Competing views on strategic arms reduction

Competing Views on Strategic Arms Reduction by Sumner Benson

S

trategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) I and II are intended to strengthen nuclear stability by eliminating those weapons in both the Russian and U.S. arsenals that are most capable of carrying out a surprise attack. During the five years since START II was signed, that treaty has been widely portrayed in Russia as depriving Moscow of its most potent strategic weapon (heavily armed land-based missiles) and as making Russian nuclear forces potentially vulnerable to U.S. long-range conventional weapons and ballistic missile defenses. These criticisms may be giving rise to a new, more Russia-specific strategic doctrine. This emerging challenge to the official U.S.-Russian consensus on strategic stability probably will not lead Russia to reject START II (particularly in view of 1997 modifications to the treaty), but it does indicate that Moscow would be unlikely to accept the large additional reductions envisaged in several recent unofficial proposals for a “minimum deterrent” force.

U.S. Efforts to Strengthen Nuclear Stability Since 1969 the United States has promoted strategic arms control negotiations in order to reduce the potential Soviet threat to land-based U.S. intercontinental range ballistic missiles (ICBMS) and to implement a concept of strategic stability that its adherents believed would increase the security of both sides. The American efforts were initially inspired by Soviet deployment of the very large (“heavy” in arms control terms) SS-9 and SS-18 ICBMs and of the “medium” weight SS-19. The SS-9, which was phased out in the 1980s carried three reentry vehicles (RVs), each able to deliver one nuclear warhead. The SS-18 and SS-19, which are still deployed, carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)-officially counted as ten and six, respectively. These deployments raised the possibility of a successful preemptive strike against US. Minuteman ICBMs. Shortly after the SS-9 was first displayed publicly in 1967, James Schlesinger, then at the RAND Corporation, foresaw SumnerBensonis a

career civil servant with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked on strategic arms control issues at the Central Intelligence Agency and in OSD. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

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BENSON the political importance of this military development. Schlesinger told Soviet Americanologist Georgii Arbatov: “That big new missile of yours is going to create serious problems, not just for us but for you, too.” The reason was that the “unrestricted growth of throw-weight on your MIRVed ICBMs is disadvantageous to both sides, since it increases our mutual vulnerability and therefore the instability of our relationship.“’ The United States answered these Soviet deployments both by adjusting its approach to arms control and by increasing the accuracy and destructive power of its own strategic weapons, In March 1977 President Jimmy Carter proposed major changes in the outline for a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT9 II that President Gerald Ford and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev had negotiated in November 1974 at Vladivostok. Carter’s “comprehensive proposal” would have lowered the Vladivostok totals by about 20 percent and would have banned modification of existing ICBMs as well as development, testing, and deployment of “new’ ICBMs. The central trade-off was that the United States would cancel the projected MX (missile experimental) ICBM, which would be the size of the SS-19 and would carry ten warheads, if the Soviet Union would reduce its heavy SS-9 and SS-18 force by one-half (from about 300 to 150) and accept a limit of 550 MIRVed ICBMs for each side. The comprehensive proposal was the first systematic attempt to base an arms control agreement on the concept of mutual strategic stability. It presumed that by their very nature, large ICBMs, particularly MIRVed ICBMs, threatened the security of both nations, Each side had developed land-based missiles (the Soviet SS-9, SS-18, and SS-19), or could develop land-based missiles (the U.S. MX), that were accurate enough for a preemptive attack against the other side’s ICBMs, but that were themselves vulnerable to such an attack. Therefore, the Soviet Union as well as the United States would benefit from limiting the number of ICBMs on each side and placing greater emphasis on the other two “legs” of the nuclear triad-submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMS) and intercontinental bombers. Both of these weapons are less vulnerable to a preemptive strike. To Soviet leaders, however, this U.S. proposal to reduce the number of ICBMs seemed intended solely to lessen the importance of those weapons most dangerous to the United States rather than (as Washington maintained) to protect US. missiles but also to enhance the security of both sides, The Soviets did not appear to share the Americans’ belief in a universal concept of strategic stability, which both nuclear superpowers ought to adopt. Rather, in the view of the USSR, bombers and SLBMs were noteworthy less for being inherently “survivable” or “second-strike” weapons (as opposed to “vulnerable” or “first-strike” weapons) than for representing the relative U.S. strengths within 1 Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits. 7be Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in NuclearArms Cont?vl (New York: Vintage Ekxks, 1985), p. 216.For a history of the issue of Minuteman vulnerability, see Lawrence Freedman, U.S.Zntelligen~?and the Swiet Strategic 7hat, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press,

1986).

