(RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) – Moscow as well as other capitals expected U.S. President Barack Obama to be more explicit on foreign policy issues at his first news conference. Apparently, because of the financial crisis, America needs time to collect itself.
Obama said the United States and Russia should consolidate nuclear nonproliferation by restarting negotiations to cut their nuclear arsenals. “I think it’s important for the United States and Russia to lead the way on this,” Obama said. He mentioned that he spoke to President Dmitry Medvedev about the importance of starting effective reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the two countries.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, Russia became so used to Washington’s empty anti-nuclear declarations devoid of any practical intentions that its response to Obama’s statement could be interpreted as almost joyful. In any event, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared on February 10 that Moscow “welcomes Washington’s priority attention to such problems.”
However, so many treaties were broken in the Bush era that Moscow finds it difficult to understand what Washington will start with. Under the last operating treaty on arms reduction, the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, either side was supposed to reduce its arsenals from 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 6,000 warheads. It expires on December 5, 2009. Russia withdrew from the 1993 START II Treaty in 2002, in response to the United States pulling out of the 1972 ABM Treaty. Since 2005, Moscow has offered Washington at least to resume talks on nuclear weapons, but has only heard empty promises in response.
Washington’s latest quasi-proposals on nuclear weapons appeared in the London Times in early February. U.S. administrations often resort to inspired leaks in the British press. These proposals seem to be sensible: Each country would reduce its nuclear arsenal by 80%, and retain a thousand warheads. But it is impossible to understand which warheads are meant to be included. Do the authors of the proposals mean nuclear weapons in general? Are they talking about tactical nuclear weapons? What types of nuclear arms are subject to cuts? Which warheads will be left? It is not clear, either, which nuclear systems will be reduced to cut the arsenals by 80%.
Surprisingly, the two leading nuclear powers were about to part with nuclear weapons in the not-so-remote times of Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet policy and Mikhail Gorbachev’s romanticism. At the summit in Reykjavik on October 11, 1986, the two sides were very close to signing an agreement on scrapping all strategic nuclear weapons altogether. Some sensitive natures almost believed it was possible. The prospect of a nuclear-free future must have shocked the military on both sides.
Moscow and Washington almost agreed on a document providing for reduction of the sides’ strategic offensive weapons by half in the first five years (up to 1991 inclusive), and by the remaining half during the following five years (by 1996). In other words, they were going to destroy strategic offensive arms altogether, and keep only tactical nuclear weapons. The document was not signed because Reagan bluntly refused to make a commitment not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, and to give up his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars.
It would be interesting to see whether Obama will go further than Reagan did in Reykjavik.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.