Posted on 17-6-2002
Nuclear
Arms Flexing Again
By Alan Marston
One day after the United States formally abandoned the 1972
Antiballistic
Missile Treaty, Russia responded with the all too familiar and
dangerous
tit-for-tat reaction that has characterised politics since its
inception in
the caves of neolithic man. The Russian politicians are saying
they are no
longer bound by the 1993 accord known as Start II that outlawed
multiple-warhead missiles and other especially destabilizing
weapons in the
US and Russian strategic arsenals.
Russia's action was the sort of statement that would have induced
heart-racing in the media a decade ago, and still should. But
no, this time
its been called a political gesture, signaling displeasure but
little else
in a world that the West proclaims has been remade by forces
unleashed
after the Soviet Union's collapse. What ignorance. Three millenia
of
Eastern wisdom says address things while they are still small
and easy to
change, because a lack of instinct and consequent inaction allows
small
things to become unstoppable catastrophes. As Helen Caldicott
said in her
recent interview on PTV, talking about the new nuclear danger
and Bush
Politics is not rabble-rousing, its realistic. Russia's move
could
exacerbate a trend toward a more unstable nuclear balance —
especially if
the current thaw between East and West began to chill.
The reaction in Washington? A State Department spokesman said
tonight that
Russia's action "was not unexpected. "Both the United States
and Russia
have moved beyond the treaty on further reduction and limitation
of
strategic offensive arms with the recent signing of the Moscow
Treaty," the
spokesman said. "Under the Moscow Treaty, the United States
and Russia will
reduce their strategic nuclear warheads to a level of 1,700
to 2,200 by
Dec. 31, 2012, a level nearly two-thirds below current levels."
Official Russia seemed of two minds today. Even as its Foreign
Ministry
proclaimed Start II dead, accusing the United States of wrecking
the
arms-control process, its Defense Ministry said there were no
grounds to
retaliate against Washington for abandoning the missile defense
treaty.
Other senior Russian defense officials told the Interfax news
service that
some Russian nuclear rockets might be kept in service longer
because of the
American action, but that no major shifts in Russia's strategic
posture
were envisioned. "There's no point in talking about this treaty
anymore,
just as there is no point in talking about the ABM treaty,"
Vladimir Z.
Dvorkin, a retired major general who heads the Russian center
for Problems
of Strategic Nuclear Forces, said in an interview tonight. "It's
all in
oblivion. It's time to start thinking of something else."
It may well be that today's announcement was in large part a
bow to Russian
politicians who have ached for a stronger response to the United
States'
go-it-alone policies on arms control. It may well be that the
Start II
treaty, which the Kremlin threw overboard today, while a landmark
in arms
control accords, had never officially been binding on either
side.
Nevertheless, are nuclear weapons not still targeted on Russia
and the USA
from each side in turn and does this not signify that nothing
fundamental
has changed since the terrifying years of the 80's? Rhetorical
questions.
The treaty, agreed upon by Presidents Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin
in 1993,
proposed to slash United States and Russian strategic nuclear
stockpiles
over 10 years by nearly half, to no more than 3,500 warheads
on each side.
More important, it would have eliminated land-based multiple-warhead
missiles, or MIRV's, and so-called "heavy" intercontinental
missiles.
Arms-control scholars call those weapons the most dangerous
and
destabilizing in the two nations' arsenals. Roiled by conservative
arguments that Start II endangered American security, the US
Congress did
not ratify the treaty until 1996, and refused a protocol that
would have
deferred it. Russia's Parliament approved the treaty and the
new deadline
in 2000, but only on the condition that the United States did
not abandon
the antiballistic missile accord. One result is that Russia
has yet to
remove multiple warheads from some of its missiles, including
ones whose
service lives will now be extended. In the interim, Russia has
developed a
new missile, the Topol-M, which its military experts say is
decades ahead
of any American design and can penetrate any missile defense
the United
States can erect.
In the near insane world of arms control, some American experts
call this a
heartening development — primarily because the United States
no longer
views Russia as an enemy, and thus does not worry about a surprise
attack
from Moscow. Also because the existence of Russia's Topol-M
suggests that
the missile shield the United States is developing is not aimed
at swarms
of Russian warheads, but rather at single or double shots from
terrorist
nations.
Today the director of the Arms Control Association in Washington,
Daryl G.
Kimball, said the Russian move, while long expected, was not
to be
dismissed lightly. Among other things, he said, it frees Russia
to equip
its new Topol-M missiles with multiple warheads, a move the
Kremlin has not
formally endorsed, but that would actually save money as Russia
shrinks its
nuclear force.
Nobody on this good earth can pretend to be a dissinterested
spectator to
such `debates'.
|