U.S., Russia Sign Treaty Cutting Deployed Nuclear Forces
At their May 24 summit meeting in Moscow, Presidents George W.
Bush and Vladimir Putin signed a treaty under which the United States
and Russia will cut their deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,700-2,200
warheads each—approximately a two-thirds reduction from current
levels.
The agreement, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, is the
first strategic reductions pact signed by the two countries in almost
a decade. It requires reductions in deployed forces substantially
below the level of the START I agreement, and it effectively supersedes
the START II accord, which never entered into force.
At a press conference following the signing ceremony, Bush said
that the agreement “liquidates the Cold War legacy of nuclear
hostility” between the United States and Russia. Putin was
more reserved in his assessment, characterizing the accord as a
“serious move ahead” but also noting that the two sides
have agreed to continue their work toward resolving remaining differences.
The treaty marks the conclusion of a process begun November 13,
when Bush announced that the United States would unilaterally reduce
its “operationally deployed” strategic nuclear weapons
to 1,700-2,200 and Putin said Russia would “try to respond
in kind.” (See
ACT, December 2001.) Bush initially expressed skepticism
about formalizing the reductions in a binding agreement. But Moscow
insisted on such a pact, and in February Secretary of State Colin
Powell announced the United States had agreed to codify the reductions.
(See
ACT, March 2002.)
Composed of fewer than 500 words—a sharp contrast to START
I’s several hundred pages—the agreement does not define
which strategic warheads it covers (deployed, reserve, or both),
nor does it define how warheads are to be counted. However, the
document references previous statements by Bush and Putin, including
the November 13 announcement in which Bush said he intended to reduce
the number of “operationally deployed” strategic weapons,
suggesting the treaty covers only those warheads that are mated
to their delivery vehicles and ready for launch.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has explicitly rejected that interpretation,
noting in a May 22 statement that the treaty does not include the
term “operationally deployed warheads” and that the treaty’s
implementation will be “tackled” in the Bilateral Implementation
Commission called for by the treaty.
In the weeks prior to the summit, negotiations between the two
sides had appeared to bog down as they wrangled over how much flexibility
the treaty should allow. Russia had sought a START I-style approach
that would have counted the maximum number of warheads that deployed
missiles and bombers can carry, while the United States had insisted
on counting only those warheads ready for immediate use. The U.S.
approach provides considerably more leeway because warheads removed
from multiple-warhead missiles and bomber-based weapons removed
from operational storage bunkers can be counted as reductions even
though they can be quickly redeployed.
The related issue of whether each side would have to destroy warheads
and delivery vehicles removed from service was also contentious,
with Russia publicly calling for the verifiable destruction of both
warheads and delivery systems and the United States wanting to retain
the option to store warheads removed from deployment.
The treaty makes no mention of the issue, effectively supporting
the U.S. position. As Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, pointed out in a May 28 op-ed, “The
treaty does not require the actual destruction of a single missile
or warhead,” a point other critics have also highlighted.
Although START I and START II did not call for warhead destruction,
they did require the verifiable destruction of most delivery systems
removed from service. And in 1997 Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris
Yeltsin agreed to pursue a START III pact that would include “measures
relating…to the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads…to
promote the irreversibility of deep reductions.”
To implement the reductions, U.S. officials have announced that
they will convert four of the current 18 Trident submarines to carry
only conventional cruise missiles, retire all 50 10-warhead MX missiles,
and eliminate the B-1B bomber’s nuclear role. These steps will
remove about 1,300 warheads from service. Warheads will also be
removed from existing multiple-warhead ICBMs and SLBMs to reach
the administration’s target of 3,800 deployed strategic warheads
by 2007.
Decisions on how to reduce U.S. deployments further have apparently
not yet been made, and U.S. officials said earlier this year that
further reductions would depend on the strategic situation in 2007
as well as the country’s ability to deploy new capabilities,
such as strategic missile defenses and enhanced conventional weapons.
(See
ACT, January/February 2002.)
