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President Obama, left, and Russian President Medvedev answer questions at a news conference July 6.
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07 July 2009
Analysis: Obama and Medvedev Ease Tensions, Strengthen Trust, July 7, 2009
By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
Washington — In agreeing to reduce nuclear arsenals, the United States and Russia are aiming to ease tensions substantially and strengthen mutual trust — both critical ingredients for enhanced relations.
“We’ve taken important steps forward to increase nuclear security and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenals,” President Obama said at a July 6 Moscow press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
As owners of more than 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, the world’s two leading nuclear powers must lead by example, Obama said. Obama and Medvedev signed a joint understanding at the Kremlin to reduce nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them by up to a third from current levels. A legally binding treaty will be completed later this year, Obama said.
The agreement is part of a broader goal of reducing nuclear tensions across the globe and preventing rogue states and extremists from obtaining some of the world’s most dangerous weapons. During talks in London April 1 before the start of the G20 economic summit, Obama and Medvedev said they wanted to take concrete steps toward the long-term goal of disarmament, while sending a powerful message to countries such as North Korea and Iran, whose controversial nuclear development programs are subject to U.N. Security Council sanctions and expanded scrutiny.
“President Medvedev and I are committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past so that we can advance the interests that we hold in common,” Obama said.
Both nations agreed to reduce their strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START-I, expires December 5, and this new agreement would replace it.
The new framework calls for reducing the means to deliver nuclear weapons to between 500 and 1,100 vehicles, which include long-range strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered submarines.
“We have reached not only mutual understanding of how we should move forward, but also to the basic levels on which we will advance our cooperation in those fields,” Medvedev said. “The work was very intensive and I must admit that our teams, our delegations, worked on this subject in a very fruitful way. They have showed reasonable compromise.”
NUCLEAR-FREE AGENDA
At the core of the personal talks between the two presidents, which are part of a broader restart of bilateral relations, was a substantive discussion “on the questions of philosophy of our cooperation,” Medvedev said. The new arms reduction treaty is seen as a first step toward a nuclear-free agenda proposed by Obama and Medvedev in April.
“We will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same,” Obama said April 5 in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic. Negotiating a replacement for START-I is a part of that agenda, he said.
“As much as the constant cloud, the threat of nuclear warfare has receded since the Cold War … the presence of these deadly weapons, their proliferation, the possibility of them finding their way into the hands of terrorists, continues to be the gravest threat to humanity,” Obama said April 1 in London. “What better project to start off than seeing if we can make progress on that front?”
For Medvedev at least, this framework is the basic element of an emerging U.S.-Russian mutual security arrangement that leaves behind the vestiges of the long Cold War era.
“These are the new parameters within which our dialogue will be going on and where we hope to achieve final agreement that will be part of the new treaty,” he said at the joint press conference in Moscow.
START-I
Signed July 31, 1991, at the end of the Cold War, START-I is a bilateral agreement between the United States and the former Soviet Union that limited both nations to no more than 6,000 strategic or long-range nuclear warheads, and limited the number of delivery vehicles to 1,600 each.
START-I significantly decreased nuclear weapons by establishing a complex monitoring system. Further cuts were made — to approximately 2,200 nuclear warheads by 2012 — under the less restrictive 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, known as the Moscow Treaty. Currently the United States has approximately 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads, and Russia has approximately 2,800 strategic nuclear warheads.
For more information, see “Non-Nuclear Iran Would Reduce Need for Missile Defense” and Obama in Russia: A New Start.