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Strategic Arms Reduction the nuclear triad, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko publicly denounced the comprehensive proposal as a “cheap and shady maneuver” designed to achieve “unilateral advantages” for the United States. Gromyko later said that the idea of a 50 percent reduction in Soviet heavy ICBMs was “not only unacceptable, but absurd.‘12 President Carter responded to the Soviet rejection of the comprehensive proposal by negotiating the SALT II Treaty, which was signed in June 1979. The SALT II totals were only about 10 percent lower than those of Vladivostok-2,250 total weapons (vis-a-vis 2,400) and 1,200 MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs (vis-a-vis 1,320)-although there was a new sublimit of 820 MIRVed ICBMs. However, the idea of large reductions, particularly in destabilizing weapons, was revitalized in the 1980s. During the 1980 presidential campaign Ronald Reagan stated that SALT II was “fatally flawed’ and pledged to prepare for negotiations on a SALT III Treaty dedicated to “arms reductions,” In 1981 President Reagan’s National Security Advisor Richard Allen said: “Hard-liners and liberals alike can identify with reductions. Everyone wants reductions.” Reagan renamed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks as the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START),3 and pressed throughout both his terms for major cutbacks, particularly in MIRVed ICBMs. These proposals to negotiate mutual arms reductions were paralleled by programs to improve U.S. strategic weapons. In June 1979 Caner had approved development of the MX, which would have the accuracy and size of warhead needed to destroy Soviet ICBM silos (a “hard-target” or “counterforce” capability). Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski later recalled the interrelated military and arms control implications of this decision: “I . . . believledl that we had in one swoop increased American strategic staying power and enhanced the prospects for SALT ratification.“4 Reagan delayed the resumption of arms reduction talks in order to develop the MX, the Trident II SLBM, which also had a hard-target capability, and the B-l bomber, which was designed to penetrate the thick Soviet net of air defenses. By 1988 the United States had deployed fifty MX (now named Peacekeeper) ICBMs in old Minuteman silos, By 1990 the United States had begun to place Trident II SLBMs on its Ohio-class ballistic missile-launching submarines, Those actions indicated to Soviet planners that their own land-based missiles could become as vulnerable to projected MXs and Tridents as the U.S. Minuteman missiles were becoming to Soviet SS-18s and SS-19s. 2 Talbott, Endgame. 7be Inside Story of SALTII (New in Bruce

p. 74. 7beDynamicsofSouietDefenre

Policy (Washington, DC.: Wilson Center Press), p. 300. 3 T&on, Deadly Gum&i& pp. 220-23. 4 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pouer and Principle. Menwirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977- 1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983), p. 336. Senate ratification of SALT II remained possible until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

Fall 1998 I 589

BENSON Evolving Soviet Approach to Strategic Arms Reduction While the United States was preparing to counter the Soviet buildup of MIRVed ICBMs by deploying U.S. hard-target weapons, Soviet military leaders were rethinking whether their very large nuclear arsenal was still necessary. For example, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the General Staff from 1977 to 1984 and commander in chief of the Western Theater of Military Operations from 1984 to 1988, stated in 19% that both the United States and the Soviet Union had “created a surplus of military and especially nuclear capabilities.” Ogarkov continued: “Given the quantity and variety of nuclear missile systems that have been achieved, it is simply impossible for an aggressor to destroy with a single strike the analogous systems of the other side.” Because such an attack would bring a crushing retaliatory strike, the two sides’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons “seem truly absurd from a military point of view.“5 Ogarkov spoke with authority because he was thoroughly familiar with strategic weapons and had represented the General Staff at the SALT I talks. A second reason for the Soviet military to consider reducing strategic arms was a growing belief that conventional weapons were developing sufficient range, accuracy, and explosive power to perform many of the tasks assigned to nuclear weapons. In May 1984 Ogarkov said that ‘highly accurate, terminally guided weapon systems,” unmanned aircraft, and new methods of electronic command and control “make it possible to increase sharply (by at least an order of magnitude) the destructive power of conventional weapons, bringing them closer . . . to weapons of mass destruction in terms of effectiveness.” Other Soviet spokesmen asserted that advanced conventional weapons could achieve the initial objectives of a nuclear war, including destruction of the enemy’s nuclear forces, command and control systems, and much of his armed forces6 Later, at a series of unofficial U.S.-Soviet working groups on strategic arms control in 1990-91, Soviet government officials and academic analysts consistently stated that they feared an attack on Soviet nuclear forces by U.S. cruise missiles and other long-range weapons during the conventional phase of a European war. They did not accept American rebuttals that such an attack would be too risky and provocative for US. leaders to contemplate.’ By the mid- to late 198Os, then, many Soviet strategists apparently judged that the marginal utility of expenditures (to use Western economic terms) on nuclear weapons had become less than the marginal utility of expenditures on advanced conventional weapons, A 1988 U.S. assessment of Soviet military 5 N.V. Ogarkov, Zstoriia u&t

bditel’mti (Moscow: Voenizdat, 19851, pp. 88-89,

quoted in Evangelista,

p. 301. 6 Ogarkov, “Defending Socialism: the &perience

of History and the Present,” Krasnqa zwzda, May 9,

1984, quoted in Mary C. FitzGerald, “Advanced Conventional Munitions and Moscow’s Defensive Force Posture,” Defense Ardysk, June 1990, p. 170. See also p. 171. 7 “Summary of Discussions,” In Rose Gottemoeller, ed., Strak#c Arm

Control in the Past-57WT Era

(London: Brassey’s [U.K.] for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 19921, pp. xxxiii-xxiv.

