Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta

Judging by the visit of Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates to Moscow last week, the United States and Russia are in a race to dismantle the treaty system that has regulated their security relationship for decades.  The Russian side eagerly reminded U.S. counterparts of their promise to cease implementing the Conventional Forces in Europe in early December if NATO did not proceed to ratify the adapted CFE Treaty. 

President Putin, for his part, restated earlier threats to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: "We need other international participants to assume the same obligations which have been assumed by the Russian Federation and the U.S…If we are unable to attain such a goal ... it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation when other countries do develop such weapons systems, and among those are countries in our near vicinity."

The Americans clearly started this trend, withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2001.  The Bush Administration has been a persistent opponent of international treaties, objecting to the limits that they impose on U.S. military flexibility.  Moreover, the White House has regularly stated that the Russians are now friends to America, and therefore Americans should be ready for them to claim flexibility for Russia too. 
On that basis, the Administration negotiated with the Russians a super-simplified Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) in 2002, and has refused to consider continuing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) beyond its end-date in December 2009.  Indeed, the Americans refuse any further legally binding treaty constraining strategic nuclear forces.

For a time, the Kremlin maintained the high ground on this issue.  When the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty, the Russians negated their ratification of the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), but the Americans had expected this step on a tit-for-tat basis.  Otherwise, the Russians continued to criticize the Bush Administration for doing away with the ABM Treaty and urged them to return to the negotiating table.  If it had not been for Putin’s pressure, the Moscow SORT Treaty would not have been a treaty at all, but rather a handshake between the two presidents.

Now, the Russian government is deserting the high ground in favor of the same free-for-all flexibility touted by the United States.  In this way, both Moscow and Washington seem tempted to replace the responsible role that they played in the Cold War, regulating the international system through law and diplomacy.  What they have in mind instead is unclear: on counterterrorism, they seem ready to work together in the favored format of the Bush administration, a “coalition of the willing.”  On defense and security in Europe, they seem determined to go their own ways—and for that reason NATO-Russian cooperation is faltering.   On yet other issues—missile defense, Kosovo—they are engaged in a dialogue of the deaf.  One point is clear, however—Russia and the United States are not acting like friends.

If the foundation of the Bush approach is gone—that Russia and the United States are friends and therefore do not need treaties—then there must still be room for law and diplomacy.  The two countries need predictability and stability in their strategic relationship as well as flexibility, and the negotiating table is the place where the balance is struck among these three interests. But in the mean time, the accelerating race to abandon treaty regimes is taking on the look of a serious crisis, one that could damage international relations for a long time to come. 

Most seriously, it could undermine that most universal of negotiated security arrangements, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The United States and Russia are the countries most responsible for negotiating the NPT and have worked hard to implement the treaty since it was signed in 1968.  If the NPT’s two most stalwart champions are discarding their arms control treaty obligations, then the NPT member states may feel no compunction about discarding their own obligations to the nonproliferation regime.
So the United States and Russia should think about their quarrel in this larger context, not just as a frustrating bilateral spat.  These two countries have always been among the most responsible players in the international legal system.  If they begin to abandon the system, then it will be well and truly undermined.

What to do?  First of all, the Cold War-era treaties need not remain in place as negotiated.  The Russian Federation has made its case that the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty is from another time and place and cannot continue.  They have also made the case that the CFE’s adapted version needs further scrutiny to address their concerns about flank limitations.  Likewise, the START Treaty as brought into force in 1994 is much too detailed and nitpicking to be suited to the strategic relationship that is possible today.  Therefore, the treaties that were negotiated during the Cold War should definitely be open to adjustment and simplification. 

Both Moscow and Washington will have to bear the burden of creativity in this case, coming up with ways to adjust the treaties without destroying them.  There seems to be a process underway to simplify START, for example, and this could easily bear fruit—once the United States decides that it is ready to accept a legally-binding follow-on to the treaty.  Likewise, the difficulties with CFE are easy to understand—Russia is concerned about the so-called flank limitations, which prevent it from moving troops inside Russian territory.  This problem should not be impossible to solve as long as both sides are showing some flexibility.

As far as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is concerned, President Putin has called attention to an important problem: other countries around Russia’s periphery are building such missiles, but they are banned in Russia and NATO countries.  Abandoning the INF Treaty will not solve this problem, however. 

Most seriously for Russia, it could reverse the long process of negating the strategic threat out of NATO Europe that the Soviet Union so skillfully engineered in the 1980s.  Soviet doctrinal experts long argued that missiles launched from NATO countries could destroy significant strategic targets, even in Moscow, and so should be considered the same threat as long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from U.S. territory.  The INF Treaty removed this threat from Europe once and for all—and it should not be one that the Kremlin and General Staff would like to see restored.

Russia has many weapon systems, both missiles and aircraft, to counter the growing missile threat around its borders.  Therefore, there is time to negotiate.  President Putin called for other countries to join Russia and the United States in their obligations to constrain intermediate-range missiles, and this call could be transformed into an invitation to join an international conference on expanding the reach and membership of the INF Treaty.  In this way, a decisive success story of Soviet diplomacy can be transformed into a new triumph for Russia—benefiting Russia’s strategic military position in a way that unbridled missile proliferation could never accomplish.

Rose Gottemoeller is Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Arms Control Association.