from:

Russia OKs START II, but not missile defense

April 14, 2000
Web posted at: 1:39 PM EDT (1739 GMT)

By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- Even Russia's hawks had good reason to ratify the START II missile treaty, but the real battle lies ahead over the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

RELATED TIME Magazine The Next Cold War? Newsfile Russia Adrift

The Duma on Friday ratified START II, which the U.S. Senate had ratified in 1996, committing both sides to slash their nuclear arsenals almost in half by the year 2007. But President Vladimir Putin pointedly warned before the vote that any attempt by the U.S. to abandon the 1972 ABM treaty would prompt Moscow to withdraw from all arms control agreements. And that's a problem for Washington: "The proposed U.S. National Missile Defense system can't be built the way it's envisaged under the existing ABM treaty," says TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson. "That leaves Washington facing the stark choice of either renegotiating the treaty or pulling out of it. So far, Moscow has been fiercely opposed to altering the ABM treaty, although it remains to be seen how far Russia will push that opposition."

President Putin may dine out on his hawkish nationalist credentials, but even under those terms he had good reason for frog-marching START II through the Duma.

"Russia simply can't afford to keep its entire nuclear missile arsenal, much of which was scheduled to be decommissioned by 2007 anyway," says TIME Moscow correspondent Yuri Zarakhovich. "It can't afford to build a whole new generation of missiles, particularly because much of its fleet was built in factories in now-independent Ukraine, and Russia simply cannot reproduce the facilities to build a new generation of those missiles."

Putin's decision to press for ratification may also be designed to position Moscow for what it considers the far more serious battle in defense of the ABM. The ABM is based on the premise that if either side deploys an anti-missile system able to neutralize the other's missile fleet, it creates a dangerous disparity and dramatically increases the incentive on both sides to strike first. The U.S. wants to develop a new anti-missile system to counter the purported threat of a missile attack from North Korea or some other rogue state, but Russia perceives that as the thin edge of a wedge that will eventually undermine its nuclear deterrent against the U.S. Still, National Missile Defense enjoys even greater momentum on Capitol Hill than in the Pentagon, and that suggests that some tough talking across the Atlantic lies ahead.

Copyright © 2000 Time Inc.