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Strategic Arms Reduction thought observed that “the Soviets do not appear to envision the degree of dynamism in the future development of strategic [offensive] nuclear forces that they associate with the development of non-nuclear or strategic defensive systems.“8 These trends in U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking converged in the START I Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Arms signed by Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in June 1991,and in the START II Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms signed by Presidents Bush and Boris Yeltsin in January 1993. START I has been ratified by both governments and entered into force in December 1994. START II was ratified by the U.S. Senate in January 1996 but as of June 1998 had not been acted upon by the Russian Duma. START I limited each side to 1,600 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (compared to 2,250 in SALT 11). It encouraged movement away from MIRVed missiles by restricting each side to 6,000 total “accountable” warheads (warheads carried by bombers were deliberately undercounted), with a sublimit of 4,900 warheads carried on ICBMs and SLBMs. The USSR agreed to reduce its heavy ICBM force from 308 SS-18s carrying a total of 3,080 warheads, to 154 SS-18s carrying a total of 1,540 warheads. This had been the goal of the 1977 U.S. comprehensive proposal. START II further reduced the total number of warheads for each side to between 3,000 and 3,500. It eliminated all heavy ICBMs (the remaining 154 Russian SS-18s) and all other MIRVed ICBMs (the medium Russian SS-19, Russian SS-24, and U.S. Peacekeeper, and the “light” Russian SS-17 and US. Minuteman III). To balance the large reduction in land-based warheads, the core of the Russian strategic force, START II placed a cap of 1,700-l ,750 on SLBM warheads, a U.S. strength. The treaty made it easier for both sides to reach these lower numbers of warheads by permitting selected types of ICBMs and all SLBMs to be reduced (“downloaded”) from multiple warheads to a single warhead. START II also changed the START I rules for counting gravity bombs and cruise missiles on intercontinental bombers; those rules had favored the United States. All START II reductions were to be completed by January 1, 2003. Both governments stated that START II would help protect their nation against surprise attack and would increase the security of both sides. At the June 1990 Washington summit Bush and Gorbachev said that their objectives for “future negotiations” (START II) were “to reduce further the risk of outbreak of war, particularly nuclear war, and to ensure strategic stability, transparency, and predictability through further stabilizing reductions in the strategic arsenals of both countries.” This was to be accomplished through agreements that “improve survivability, remove incentives for a nuclear first strike, and implement an appropriate relationship between strategic offenses 8 Notra Trulock III, Kerry L. Hines, and Anne D. Herr, SouktMilitury irhought in Trunsitiow Implications for the Long-Term Mditaty Competition (Arlington, Va.: Pacific Sierra Corp., 1988), p. 32. For an historical perspective on Soviet views of long-range conventional weapons, see Sumner Benson, “Deep-Strike Weapons and Strategic Stability,” Or& Fall 1996, pp. 503-10.

Fall 1998 I 591

BENSON and defenses.“9 Similarly, at the previously mentioned 1990-91 Soviet-U.S. working groups on strategic arms control, “Soviets and Americans alike criticized the continued existence of highly MIRVed counterforce systems under START I.“l’ START I and II also fit a broader pattern of Soviet acceptance of the Western concept of stability. In December 1987 Gorbachev and Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which removed (among other weapons) all Soviet SS-20 missiles, which were targeted primarily against Europe, and all U.S. Pershing II ballistic missiles, which could reach the Soviet Union from their bases in West Germany. The INF Treaty states that the parties are “guided by the objective of strengthening strategic stability.” In November 1990 the member governments of the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which called for “eliminating, as a matter of high priority, the capability for launching surprise attack and for initiating large-scale offensive action in Europe.“” The CFE Treaty reduced the levels of tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters, and combat aircraft from the Atlantic to the Urals.

The U.S. and Russian Rationales for START II U.S. officials have presented START II primarily as the culmination of an effort to eliminate threatening Soviet weapons that had begun even before the 1977 comprehensive proposal. In January 1995 Secretaryof State Warren Christopher told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the “elimination of ICBMs with multiple warheads” marked the “final repudiation of discredited first-strike strategies symbolized by systems such as the SS-18.” Christopher said that the United States had “long regarded these heavy ICBMs as the greatest threat to strategic stability” and that “no single act better symbolizes the end of the superpower arms race and the cold war era of nuclear confrontation than their elimination.“‘* Likewise, John Holum, the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), stated that “by cutting the total SS-18 force to zero,” START II “completes a twenty-year quest by the United States to eliminate the heavy ICBM-a weapon that, more than any other, has symbolized the most dangerous

,

9 “Soviet-United Enhancing

States Joint Statement

on Future Negotiations

on Nuclear and Space Atms and Further

Strategic Stability” (Office of the White House Press Secretary).

the UnitedStates. GeorgeBush. 1990. Book I-January Printing Office [hereafter 10 “Summaty

GPO], l%l>,

of Diissions,”

Public Papers oftbe Presiukts

of

1 toJunej’O,1990@iJashington, DC.: U.S. Government

p. 745.

pp. xxxii-xxxiii.

11 “Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe,” in SIPRI Yea&ok 1991: Woti Armaments and Disarmamen< Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991>, p. 461. 12“Prepared Statement of Secretary of State Christopher,” in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings. Consideration of Ratification of the Treaty Mueen the U.S. and the Russian Federation on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic O&nsiwz Arms (Washington, DC.: GPO, 19951, p. 10.

592

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and destabilizing aspects of the cold war nuclear confrontation.” Holum continued that START II would bring a “fundamental change in the nature of the remaining forces-away from destabilizing arsenals with maximum first-strike potential, toward safer and more stable deterrent arsenals.” Holum noted that START II served Russia’s interests by revising the START I counting rules for heavy bombers and by “requtiingl reductons in sea-based forcesthose we have traditionally favored, as opposed to heavy ICBMs.” Therefore, “from Russia’s perspective, this treaty is more balanced Russia’s [than START II, while from both our perspective and theirs, it MIRVed ICBMs is more stable.“13 Secretary of Defense William Perry likewise testified that would be by prohibiting the “most threatening of the cold war nuclear almost delivery systems,” START II ensured that the “drawdown of impossible to nuclear forces will occur in a favorable direction-away from maintain, let large, vulnerable, first-strike missiles such as the Russian SS-18, and toward weapons that serve as more stabilizing deterrents” alone such as the Russian single-warhead SS-25 and its follow-ons. modernize. Reaching back to Schlesinger’s concern when the SS-9 was first deployed, Perry stated that “by eliminating both sides’ most threatening systems, the treaty will improve not only strategic stability but also the political relationship between the United States and Russia.“‘* Russian officials have not followed their US. counterparts in portraying the prohibition on MIRVed ICBMs as the major achievement of START II. They have said, however, that reducing each side’s total number of warheads would lessen the potential threat to Russian forces by U.S. weapons, which include the hard-target Peacekeeper ICBM and Trident II SLBM. Russian officials have justified the elimination of Russia’s MIRVed ICBMs by stating that these weapons would be almost impossible to maintain, let alone modernize. According to national security analyst Konstantin Sorokin, in early 1994 the government was emphasizing that “the Americans will have to give up or scale down some of their most potent weapons.” The United States must dismantle the MX [Peacekeeperl counterforce ICBMs” and must “for the first time ever, cut, by two-thirds, the sea-based leg of the triad, including the modem Trident II counterforce systems.” By contrast, Russia’s MIRVed ICBMs were “half-way through their service lives.” These weapons “cannot be modernized or reproduced, nor can new MIRVed ICBMs be created” because most of the necessary facilities are in Ukraine.15 In July 1994 Lieutenant General Lev Volkov, who had served as chief of the central research institute within the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), stated that START II was strengthening Russia’s security by continuing the trend toward 13 “Prepared Statement of John T. Holum,” in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, pp. 26-27, 14 “Prepared Statement of Secretary of Defense Perry,” in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, pp. 76-77. 15 Konstantin E. Sorokin, “Russia after the Crisis. The Nuclear Strategy Debate,” O&is, Winter 1994, pp. 28-29.

