Financial Times Editorial: Making a good start on missiles

Financial Times Editorial: Making a good start on missiles
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: April 2 2009 19:27 | Last updated: April 2 2009 19:27
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28b86642-1fb3-11de-a1df-00144feabdc0.html


Agreement by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, the US and Russian presidents, on a fast-track negotiation to substantially reduce their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons is good news. It is a realistic way of pressing the “reset” button in relations between the old cold war adversaries to end the increasingly bitter recriminations of recent years. But even if they manage to do a deal by the end of the year, it will leave many tough and divisive questions unresolved.

The present strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) expires in December. It was negotiated and signed in the dying days of the Soviet Union. As the two leaders said after their meeting in London on Wednesday, before the G20 summit, it has long fulfilled its intended purpose. Both sides have reduced their long-range nuclear missiles far below the ceilings they agreed then. Russia has some 2,800 still deployed and the US around 2,400. They plan to cut those ceilings by about one third. They can both afford to be even more ambitious.

The signals from Mr Obama’s side are positive. He wants to work “towards zero” – the complete elimination of nuclear weapons – according to his closest aides. It may be a very long-term goal but nothing else is likely to persuade non-members of the nuclear club, such as Iran and North Korea, to give up their nuclear ambitions.

Russia itself is not inclined to scrap its entire nuclear arsenal. Strategic missiles are the one thing that guarantees Moscow access to treatment as an equal by Washington. That is why relaunching Start negotiations is a good way of re-engaging the Russian government. It gives Mr Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, his mentor, the respect they crave. It is also the least contentious item on the agenda.

Moscow is most bothered about the deployment of US missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Mr Obama is quite rightly not giving ground on that yet. The system is unproven but it is justified as a potential defence against any future Iranian missiles. If Mr Medvedev is willing to be more robust in seeking to dissuade Iran from acquiring its own nuclear weapons, he might expect a positive response from Washington.

The other bone of Russian contention is more difficult to deal with. Moscow wants a full stop to the enlargement of the Nato alliance to any more former Soviet republics, in particular Ukraine and Georgia. The issue goes to the heart of the Russian insistence that such states should be treated as part of its “sphere of influence”.

It is understandable that countries that only won their freedom from the Soviet empire less than 20 years ago want to be treated as independent states. They want the right to choose whether to belong to Nato or, for that matter, to the European Union. Moscow has no veto right.

The challenge for Mr Obama is to persuade his Russian counterparts that having a stable neighbourhood is much better than having a fearful one. Last year’s war in Georgia sent a very bad signal. Negotiating a new arms control treaty sends a much better one.