US-Russian nuclear treaty expires despite ‘reset’

A landmark US-Russian treaty seen as a linchpin of nuclear arms control is expired this Saturday, December 5 with little media attention despite Obama’s efforts to improve ties with Russia. Both sides pledged to continue to cooperate.

When Obama announced plans to “reset” the badly strained US relationship with Russia, it made finding a new nuclear disarmament treaty the centrepiece of that objective.

It’s ironic that the Russian word for “reset” (perezagruzka) the burron featured is slightly different word meaning “overload” or “overcharged” (peregruzka).

Prophetically the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant put a prominent picture of the fake red button on its front page and declared: “Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton pushed the wrong button.”

But despite marathon negotiations in recent weeks, a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before its December 5 expiration date proved out of reach, and some are asking: what reset?

Signalling the deadline would be missed, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington last week that negotiators were aiming to have a draft agreement “by the end of December.”

Optimism on reaching a START deal had abounded in September after the Obama administration removed a major obstacle in the talks: a planned US missile shield in eastern Europe that had fiercely opposed by Russia. Some feel Obama’s cave-in sealed the treaties fate, and that Russia will demand more concessions because it got that one for nothing.

Optimism has been absent for weeks, amid reports that negotiators in Geneva have been unable to reach agreement on US monitoring of Russia’s nuclear missile arsenal.

The “verification” measures laid out in START were a key element in building trust between the former Cold War foes and reducing the risk of nuclear Armageddon.

“Talks should have been about extending some provision of the old treaty such as the verification mechanisms. But our military didn’t want that,” Moscow-based defence analyst Alexander Konovalov told AFP.

“There are serious forces on our side and theirs that do not want a new agreement. It’s not yet clear who will win.”

One thorn in Moscow’s side under the current treaty are round-the-clock US inspections at Russia’s foremost missile plant in Votkinsk, about 580 kilometres (360 miles) northeast of Moscow.

“Even the Americans agree that there shouldn’t be as burdensome a mechanism of control as in START-1,” said Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired Russian general who is now an expert at the Centre for International Security in Moscow.

“But the Americans play tennis there, they like it at Votkinsk,” Dvorkin said.

Washington is pushing for interim deal to extend verification measures in the period between Saturday and whenever a new treaty enters into force, US State Department spokesman Kelly said this week.

The hang-up over verification measures comes despite the fact that the broad outlines of a successor treaty were agreed in July at a summit between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.

At the summit, Obama and Medvedev agreed to reduce the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675 and the number of “carriers” capable of delivering them to between 500 and 1,100.

The New York Times, citing an unnamed US official, reported this week that the two sides had managed to narrow the gap on carriers to a number below 800.

The term “carriers” typically refers to intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and strategic bombers.

The cuts outlined by Obama and Medvedev are not very deep, though they would reduce warheads to below the level agreed in the last arms control treaty, the SORT agreement of 2002, which cut warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 on either side.

Analysts warned that talks on finding a successor to START could drag on for months, developing into a new sore in US-Russia ties.

“If no agreement is signed, it would make the situation worse not in nuclear terms but in political terms,” independent Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told AFP.

“The agreement that was seen as a symbol of the ‘reset’ is increasingly becoming a problem in of itself,” he said.

“So December 5 passes without much progress, it could be a serious political setback for Obama and most likely for Medvedev too.”

Exactly what the power behind Medvedev, Putin, thinks is unclear, and how and if this is part of Putin’s 2012 reelection strategy. Vlad Putin is a chess master and appears to have successfully offered Obama a gambit he couldn’t handle. When Putin et. al. get more consessions from Obama at no or little costs they will ratify START II.