Fall 1998 I 593

BENSON single-warhead weapons that had begun with START I. Volkov said that the 1979 SALT II Treaty made it “advantageous” to deploy the “maximum permissible number” of MIRVed ICBMs because it had restricted the number of delivery vehicles, not the number of warheads. By contrast, START I “limited to a considerably greater extent the number of weapons [warheads] compared with the number of delivery systems.” This has given incentives to both sides to protect their warheads by distributing them among as many launchers as possible. “After all, the destruction by one weapon of an ICBM with ten warheads pays, and the destruction of a single-warhead missile with one weapon is only an equivalent exchange.” That is why the SRF did not consider the elimination of Russia’s MIRVed ICBM force to be a radical change. “The START II Treaty merely shortens the timeframe of the transition to a single-warhead grouping.“16 This reasoning from within the Ministry of Defense about the vulnerability of Russian forces under START I and START II was accepted even by a I996 study for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) that criticized many aspects of START II. According to that study, if Russia’s strategic offensive forces were facing “only” U.S. strategic offensive forces, the “conditions for the completion of a retaliatory strike mission by our strategic nuclear forces would be even better to some extent after the implementation of the START II Treaty than before.” The reason is that “both1 sides would give up their MIRVed ICBMs and would form groups of SRF missile complexes only on the basis of single-warhead missiles (enhancing the survivability of the groups).“” The Defense Ministry restated its case for START II in a November 1997 briefing paper for the Duma, warning that the “balance of forces (in terms of warheads) between Russia and [the United States1 will be at the level of 1 : 1 if the START II Treaty is implemented and 1 : 2.6 if this treaty is rejected.” A follow-on article in the newspaper Red Star explained why the warhead ratio would be much less favorable to Russia if START II was rejected: The United States would capitalize on the START I counting rules for weapons on heavy bombers, and it would be able to maintain the level of MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs permitted under START I while Russia would be unable to maintain that level.” The Defense Ministry’s warning about the probable warhead ratios under START II and START I has in turn been reinforced by the Pentagon’s own projections for deploying strategic forces under the two regimes. If Russia ratifies START II, the United States will reduce its ICBM arsenal to 500 warheads 16 “START II Impact on Suxtegic Forces Viewed,” Foreign Broadcast

Military Affuivs(hereafter

l7 “CPRP Repott on START-2 Ratification,”

ACPIJ, Oct. 2, l!?%, from special supplement 1s “Defense Ministry Sends Deputies FIX 1EJ71201000264),

from Rushy

FBIS, Arms Con&

Service, Cenfral Eu~usia

Infomtion

FBIS, CEWl), June 15, lY$Yi, pp. 13, 15, from SegodnM

June 1, 1994.

and Proliferation Issues (hereafter

PBIS,

to Obozrv~~El (Moscow), July 1996.

BtiefIng Paper on START II,” IBIS, Counby:

tekgruf (Moscow),

Nov. 27, 1997. “Benefits

Russia (Document

ID:

of START II for Russia

Viewed,” FBIS, Country: Russia (Document ID: I% 199712O8OOO9O3), from Krumuyu znezdu, Dec. 6, 197. See also “NRDC Nuclear Notebook: Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, End of 1997,” 7be Bulletin of the Atomic

Sciebsts, Mar./Apr. 1998, pp. 70-71.

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(500 Minuteman IIIs, reduced from three warheads to one warhead each). Under a START I only regime, the United States “protects the option” to maintain four times that number-“not over 2,000” ICBM warheads (500 Minuteman IIIs with three warheads each, plus fifty Peacekeepers, with ten warheads each). In a START II regime, the United States will maintain “not over 1,750” SLBM warheads (fourteen Ohio-class submarines, with twenty-four Trident II SLBMs on each, and with five warheads per missile). Under a START I only regime, the United States “protects the option” to maintain twice that number-“not over 3,456” SLBM warheads (eighteen Ohio-class submarines, with twenty-four Trident SLBMs on each [almost all Trident 11~1,and with eight warheads per missile).19 Thus the analyst Sorokin, General Volkov, the Communist Party study, and the Russian Defense Ministry briefing paper have all seen the benefits for Russia of implementing the concept of strategic stability that James Schlesinger broached to Georgii Arbatov in 1967 but which Gromyko had dismissed in 1977 as a U.S. bid for “unilateral advantages.” Indeed, all four spokesmen recognize that Russia’s heavy reliance on MIRVed ICBMs makes it more vulnerable than the United States to a preemptive strike. They implicitly have agreed with the Senate testimony of Perry and Holum that the security of Russia as well as that of the United States will be enhanced as Russia moves away from heavy and “destabilizing” SS-18s and toward light and “stabilizing” SS-25s.

