Small Gains on Bush's Europe Trip

During a five-day, fence-mending visit to Europe, including a brief summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President George W. Bush worked to shore up measures for denying weapons to Iran, China, and terrorists. Bush achieved some modest gains, but he appeared to make little headway in persuading the European Union not to lift its arms embargo on China.

Removing Iraq as an irritant in transatlantic relations and winning increased European contributions to post-war Iraq reconstruction and training of Iraqi security forces was a clear priority of the president’s Feb. 20-24 trip, and he succeeded to some degree. In his public appearances, Bush acknowledged past disagreements but urged that they be put “behind us.”

The president also strove to cultivate common ground on Iran, which Washington accuses of covertly seeking nuclear weapons. Although the United States has been skeptical about British, French, and German negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programs (see page 35), Bush thanked the three countries for “taking the lead.” He appeared to give the talks a further boost by discounting reports of possible U.S. military strikes against Iran as “simply ridiculous.”

Bush has identified the greatest danger to U.S. security as terrorist acquisition of a nuclear weapon. For years, the United States has been assisting Russia in securing and disposing of its surplus nuclear materials and weapons. Still, “the vulnerability of Russian [weapons of mass destruction] materials and technology to theft or diversion is a continuing concern,” CIA director Porter Goss testified Feb. 16 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Meeting Feb. 24 in Bratislava, Slovakia, Bush and Putin agreed both countries would continue work to safeguard their nuclear materials and facilities better. The two leaders charged their nuclear security experts with sharing “best practices” for accomplishing this task and ordered their top energy officials to oversee activities in this area.

Yet, none of the agreed steps overcomes Moscow’s refusal to bestow liability protection for U.S. work inside Russia. This dispute has held up a project to convert 34 metric tons of Russian weapons-usable plutonium into a less dangerous form and could jeopardize additional programs. Senior Bush administration officials said in mid-February that they had forwarded a new proposal for resolving the dispute, but it evidently has yet to win Russian approval.

Terrorist acquisition of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, formally known as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), is another shared U.S.-Russian concern. Building on earlier agreements to tighten national controls over these weapons, the two countries agreed on the sidelines of the Bush-Putin summit to destroy “excess and obsolete” MANPADS. Days earlier, the United States and NATO unveiled a $27 million initiative to help Ukraine eliminate its extra missiles of this type, as well as other excess small arms and munitions.

A broader U.S. government destruction program has already rendered 10,700 MANPADS inoperable in a dozen countries. Up to 750,000 of these anti-aircraft missiles exist worldwide, according to a May 2004 report by the Government Accountability Office, which conducts investigations for Congress.

The U.S.-Russian arrangement does not bar MANPADS exports, and it only calls for exchanges of information on deals after they occur, thereby limiting opportunities for objections to be raised.

In January, a rumored sale of Russian MANPADS to Syria touched off protests in Washington and public denials from Moscow. The status of this deal remains unclear, although a senior administration official told reporters in Bratislava that the Kremlin believes it “falls outside the context of the MANPADS agreement.” This supports reports that the controversial transfer involves vehicle-mounted surface-to-air missiles.

A major buyer of Russian arms is China, which European capitals and defense firms are eyeing as a market for their weapons and technology.

On his trip, Bush reaffirmed U.S. opposition to the 25-member EU lifting its arms embargo on China. The United States and the EU imposed embargos on China following its bloody crackdown on peaceful protestors at Tiananmen Square in 1989, but the EU is expected by this summer to drop its prohibitions. (See ACT, January/February 2005.)

If the EU acts, Bush fretted, U.S. arms and technology sold to or shared with Europe might end up in China. This could upset the military balance between China and Taiwan, the president argued. No European leaders gave any indication that Bush’s argument resonated with them.

Bush has declared that the United States would do “whatever it took” to help Taiwan protect itself. China views Taiwan as a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland and does not rule out the use of force to achieve this aim.

Although saying “deep concern” about the embargo’s fate existed throughout the United States, Bush distanced himself from any negative consequences that might befall European countries for changing their policy. “The Congress will be making the decisions…as to how to react,” the president said Feb. 22.

Lawmakers are united against the proposed EU action. By a 411-3 vote, the House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution Feb. 2 urging the EU to retain its embargo and warning that a different decision could put at risk U.S.-European defense trade and joint military projects.

In the Senate, a bipartisan group of seven legislators, including Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a similar measure Feb. 17 that has yet to be voted on. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Foreign Relations Committee chairman, also spoke of his reservations about the EU lifting its embargo in an interview with the Financial Times published Feb. 21.

European countries contend arms sales to China will not dramatically rise in the absence of an embargo because of their code of conduct that sets out criteria for restricting weapons exports. In their resolution, the senators condemned the code as “insufficient to control European arms exports.”