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In the last year or two, prospects for nuclear arms control have seemed to become increasingly gloomy. Following the recent spying revelations, there has been heightened American concern about China’s nuclear capabilities and intentions. The 1998 Indian and Pakistani tests dealt a severe blow to the norm of nuclear non-proliferation. IAEA inspectors have been unable to verify the situations in North Korea and Iraq; and the Geneva Conference on Disarmament remains deadlocked over the issue of nuclear disarmament.
Most disturbingly, nuclear relations between America and Russia have steadily deteriorated since the euphoria following the end of the Cold War. Russians are especially concerned about a renewed American determination to install a ballistic missile defence (BMD) system, which would contravene the 1972 ABM treaty and could give the U.S. a decisive advantage of a first-strike capability. The Russian Duma has still not ratified the START II treaty, under which each side is due to reduce its number of deployed strategic warheads to 3000-3500 by the year 2007; and NATO enlargement has meant that more of Russia’s neighbours are involved in NATO nuclear planning. Relations between Washington and Moscow became particularly tense in the first half of 1999, during the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.
Now, following the end of the Kosovo conflict, a chink of light has at last appeared. In June, 1999, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed a ‘Statement on Disarmament’, under which discussions are to start between the two sides on both a START III treaty and an agreed amendment to the ABM treaty.
In 1997, in Helsinki, Yeltsin and Clinton had agreed that, under a proposed START III treaty, both sides would reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 2000-2500 each; but START III negotiations were subsequently stalled, pending ratification of START II by the Russian Duma. They have now agreed to expedite preliminary discussions on a START III treaty.
In any case, as pointed out in recent issues of both the Bulletin of Arms Control (March 1999) and Pugwash Newsletter (April 1999), because many of its missiles have already surpassed their original service lives and are too costly to maintain, the number of Russia’s deployed strategic warheads is likely to be reduced below the projected START III levels by 2007, when that treaty is due to come into force. The Russians therefore have an incentive to try and persuade the Americans to reduce the number of their deployed warheads below 2000.
In January 1999, against this background and anticipating the June Statement on Disarmament, experts from the Federation of American Scientists made the following recommendation:
"As part of a resolution of differences over anti-ballistic missile systems and the ABM treaty, we urge the Administration to begin negotiations with the Russians on START III – without awaiting Russian ratification of START II – and to offer, in those negotiations, START III limits of 1000 deployed strategic warheads ……"The thinking behind this FAS proposal was that such a reduction might well impel a change in America’s posture, which requires a pre-emptive first-strike capability and keeping its nuclear forces on high hair-trigger alert. This change, in turn, would mean that any proposed ballistic missile defence system (which, in any case, would be aimed primarily at the North Koreans and may not work) would not significantly destabilise the US-Russian strategic balance. In other words, from Russia’s standpoint and in the view of many Western arms control experts, a relatively minor modification to the ABM treaty (however unnecessary and undesirable) may be a small price to pay for a START III agreement which would limit both parties to 1000 strategic warheads. In the words of an FAS Council statement:[FAS Public Interest Report, March/April 1999, p.1.]
"……it appears that US agreement to START III limits of 1000 would move us far towards the end of an era of first strike threats. As a symbol of that change, Trident submarines, now on 15 minute alert in the North Atlantic, should be taken off this very high, and totally unnecessary, peace-time alert which only helps keep the Russian forces on a relatively higher alert."[FAS Public Interest Report, March/April 1999, p.2]
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