Revitalization of Nuclear Weapons in Russian Strategy The convergence of U.S. and Russian strategic views in START I and II seems to justify twenty years of U.S. strategic force modernization and of US. arms control negotiations aimed at reducing destabilizing weapons. If START II is ratified by the Duma and is implemented, the nuclear superpowers will have eliminated the category of weapon (MIRVed ICBMs) that brought the USSR its greatest military power vis-a-vis the United States but that gradually became vulnerable to U.S. attack and hence dangerous for Russia. In effect, Moscow will have recognized that the backbone of the Russian strategic force has become its Achilles heel, Strategic stability, however, is not the only concept influencing current Russian nuclear policy. In the mid- and late 1990s Russia has displayed a growing willingness to rely on nuclear weapons, both to offset Western advantages in advanced conventional weapons and to deter or defeat potential conventional as well as nuclear attacks around Russia’s southern and eastern borders. Many Russian statements avoid or reject Soviet-era pledges that the USSR would not be the first nation to use nuclear weapons in a war. 19Secretary of Defense Willam S. Cohen, Annuul Report to the President and the Congress (Washington, DC.: GPO [Feb.1 19981,

pp. 58-59.

Fall 1998

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BENSON The post-communist military doctrine that was approved by Yeltsin and the Security Council in November 1993, for instance, appears to give Russian leaders great flexibility in using nuclear weapons-against other nuclear-armed states, against allies of a nuclear state that join or support an attack on Russia, and against “threshold” or undeclared nuclear weapon states.” In June 1997 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told Congress that “at present, a number of Russian observers advocate placing greater reliance on nuclear weapons to compensate for the deficiencies of conventional forces.” Moreover, “some have called for developing fust-use and limited-use nuclear options to prevent a regional conflict from expanding into a broader war.” The CIA also said that “according to press reports,” in May 1997 Yeltsin approved a new military doctrine, which “explicitly authorizes Russia’s first-use of nuclear weapons to deliver a decisive response in the face of an overwhelming conventional attack.” The National Security Blueprint approved by Yeltsin in December 1997 states that “the most important task” for the armed forces is “to ensure nuclear deterrence in the interests of preventing both nuclear and conventional large-scale or regional wars, and to implement alliance commitments.” The blueprint also says that Russia “reserves the right to use all the forces and systems at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, if the unleashing of armed aggression results in a threat to the actual existence of the Russian Federation as an independent sovereign state.“21 This reassertion of the importance of nuclear weapons in Russian strategy has heightened skepticism about START II among Duma members and national security analysts. Two lines of thought, in particular, could help undercut the U.S.-Russian consensus on strategic stability and make Russia wary of further arms reductions. The first major criticism of START II involves the relative Russian and US. strengths within the nuclear triad. In January 1993, immediately after the treaty was signed, an article in Pruvdd maintained that “even a preliminary study” shows that START II “is aimed at destroying the basis of our strategic arms-MIRVed ground-launched ICBMs,” which “make up approximately 70 percent of our present nuclear potential.” In spring 1993 Aleksei Arbatov, then with the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations and now deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, stated that treaty opponents believed that the prohibition of MIRVed ICBMs would “destroy the very backbone 20 “Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,” FBIS, Daily Repot?. Central Eurasia (hereafter FBIS, DRCB Supplement, Nov. 19, 19’93,pp. 2, 3, 6 from Ra.ssr@~@ oesri, Nov. 18, 1993. 21CIA, UnclassiIied Respcxtses to Questions for the Record, &ted June 12, 1997, in U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, Hearing. Current and hjected National Security 7breats to the United States (Washiigton, D.C.: GPO, 1%7), p. 62. “Russia: Russian National Security Blueprint,” FBIS, Cenbxz~ Eurasia (FBIS-SOV-97-3&Q, pp. 15, 17, from Rossi~&uyagazetu, Dec. 26, 1337. See also Bi Gertz, “Russia to Slash Ground Forces, Rely on Nukes,” Wubngton l?mes, Oct. 17, 1!397; Reuters, “‘So What’s New? Russia Asks after Nuclear Policy Report,” Washington Times, Oct. 18, 1997; and Waker Pincus, “Russia Considering Increased Nudear Dependence,” Washington Post, Dec. 7, 1997.

