The Hindu : Pact will slow Russia's arms cut

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 23, 2002

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International

Pact will slow Russia's arms cut

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW MAY 22. What has been touted as a landmark disarmament pact to be signed by the Russian and American Presidents in Moscow this week is likely in fact to put a brake on plans to reduce Russia's nuclear arsenals. Washington's refusal to make the proposed reductions of strategic nuclear weapons "irreversible, transparent and verifiable,'' has forced Moscow to rethink its own plan to slash its nuclear stockpiles, a leading Russian arms control expert said hours before the U. S. President, George W. Bush, arrived in Russia on Thursday for a three-day summit with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

The treaty the two leaders will sign on Friday calls on Russia and the United States to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals from the current 6,000 warheads to between 1700 and 2200 warheads for each side over the next 10 years. But the treaty does not commit the sides to destroying the dismantled warheads and missiles.

The sides have also failed to agree on definitions of what a warhead is and how to count them. Nor have they envisaged any verification of compliance with the new treaty. As a result, critics said, Russia will lose strategic arms parity as it continues to phase out its old missiles anyway and has no money to build new ones, whereas the U. S. will store its warheads and missiles for quick redeployment in the event of emergency.

However, Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, former head of a Defence Ministry institute dealing with strategic nuclear planning, says Moscow will be able to maintain nuclear parity with the U. S. by extending the service life of old missiles, including its deadliest SS-18 "Satan'' missiles that until recently were slated for destruction. Russia destroyed 150 SS-18 missiles, each armed with 10 warheads, under the START-1 nuclear pact with the U. S. and was to dismantle the remaining 154 missiles under START-2 by the year 2007.

But START-2 has never come into force and will now be replaced by a new treaty, which allows the sides to have any type of missiles within the agreed numbers of operationally deployed warheads. ``Russian experts have found a way to keep the old missiles in service far beyond the year 2008 deadline for their decommissioning,'' Gen. Dvorkin said in an interview with the Echo of Moscow radio. Three days earlier General Yury Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of general staff and the main Russian military negotiator at the missile talks with the U. S., said Russia was not going to destroy its land-based missiles now that the U. S. will store its decommissioned warheads and missiles.

According to Gen. Dvorkin, the statement signals a reversal of earlier plans to scrap the bulk of Russia's land-based missiles, including all the remaining SS-18s. He said Russia will also put several warheads on its newest Topol-M missile. Gen. Dvorkin said it was the change in Russia's disarmament plans that made the U. S. negotiate the new arms pact.

``Americans did not want to talk to us as long as we planned to slash our nuclear forces to 1500 warheads and destroy the multiple-warhead missiles. This robbed us of any bargaining power at the talks,'' the expert said. By contrast, by retaining it nuclear clout Moscow can now force Washington to continue the bilateral disarmament process despite the latter's declared unwillingness to sign any further arms pacts with Russia. ``Our missiles will enable us to maintain relations of partnership with the U. S. for a long time to come,'' Gen. Dvorkin said.

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