On April 8, the United States and Russia will sign a landmark arms agreement to slash their nuclear arsenals by no less than a third. The significance of the pact goes beyond the number of warheads and missiles the two sides have agreed to cut. It is the first legally binding and verifiable nuclear reduction pact the U.S. and Russia have negotiated in two decades after the end of the Cold War. It reinstates the U.S-Russian nuclear security regime that would have otherwise fallen apart after the 1991 Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty lapsed in December 2009. The follow-on agreement revives the arms reduction process and opens the way to further cuts by the two nuclear superpowers, which account for more than 90 per cent of the world's nuclear armaments. It creates momentum for the “reset” announced last year by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev to build a new bilateral partnership. The new START was negotiated in a spirit of give-and-take. Mr. Obama had a real problem: he had to overcome strong opposition from his conservative critics at home who contended that Washington need not sign the treaty at all as Moscow was dismantling its ageing missiles anyway. In turn, Russia relaxed its insistence on imposing specific constraints on U.S. missile defence programmes — to facilitate treaty ratification in the Republican-dominated Senate.
The new treaty will breathe life into the vision of a nuclear-free world embraced by Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev. Everyone knows the road to this will be extremely long and tortuous. Already, the two sides have differed in their reading of the treaty's provisions. The Kremlin says it will establish a “legally binding linkage” between strategic offensive weapons and strategic missile defences. The U.S. State Department, however, asserts that it enforces “no constraints” on U.S. missile defence programmes. These clashing interpretations point to a fundamental chasm between Washington and Moscow. The U.S. broke a rigid link between offensive and defensive weapon systems when George W. Bush, of all Presidents, scrapped the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia says that unless the linkage is restored, no further nuclear cuts will be possible. Moreover, it warns that it will walk out of the START follow-on treaty if the U.S. proceeds to build a global missile shield, as this would upset the strategic nuclear balance between the two nuclear superpowers. Mr. Obama has put on hold any major ballistic missile development programme. He should follow up by accepting the Russian proposal to jointly build a missile defence against any future threats. This will create a strong foundation of trust the U.S. and Russia need to build on as they embark on the path of a nuclear-free world.
Correction
A sentence in the first paragraph was “It reinstates the U.S-Russian nuclear security regime that would have otherwise fallen apart after the 1991 Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty lapsed in “December 2009.” It should have been START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty).