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of Soviet strategic forces and operational plans” and would “eliminate the foundation of the Russian deterrent.“** A year later, in early 1994, Sorokin described START II opponents as arguing that the treaty would “force Russia into changing the entire make-up of its strategic triad by deemphasizing the ICBMs-the present backbone of the Strategic Nuclear Forces-and greatly increasing its reliance on SLBMs and heavy bombers. ” In the critics’ view, however, “this reversal” would not be “beneficial strategically.” Russia “is not a maritime nation,” “does not have free access to the ocean,” and cannot afford to improve its ballistic missile-launching submarines so that they could remain “undetected by the vastly superior American ASW [anti-submarine warfare] forces.” Similarly, the “Russian bomber fleet looks bleak compared to its American counterpart.” Sorokin stated that some START II critics reject the government’s position that the service life of existing ICBMs (SS-17s, SS-18s SS-19s) cannot be extended. These critics contend that extension of ICBM service life was “routine practice in Soviet times,” and that Russian START II negotiators presumed that it could be accomplished for the 105 SS-19s which the treaty allows to be reduced from six warheads to one.23 In July 1995 Aleksandr Golts noted in Red Star that “at the moment the treaty was signed,” it was “clear to everyone that, by eliminating ‘heavy’ missiles, Moscow was in effect changing the structure of its nuclear potential.” This fact has become more important’ politically because of the “radical decline in the level of mutual trust between Moscow and the West.“24 The second set of doubts raised about START II has been that even if the treaty is equitable with respect to strategic offensive forces, it still may leave Russia vulnerable to coercion or attack because of Western advantages in other weapons that can affect the nuclear balance, above all deep-strike conventional munitions, Lieutenant General Volkov’s assessment of START II, published in June 1995, discussed “operations against mobile and silo ~ICBMIlaunchers by aviation [armed] with guided aerial bombs or by cruise missiles [armed] with conventional shells.“25 In December 1995 retired Colonel Boris Sibirskiy stated that sea-launched cruise missiles, such as the U.S. Tomahawk which had been critical to Desert Storm, “turned out to be outside the frameworks of the START I and START II treaties, which is a substantial strategic advantage for the United States,” Sibirskiy cautioned his readers: “Don’t hurry with the elimination and restructuring of the strategic nuclear forces,” because these forces “must remain a convincing deterrent weapon and a factor of restraint that exclude the possibility of enemy employment of PGMs [precision guided munitions] against Russia.” In April 1996 Sibirskiy proposed several amendments to START II. One of these 22 “‘ProUS. Spirit’ of START Treaty Criticized,” FBIS, DRCE, Jan. 15, 1993, p. 1, from Prazh, Jan. 14, Akxei Arbatov, ‘START II, Red Ink, and Boris Yeltsin,” 7he Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Apr. 1993,

1933.

pp. 19-20. 23

Sorokin, pp. 31-32.

24 “START II Menaced by ‘Crkii of Confidence’,” FBIS, DRa

July 21, 1995, pp.

5-6,

from Krasnaya

zvez& July 20, 1995. 25 “START II Impact on Strategic Forces Viewed,” p. 14.

Fall 1998 I 597

BENSON was a limit on the number of sea-launched cruise missiles. Another was a statement that the “use of precision weapons (with conventional charges) for the destruction of strategic nuclear forces,” early warning systems, and nuclear power stations “must be viewed as the start of a nuclear war.“26 In May 1996 Sergei Kortunov, director of one of the arms control offices within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that any assessment of future “destabilizing” weapons should include the “completely realistic prospect of accelerated development of precision conventional weapons of strategic range, including by allowing refitting of heavy strategic bombers.“*’ The reference to bombers spoke to START II’s provision for reorienting up to 100 heavy bombers to a solely conventional role. The United States has said that it will assign all of its ninety-four B-l bombers to this role. These arguments reach back to statements by Soviet military writers of the late 1970s to the effect that long-range conventional munitions were increasingly able to perform the tasks of nuclear weapons. They also recall the apprehensions of Soviet participants in the 1990-91 strategic arms conference that Western conventional weapons might be used against Russian nuclear forces during the conventional phase of a war in Europe. Finally, Russian strategists and political commentators have emphasized the START II implications of advanced missile defenses, It is widely believed in the Duma and the national security community that American plans to deploy theater missile defenses and perhaps national missile defenses are intended not only to guard against missiles launched by hostile third world nations but also to affect the East-West strategic nuclear balance. For instance, in May 1% Sergei Karaganov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe within the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated that the US. intent to deploy theater missile defenses may lead to another technological am-is race and that “like NATO [enlargement] it feels destabilizing.” In January 1996 Vladimir L&in, former ambassador to the United States and chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Russia would insist on “an undeviating and strict observance” of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty as a condition of START II ratification. In February 1998 a general officer who is a member of the Duma Defense Committee asserted that “nothing can alter the U.S. capability to turn tactical ABM into strategic [ABM].” The Defense Ministry appeared to acknowledge these concerns in December 1997, in connection with deployment of the fast SS-27 single-warhead ICBM (follow-on to the SS-25). One press story noted that in developing this missile, “special attention was given to increasing the capacity for overcoming ABM defense.” Thus the SS-27 “may be regarded as the Russian response to the persistent 26 “Russia: Available Countermeasures to Use of PGMs,” FBI& C?W& Jan. 24, W96, pp. 15, 17, from Nezavisimqye yoyennoye ohzwni~, Dec. 14, 1335. “Russia: Amendments to START II Urged upon Duma,” PEW, CEML4,Apr. 24, 1~6, p. 4, from Nezavhimqye tqwwqw oborraifi Mar. 14, 1996. article by Kotiov ln n “Russia: Future of Nuclear D’Lwrmarnent Examined,” FBIS, ACPJ July 12, 1996, Yademyy kvontml(Moscow, May l%16, no. 17).

598 I Orbis

Strategic

Arms Reduction

attempts by influential forces in the United States to promote their program for the creation of a national territorial ABM defense.‘lB A few analysts have tried to estimate the effect of Western long-range conventional weapons and missile defenses on Russian nuclear forces. For instance, the 1996 CPRF report that we have cited presents the mathematical equation that the “combined (or aggregate) quantity of nuclear weapons on strategic delivery vehicles” at the beginning of any conflict should be greater than, or equal to, the “quantity of weapons to be delivered to the territory of the adversary for the completion of the combat mission” plus the “anticipated losses of weapons during the non-nuclear period of warfare” plus the “anticipated losses of weapons as a result of a Kirstl nuclear strike by the adversary” plus the “probable losses of weapons during efforts to penetrate the adversary’s ABM system.“29

