Obama Signs Nuclear Deal with Russia. Russia has Far Larger Problems.

Evaluating the U.S.-Russia Nuclear Deal

By KEITH B. PAYNE WSJ

Today President Obama will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia. Official Washington is already celebrating the so-called New START Treaty in the belief that it reduces forces below the 2002 Moscow Treaty levels and "resets" U.S.-Russian relations in the direction of greater cooperation. But the new treaty—whose actual text and accompanying legal documents were not released before the signing ceremony in Prague—may not accomplish these goals.

The administration's "fact sheet," for example, claims that the treaty will reduce the number of strategic weapons to 1,550, 30% lower than the 2002 treaty. But New START has special counting rules.

For example, there are reportedly 76 Russian strategic bombers, and each one apparently can carry from six to 16 nuclear weapons (bombs and cruise missiles). Nevertheless, and unlike under the Moscow Treaty, these many hundreds of nuclear weapons would count as only 76 toward the 1,550 ceiling. Consequently, the New START Treaty includes the potential for a large increase in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons, not a reduction.

The administration claims, as Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher stated emphatically on March 29, that "There is no limit or constraint on what the United States can do with its missile defense systems . . . definitely, positively, and no way, no how . . ." Yet our Russian negotiating partners describe New START's constraints on missile defenses quite differently.

On March 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference after the G-8 foreign ministers meeting in Canada that there are obligations regarding missile defense in the treaty text and the accompanying interpretive texts that constitute "a legally binding package." He also stated at a press conference in Moscow on March 26 that "The treaty is signed against the backdrop of particular levels of strategic defensive systems. A change of these levels will give each side the right to consider its further participation in the reduction of strategic offensive armaments." Kremlin National Security Council Secretary Sergei Prikhodko told journalists in Moscow on April 2 that "The United States pledged not to remodel launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based ballistic missiles for firing interceptor missiles and vice versa."

The New START restrictions on missile defense as described by Russian officials could harm U.S. security in the future. For example, if the U.S. must increase its strategic missile defenses rapidly in response to now-unforeseen threat developments, one of the few options available could be to use Minuteman silo launchers for interceptors, either at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base or empty operational silos elsewhere. Yet, if the Russian description of New START is correct, doing so would be prohibited and the launchers themselves probably will be eliminated to meet the treaty's limitation on launchers. U.S. officials' assurances and Russian descriptions cannot both be true.

Another claim for New START is that possible concerns about the limitations on U.S. forces must be balanced against the useful limits on Russian forces. Yes, this argument goes, the U.S. will have to reduce the number of its strategic delivery vehicles—silos, submarine tubes and bombers—but in the bargain it will get the benefit of like Russian reductions.

This sounds reasonable. According to virtually all Russian sources, however, New START's agreed ceiling on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles will not require Russia to give up anything not already bound for its scrap heap.

The aging of its old Cold War arsenal and the pace of its strategic nuclear force modernization program means that Russia will remain under the New START ceiling of 700 deployed launchers with or without a new treaty. Whatever the benefit to the U.S. agreement to reduce its operational strategic force launchers, it is not to gain reciprocal Russian reductions. No such reciprocity is involved.

Some hope that New START's amicable "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations will inspire Russian help with other issues, such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, where they have been less than forthcoming. This is a vain hope, as is demonstrated by the past 40 years of strategic-arms control: Innovative strategic force agreements and reductions follow improvements in general political relations. They do not lead to them.

Finally, for many the great locus of concern about Russian nuclear weapons lies in its large arsenal of tactical (i.e., short-range) nuclear weapons. According to U.S. officials, Russia has a 10-to-one numeric advantage. In 2002, then Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry, and the current White House Science Adviser, John Holdren, expressed great concern that the Bush administration's Moscow Treaty did not limit Russian tactical forces. One might expect, therefore, that New START would do so; but the Russians apparently were adamant about excluding tactical nuclear weapons from New START.

This omission is significant. The Russians are now more explicit and threatening about tactical nuclear war-fighting including in regional conflicts. Yet we still have no limitations on Russia's tactical nuclear arsenal. The problem may now be more severe than in 2002, but concern seems curiously to have eased.

This brief review is based on the many open descriptions of the treaty by U.S. and Russian officials. Given the apparent inconsistencies on such basic matters as whether the treaty requires weapon reductions or allows increases, or whether missile defenses are limited or untouched, the Senate will have to exercise exceptional care in reviewing the actual language of the treaty documents before drawing conclusions about their content.

Mr. Payne is head of the department of defense and strategic studies at Missouri State University, and a member of congressional Strategic Posture Commission.


Kyrgyzstan, former Soviet Republic falls

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — An opposition coalition in Kyrgyzstan proclaimed an interim government Thursday in the wake of clashes that left dozens dead nationwide, and said it would rule for six months before calling new elections.
Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said she would head the interim government, and that the parliament was dissolved. She said the new government controlled four of Kyrgyzstan's seven provinces in the Central Asian nation, which is home to a key U.S. military base that the opposition has said it wants to close.

Otunbayeva urged President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to resign after he fled the capital amid violent clashes that started on Tuesday. Thousands of protesters have clashed with security forces throughout the country, driving out local governments and on Thursday seizing government headquarters in the capital.

