08 April 2010

With New START, U.S., Russia Commit to Disarmament

As Russia and the U.S. move toward disarmament, President Obama hopes others will see that nuclear weapons “make less and less sense.”

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington -- The signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) demonstrates the commitment of both the United States and Russia to live up to their obligations as nuclear armed states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to move toward disarmament and make the world a safer and more secure place, President Obama said following the treaty’s April 8 signing ceremony in Prague.

The treaty includes a 30 percent cut in the number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the two countries, who together hold more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. “We are keeping our commitments,” Obama said, and the agreement will “set the stage for further cuts” in their nuclear arsenals.

“The United States and Russia are prepared to once again take leadership in moving in the direction of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, as well as nuclear materials,” the president said.

Under the NPT, countries without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them. Obama said he believes more countries will come to recognize that their security in the 21st century will depend mainly upon their economic growth, the international community’s capacity to resolve conflicts, and the strength of their conventional military forces.

“Nuclear weapons increasingly in an interdependent world will make less and less sense as the cornerstone of security policy,” the president said.

While that realization may take time, “the key is for the United States and Russia to show leadership on this front, because we are so far ahead of every nation with respect to possession of nuclear weapons,” he said.

The willingness of the two former Cold War rivals to continually work on reducing their nuclear arsenals “should indicate the fact that we are willing to be bound by our obligations, and we’re not asking any other countries to do anything different, but simply to follow the rules of the road that have been set forth,” he said.

The New START must be ratified by both the U.S. Senate and the Russian Duma before formally coming into effect. President Obama said there is “a strong history of bipartisanship” in the United States on arms control treaties, and described New START as “a well-crafted treaty that meets the interests of both countries.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that with New START, not only his country and the United States but “the entire world community has won.”

“This agreement enhances strategic stability and, at the same time, enables us to rise to a higher level for cooperation between Russia and the United States,” Medvedev said.

While the two countries still have differences over U.S. plans for a missile defense system, he said, “this is a flexible process, and we are interested in close cooperation over it with our American partners.”

President Obama said he looks forward to launching a “serious dialogue” with Russia about cooperating on missile defense, and said the U.S. approach “in no way is intended to change the strategic balance” between the two countries.

According to Brian McKeon, who is deputy national security adviser to Vice President Biden, Russia’s unilateral statement threatening the country’s withdrawal from New START if the United States builds missile defenses is similar to other statements made by both sides during their long history of concluding arms control agreements.

Writing in an April 8 White House blog post, McKeon said the Russian statement essentially gives “fair notice” that Russia could pull out of the new treaty if it believes the U.S. missile defense system affects strategic stability.

“We believe it doesn’t, and the president has made clear that he is committed to continuing to develop and deploy that system,” McKeon said.

WORLD AT RISK FROM IRANIAN, NORTH KOREAN ACTIVITIES

President Obama said the spread of nuclear weapons constitutes “an unacceptable risk to global security,” citing the danger of regional arms races due to the nuclear activities of North Korea and Iran, and said there must be “accountability for those that break the rules,” or else the NPT risks becoming “just words on a page.”

Nuclear weapons proliferation would allow states to “blackmail other countries,” create global security risks by not effectively securing nuclear material from theft, and raise the danger of “passing them on to terrorist organizations.” Without effective enforcement of international law, “we could find ourselves in a world in which not only state actors but also potentially non-state actors are in possession of nuclear weapons, and even if they don’t use them, would then be in a position to terrorize the world community,” Obama said.

With those risks in mind, the president said the United States and Russia are working together to pass strong sanctions against Iran in the U.N. Security Council.

“We’re going to start seeing some ramped-up negotiations taking place in New York in the coming weeks. And my expectation is that we are going to be able to secure strong, tough sanctions on Iran this spring,” the president said.

President Medvedev said Iran is not responding to “constructive proposals” from the international community that are aimed at allowing it to pursue peaceful nuclear energy while providing assurances that it is not developing nuclear weapons. “We cannot turn a blind eye to this,” he said.

While “sanctions by themselves seldom obtain specific results,” the Russian president said it is “difficult to do without them in certain situations,” and urged for “smart sanctions that are capable of producing proper behavior on the part of relevant sides.”

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)