Implications for START II and Minimum Deterrence Russia’s concerns about the prohibition on MIRVed ICBMs and about Western strengths in long-range conventional munitions and missile defenses pose challenges to the concept of mutual strategic stability. START I and II presumed that the nuclear balance was determined almost exclusively by the strategic offensive weapons of the two superpowers. Force levels were seen as high enough that neither side needed to devote much effort to countering the nuclear or conventional forces of third nations, either with strategic offensive weapons or with missile defenses. In addition, the START treaties were signed at a time when both sides believed that nuclear weapons gradually could be reduced in favor of conventional weapons and when neither side anticipated the extent of Russia’s economic and military collapse. Under those conditions it seemed sensible for Russia as well as the United States to concentrate on limiting the threat that MIRVed ICBMs posed to the security of both nations. An assessment of Russian doubts about START II suggests, however, that an alternative strategic perspective may be emerging. If Russia must rely on nuclear weapons to deter or defeat a range of conventional as well as nuclear attacks, then Moscow might choose not to abandon its most potent strategic weapon. MIRVed ICBMs or, at least, a large number of single-warhead zs Steven Edanger,

“Clinton in Moscow: Focusing

General on Russia’s Right to Withdraw Moscow

on Differences,”

New York Tiwze.q May 4, 1995. David

“Russian Says Arms Treaty Vote Should Follow ElectIon,” Washington

Hoffman,

Past, Feb. 1, 1996. “Russia:

from START Treaties,” FBIS, CenCra~Euvasiu @BIS-SOV-98-040),

ITAR-TASS, Feb. 9, 1998. “Topol-M Success Seen as Boost for Sergeyev,”

ID: FIS 19971229QOO274), from Neuavisimayagazera, Described,”

FBIS, Russia (Document

Dec. 25,1997. See also “Upgraded

ID: FIX 19971224C00520)

Yakovlev on Top01 Role in Missile Philosophy,”

from

from

FBIS, Russia (Document ICBM’s Specikations

Izxstiyq Dec. 24, 1997; and “Russia:

FBIS, Central Eurasia (FBIS-TAC-98-0441, from Nezutiimayu

gazeta, Feb. 12, 1998. 29 “CPRF Report on START-2 Ratification.” See also Sorokin, p. 32.

Fall 1998

I 599

BENSON ICBMs may appear the only strategic force that would allow Russia to control a volatile military situation around its borders. Moreover, Russia must assume that the United States will pursue its programs for deep-strike conventional weapons and for theater and national missile defenses so long as US. interests around the world appear threatened by nuclear and missile proliferation. From Moscow’s perspective, the impact on the nuclear balance of “strategic” conventional weapons and of missile defenses will increase as the number of strategic offensive weapons decreases. This suggests that Russia should be cautious about reducing its offensive forces (not just its ICBMs), even if such a reduction would be to Russia’s advantage in terms of a hypothetical U.S. nuclear first strike. Thus the concept of strategic stability, with its call for symmetrical US. and Russian forces and for substantial arms reductions, may seem to some Russians to have reached the point of diminishing returns. That concept solved the problem of destabilizing weapons faced first by the United States and then by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It may appear less useful for a Russia beset by military pressures around all its borders as well as by non-nuclear Western weaponry that may affect the East-West nuclear balance. We cannot now foresee whether a new, more Russia-specific strategic doctrine will crystallize out of the doubts engendered by START II, let alone whether any such doctrine will challenge the official consensus on strategic stability. We can, however, make tentative judgments about how the Russian government will approach START II in the near future, as well as how Moscow will view recent unofficial proposals for much larger reductions in nuclear forces. Many critics of START II have conceded that the treaty might be acceptable if it were modified or amended to take account of certain Russian objections. The most frequent objection has been that because of Russia’s economic difhculties, the United States will gain an unjustified advantage from the treaty’s purportedly high level of total warheads and short deadline for implementation, For example, Aleksandr Golts asserted in his article of July 1995 that after eliminating its MIRVed ICBMs, Moscow would “hardly be able to attain even START II’s permitted ceiling,” because it %imply [would1 not have the money in the near future to build the requisite number of single-warhead land-based missiles and strategic bombers,” In December 1997 Lieutenant General Lev Rokhlin, chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, stated that ratification of START II in its original form would cost Russia $30 to $50 billion. “First we will have to destroy our missiles and then build them again.“3o The United States has been willing to modify START II to assuage this Russian concern. At the Helsinki summit in March 1997 Presidents Bill Clinton and Yeltsin agreed that once START II entered into force (presumably soon 30 “START II Menaced by ‘Crisis of Confidence’,” p. 6. “Rokhh: START II Accord Needed for START III Ratification,”FBIS, Russia (Document ID: FIS 19971205COO163), from Moscow Interfax, Dec. 5, 1997. See also “Russia:Duma Aide-START-2 Gives U.S. ‘Advantage’ as Richer Country,” FBIS, ACPI, Oct. 19, 1996, from Romjskaya @zeta, Oct. 19, 1996.