"His business in Kyrgyzstan is finished," she said, adding that Bakiyev has fled for the central Jalal-Abad region, where he is trying to consolidate his supporters.

Bombers Kill Policemen in Russia
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: April 5, 2010

MOSCOW — A suicide bomber killed at least two police officers in the restive North Caucasus region of Russia on Monday, officials said, the latest in a spate of such attacks, including a double bombing on the Moscow subway, that have killed more than 50 people in the last week.

In Monday’s attack, in Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region bordering Chechnya, a bomber blew himself up next to a police car in the town of Karabulak, a statement on the Web site of the Prosecutor General’s Investigative Committee said.

The death cult of Islam with nuclear missiles. Worth the risk?

If you have not done so, please read the previous post and watch the video, and then think of AQ in charge of Pakistan and the thought of what happens to the nuclear missiles in Pakistan. Forget what they are saying about Iran. That is a smoke screen. The real threat is Pakistan. They just cannot say the words. If Musharraf is killed and the Islamists are in control... The West needs a defence system that works

The Telegraph
By Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, and Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense

Rice seeks to ease Moscow fears on missile system

Sixteen years after the end of the Cold War, the transatlantic community and Russia are not adversaries. Indeed, on a number of issues, we are partners.

We both face a number of common challenges, among the most threatening is the possibility that a dangerous state will use ballistic missiles, tipped with nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, to hold our societies hostage – or worse.


Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
Make no mistake: This is a real challenge. Despite our best efforts, including notable successes in Libya and breaking up the A.Q. Khan network, weapons of mass destruction and missile capabilities continue to proliferate.

We sincerely hope that the diplomatic efforts now under way will succeed in addressing the challenges we face from states like North Korea and Iran. We have made some progress with Pyongyang, and though Teheran still defies the international community, there are signs that it is feeling the diplomatic pressure.

However, we cannot guarantee success, and governments have a responsibility to defend their people.

The logic of Cold War "Mutual Assured Destruction" does not make sense in today’s strategic environment. Today, we seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us.

We need to be clear that the missile threat from Iran is real and growing, and it is a threat not just to the United States, but to Europe and Russia as well.

Looking a few years ahead, other such missile threats will likely emerge as well. It is with these new realities in mind that we are developing and deploying modest missile defenses.

Our goal is to field systems capable of protecting not only the United States and our forces, but also friends and allies like those in the transatlantic community. We speak of the transatlantic community because we have learned that our security is not divisible; that if our allies are not secure, America is not secure. America cannot "go it alone."

To ensure our common security, we need defenses in place well before a threat fully emerges. Accordingly, we have approached some of our allies with the idea of deploying limited missile defense capabilities: 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic.

While the United States can defend its own territory without these additional capabilities, fielding them would enable us to extend coverage to most of Europe while providing improved protection at home.

Our strategy is to strengthen our ability to detect, defend against, and thus deter a missile attack.

Missile defenses are part of contemporary deterrence and promote stability, as we saw last summer, when we activated our system for the first time in response to North Korean missile launch preparations. In that case, our missile defense system allowed our national leadership to consider a wider, more flexible range of responses to a potential attack.

Effective defenses also reduce incentives for states to acquire missiles in the first place, by undermining their military utility and thus promoting our nonproliferation goals.

We have come a long way from early programs and tests in the 1980s and 90s. Since 2001, we have had 26 successful hit-to-kill intercepts out of 34 attempts. And 15 of the last 16 flight tests have been successful in the past couple of years.

Given this trend of success, we are confident that these systems will work, and that they will represent a practical 21st century solution to the new threat we all face. The system we have in mind is limited, and the missiles have no warhead at all. It is oriented against a potential enemy with a small arsenal, attempting to blackmail our people, sow chaos, and sap our collective will.

Development of such a limited system is realistic. Critics of this approach should also be realistic: This system is of no use against a huge nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal, such as that possessed by Russia.

Talk of a new "arms race" with Russia is anachronistic and not grounded in reality: America and Russia under the Treaty of Moscow are reducing our strategic nuclear warheads to levels not seen in decades.

Security should be—must be—discussed in a cooperative, multilateral way.

That is why the United States has consulted extensively about our plans over the last few years both with Russia and our Allies, including in Moscow, within NATO, and at the NATO-Russia Council, most recently on April 19.

NATO and Russia have had good, practical cooperation on theater missile defense for the past seven years. We look forward to continued and expanded cooperation both in NATO and with Russia.

President Bush has reaffirmed to President Putin our desire to cooperate with Russia on missile defense, and a US delegation offered new proposals for potential partnership with Russia in this area in Moscow on April 17.

We both have planned visits to Moscow to follow up and advance our consultations with the Russians – Secretary Gates recently completed a visit on April 24, and Secretary Rice will be visiting next month.

Our collective defense is too important for us to fall prey to scare tactics, slogans from the past, or attempts to drive wedges between us.

NATO has a role in missile defense. So do bilateral arrangements between America, our Allies, and hopefully also with Russia.

We all face an emerging common threat, and America has proposed a practical solution.

Europe, above all, must know – based on its own modern history - that the time to cooperate is now, not when the threat is imminent.