S. (NATO) and Russian missile defense systems, creating shared systems for missile launch early warning, detection and discrimination of targets, tracking, etc.

However, no joint missile defense project is possible without a basic strategic rapport and an agreement in principle between Moscow and Washington.

That kind of agreement can’t be built on the basis of disarmament and arms control. Besides, the possibilities to safely reduce nuclear arsenals are not limitless.

The principal conclusion is that the emphasis in the strategic dialogue needs to be shifted from the endless comparison of the parties’ capabilities to a serious conversation about their intentions. Moscow is worried specifically about the long-term intentions of Washington, especially with regard to Russia, rather than the mere number of American nuclear warheads and missiles. Washington is concerned, albeit to a much lesser degree, about the future of Russia and its international behavior rather than its strategic potential.

The readjustment of Russian-American relations eliminated the most dangerous irritants from the relations between the two countries. It’s time to take the next step, to start discussing the strategic plans of the two parties with regard to each other and to third countries. Investing in new joint projects, both on the U.N. level and in individual regions, can build a capital of mutual trust. Such a capital, in turn, can be reinvested into larger scale joint ventures, and so on.

That is one way. Another way is to continue fostering mutual suspicion and mistrust. In that case, intentions will be of no consequence, and everything will once more come down to capabilities — capabilities for mutual destruction.

So far, both ways are possible, but the windows of possibilities don’t stay open forever. It’s worth remembering that the current attempt at a strategic dialogue is the third one since the end of the Cold War. The first attempt was started by Yeltsin 20 years ago and ended in the Kosovo war. The second one was undertaken by Putin 10 years later and eventually crashed in Georgia. The “Medvedev round” is just starting; let’s wish him luck. Everything has its price, be it reconciliation or confrontation.