U.S. officials have also made clear that although “some”
warheads and delivery systems will be dismantled, substantial numbers
of warheads will be put in reserve. According to administration
sources, by 2012 the United States will deploy 2,200 strategic weapons
and retain an additional 2,400 in an operationally maintained “responsive
capability.” The United States would be able to redeploy some
warheads in the responsive capability within weeks or months and
to redeploy all 2,400 warheads within three years.
In addition, the United States is expected to continue to store
thousands of nonoperational but fully assembled warheads as well
as thousands of additional weapon components that could be reassembled
into complete weapons.
When asked at the May 24 press conference why the United States
needs to retain thousands of deployed weapons and thousands more
reserve warheads, Bush stressed future uncertainties, saying, “Who
knows what will happen 10 years from now? Who knows what future
presidents will say and how they [will] react?”
Russian officials have yet to provide details on how they intend
to implement the reductions, but Moscow may store rather than destroy
the warheads it removes from service if that is what the United
States does.
Russia currently has a nuclear stockpile estimated to contain more
than 13,000 nondeployed strategic and tactical warheads, in large
part because dismantling the warheads has proven prohibitively expensive.
Russia also continues to manufacture limited numbers of new warheads
to replace weapons that have reached the end of their service lives.
Asked at the joint press conference why it was necessary to maintain
this capability, Putin said that warhead production “is not
our priority” but that Russia needs to consider threats posed
by other nuclear-weapon states and potential proliferators.
The timetable for reductions remains uncertain because, unlike
START I, the new treaty does not include interim deadlines. The
treaty requires the two sides to have implemented their reductions
by December 31, 2012, which is also the date the pact expires.
The fact that the agreement’s implementation and expiration
deadlines are the same has led some to conclude that it is technically
impossible to violate the pact. But a Bush administration official
close to the negotiations said that from the U.S. perspective, it
is in fact possible to violate the agreement by acting in a way
that does not “make compliance possible.” The official
noted that this interpretation is codified in the Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties, which stipulates that “[a] State is
obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose
of a treaty…it has signed.”
The official said that as the implementation and expiration date
approached, the two sides could decide whether to negotiate a follow-on
accord. But the official also indicated that no further agreement
might be needed after that time.
The accord’s withdrawal clause also marks a departure from
previous agreements, allowing either side to pull out of the pact
with only three months’ notice, rather than the six months’
notice required by START I. (U.S. negotiators had also sought a
provision allowing either side to exceed the agreement’s limits
with 45 days’ notice, but that provision was not included in
the final document, suggesting the three-month withdrawal period
was a compromise with the Russians.) Also unlike START I, the agreement
does not require the withdrawing party to justify its actions by
citing “extraordinary events [that] have jeopardized its supreme
interests.”
The agreement includes no verification or transparency provisions,
although both U.S. and Russian officials have said they will continue
to work to increase strategic transparency. With regard to verification,
the two sides appear to have decided to rely on existing provisions
in the START I agreement, but that accord expires in 2009, and it
is unclear whether the sides will extend it, establish verification
provisions for the new accord, or simply do without verification
after that time.
Moscow and Washington have agreed to consider transparency in ongoing
discussions of the treaty’s Bilateral Implementation Commission.
That commission will meet at least twice annually, but details such
as the seniority of the officials involved, the schedule of the
meetings, and the likely agenda have yet to be worked out, according
to the administration official. The official said that previous
arms control agreements had spelled out such details because of
the adversarial relationship between the two countries, but that
under the current, more trusting relationship Washington deemed
a “more structured implementation mechanism” unnecessary.
Russian officials appear to hold out hope that their differences
with the United States over warhead counting and weapons dismantlement
can be resolved within the commission, but it remains unclear whether
the United States will be willing to continue substantive negotiations.
When asked about Washington’s willingness to negotiate such
issues further, the administration official said the president had
been very clear about U.S. plans, implying that additional constraints
on U.S. forces are not an option. But the official also said, “If
the Russians have things they want to talk about, we’ll listen.”
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