MOSCOW. (Andrei Fedyashin, RIA Novosti political commentator) - Russian sources in Geneva expect the new START Treaty to be ready by February 27. The two countries have been trying since last May to find a mutually acceptable arrangement to legally document a limit on the number of U.S. and Russian nuclear delivery vehicles and warheads.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed on 31 July 1991 and expired on December 5, 2009. It remained in force pending agreement on a successor, since Russia and the United States failed to agree on a new pact before the deadline.
The talks that resumed in Geneva after the holidays on February 1 indeed seem to have moved into the final stage, with the agreement only requiring the final touches to be put to its terminology and technical details. In any case, negotiators on both sides are unanimous that the document is 95%-97% ready.
The scale of the reductions planned is already known. The United States and Russia agreed to keep the number of nuclear delivery vehicles between 500 and 1,100, and the number of warheads between 1,500 and 1,675. These figures may still be altered, for example increasing the number of delivery vehicles allowed while decreasing the number of warheads, or the reverse. In any case the ceiling to be set by the pact will easily allow both sides "to project military power" while having a "strong deterrence factor," using the Pentagon's terminology. The two countries must have already agreed verification procedures and resolved the issue of "return potential": the removed and stockpiled warheads, mainly in the United States, that can be returned to operation at short notice.
Unfortunately, there is a long way between "giving birth" to this new agreement and "teaching it to walk and talk." In this sense, today is not the best moment for the new START Treaty to appear. A host of outraged Republicans in the U.S. Senate still stand between the signing of the pact and its ratification, and are likely to impose requirements on President Barack Obama in return for his nuclear deal with Moscow. Another obstacle on the path to ratification will be November's Congressional elections, which will see a complete change in the composition of the lower house and one-third of the Senate.
According to the U.S. Constitution, the Senate has to ratify all international agreements signed by the United States. Obama will have to come up with really strong arguments to persuade the Republican Senators to support the new START Treaty: stronger then his eloquent rhetoric.
Pushing the pact through the Senate will require at least two-thirds of the vote (67). Democrats currently have 59 votes (including two independent members), while Republicans have 41. This is not sufficient today and will be even more problematic after November. It is commonplace in America to "counterbalance" a Democratic president with Republicans in the Congress, and vice versa. Since ever more voters are becoming discontented with the country's domestic economic and social polices, even more Republicans are likely to win seats in November. Even if they fail to win a parliamentary majority, there will certainly be more of them. Theoretically, the START Treaty could slow down this trend, if it is generally seen as Obama's success, but for one proviso.
Obama has made too many commitments early in his presidency, such as: "resetting" U.S.-Russian relations, achieving a nuclear-free world, peace in the Middle East and resolving the Iran and North Korea nuclear problems. Therefore, it is now crucial that he attains at least one important foreign-policy result: something he has not had, to date. None of his earlier pledges have been realized, so the START Treaty could be his first real achievement.
The START Treaty is listed as one of Obama's major projects, next to the small note "May." Although the U.S. administration claims that no deadlines whatsoever have been set, May 2010 sounds like a meaningful date. First, a regular UN NPT Review Conference, held once a decade, will take place in May. NPT stands for the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, which are not parties to the NPT, have since become nuclear powers. Failure by major nuclear powers to agree reductions to their nuclear arsenals will be used by minor ones to justify their continued nuclear programs. If that happens, the decline of the Non-Proliferation Treaty will reach a critical point.
Second, Obama needs to see ratification before November so that he has concrete results to show to Congress and to enable him to check the impending inflow of Republicans. The latter, on the contrary, do not need or want to see Obama praised as a great peacemaker at election time.
Admittedly, the White House has just pleased Republican Senators by releasing the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is completed once every four years, and the defense budget for the 2011 financial year. If the Nobel Peace Committee had had any idea of what the U.S. defense budget and the country's military program for the next four years would be, Obama would never have been awarded the Peace Prize.
Contrary to his own vows to continue his drive to eliminate unnecessary, wasteful defense budget spending, the military program calls for a 3.4% increase in the Pentagon's defense budget to an unheard-of $708 billion. However, counting all the hidden outlays and redistributed costs, the real figure will probably be closer to $900 billion, which is more than the total military spending of the 15 leading nations including China and Russia.
Allocations to the Department of Energy, responsible for maintenance of nuclear weapons, weapon development and nuclear tests, will grow by $11.2 billion (up 13.4%).
A careful reading of the latest Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR, initiated by the Congress in the mid-1990s to have an idea of the government's military policies for the next four years) reveals that the United States will shift from "wholesale" war to "retail" conflicts. The QDR states that America will now prepare its forces for multiple conflicts in any region, that it will start modernizing and increasing the number of vehicles for personnel transportation, fighting cyber-terrorism and nuclear terrorism, as well as protecting U.S. military bases and personnel abroad.
It is wrong to assert that the United States has fully renounced the concept of waging two major regional wars in favor of multiple regional conflicts. The QDR suggests only a shift of emphasis, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
The Republicans liked the new program and the new defense budget. This may help the new START Treaty go through, or this may not.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