600 I Orbis

Strategic Arms Reduction after Duma ratification), the two nations would “immediately begin negotiations on a START III agreement.” This would include establishment of “lower aggregate levels of 2,000-2,500 strategic nuclear warheads for each of the parties” (Russia had proposed this figure during the START II negotiations). The two presidents also agreed that December 31, 2007, would be the deadline both for reaching these new START III levels and for eliminating the missiles and bombers that are to be prohibited under START II. This five-year delay in implementing START II (from January 1, 2003 until December 31, 2007) is to be offset, at least in part, by removing the “First we will warheads from prohibited missiles and bombers by December have to 31, 2003.31

destroy our

and Finally, Clinton and Yeltsin took steps toward defining tissiles the level of missile defenses that would be compliant with the ABM Treaty. This was intended to reassure Russia that Wash- then build ington did not plan to build theater or national missile defenses them up.” that would prevent Moscow’s strategic nuclear forces from retaliating effectively if Russia were attacked by the United States, The combination of a lower total number of warheads and an additional five-year period to adapt strategic forces to this total will make it much easier for Russia to maintain parity with the United States in ICBMs than would have been the case under START II in its original form. This START II/START III “package” should persuade the Duma to ratify both treaties, or at least to maintain a studied ambivalence that tacitly permits the executive branch to comply with the terms of the treaties. It is hard to see how Moscow could gain from outright rejection of the package since doing so would, in effect, dare Washington to realize its maximum projected Peacekeeper and Trident II deployments at a time when Russia, because of economic stringency, will have difficulty maintaining the existing START I force levels, Of course, the Duma could reject START II for political rather than military reasons. For example, in early February 1998, when the United States was considering bombing Iraq because of Iraqi interference with United Nations arms inspectors, CPRF leader Gennadiy Zyuganov said that “the Americans are acting like drunk cowboys” and “have lost all sense of propriety.” Under such conditions, Zyuganov asserted, “to consider a treaty that deprives the country of its nuclear protection . . . is something no self-respecting politician will do.“32 Russian military arguments against strategic arms reductions may well carry more weight with respect to proposals to follow START II and III with 31 ‘Joint Statement

on Parameters

on Future Reductions

the United States and the Russian Federation,

in Nuclear Forces,” signed by the Presidents

of

Helsinki, Mar. 21, 1997. See also, for example, John M. Go&o,

“U.S., Russia Real&m Nuclear Pact,” Washington Post, Sept. 27, 1997; “ABM Deal Seen in Russia’s Interests,” FBIS, Rmiu (Document

ID: ITS 1998011200061),

from Nezuwis~

wennqve

oboneni~,

“Russia: Duma Official Urges Faster Ratification of START II Treaty,” FBIS, CentralEurasia from Moscow

Interfax, Jan. 20, 1998; and Rrlanger,

Jan. 9-15,

1998;

(IBIS-TAC-9%020),

“Russia Vows to Push Arms Pact, To Pave Way for

Summit,” New York Times, Mar. 12, 1998. 3* Daniel Wiiliams, “Yeltsin Says Bombing

Iraq Might Bring World War,”

Washington Past, Feb. 5, 1998.

Fall

1998 I 601

BENSON further large reductions in offensive forces. An October I996 study by the Russian Institute for the World Economy and International Relations and the US. Arms Control Association suggested that after START III had been implemented, “both countries could agree to scale down their inventories over time to l,OOO-1,250 or even fewer warheads.“33 A June 1997 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences called for confining “nuclear deterrence” to the “core function of deterring nuclear attack, or coercion by threat of nuclear attack, against the United States or its allies.” From this perspective, “reduction to about 1,000 total both strategic and tactical] warheads each for the United States and Russia would be a logical next step” beyond START III. Looking further ahead, the report maintained that “a few hundred nuclear weapons would be sufficient to deter nuclear attack through their potential to destroy essential elements of the society of any possible attacker.” The authors of the National Academy study “believeldl that Russia and the other nuclear weapons states can be persuaded to reach a comparable conclusion.“34 High-ranking officials in both the US. and Russian governments have suggested that, at least in principle, such dramatic reductions are not out of the question. During the 1995 Senate hearings on START II, for example, Secretary of Defense Perry said that he could envision Russian-U.S. negotiations “going down to hundreds, instead of thousands of nuclear weapons,” In September 1997 Russian foreign minister Evgenii Primakov stated with respect to START III, “I can tell you that Russia would be prepared to discuss even lower caps.” In December 1997 Duma Foreign Affairs Committee chairman L&in pointed to a “growing understanding” on both sides of the Atlantic that Russia and the United States should each have l,OOO-1,500 warheads. In February 1998 the commander in chief of the SRF took note of the START III total of 2,000-2,500 warheads and added that this number “must then be reduced to 1,000 or 1,500” because “our economy will not stand a larger number of nuclear munitions.“35 33 Oleg N. Bykov and Jack Mendeisohn,

START ll7 Negotiations: How Far and How Fast? (Washington,

DC.: Atlantic Council of the United States, Oct. 1996), p. 18. For other recent proposals (some very far reaching), see “Retired Generals Re-Ignite Debate over Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” Am?s Contml Today, Nov./Dee. 1996, pp. 14-15, 18; “Russia: Text of Generais’ Nuclear Arms Appeal,” FBIS, Daily Repoti. Sovief, Dec. 6, 1996, from Nzza&imuya gazeta, Dec. 6, 1996; Stansfield Turner, Caging the Nuclear Genie (Boulder, Cola.: Westview Press, 1997); Bradley Graham, “Carter, Gorbachev Join Gail To Reduce Nuclear Threat,” Washington Post, Feb. 2, 1998; and “Statement

on Nuclear

Weapons

by International

Civilian Leaders,”

Washington Pat, Feb. 3, 1998. For two critiques of these proposals from different perspectives, see Robert G. Joseph and John F. Reichart, “The Case for Nuclear Deterrence Today,” Or& Winter 1998, pp. 7-19; and Charles L. Glaser, “The Flawed Case for Nuclear Dis armament,” Sun&~, Spring 1998, pp. 112-28. 34 Committee on International Security and Amts Control, National Academy of Sciences, The Future of U.S.Nuclear Weapons Policy (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 19971, pp. 3, 7-8. 35 U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, p. 89. “Primakov on NATO, China, and Arms Control,” Washington Post, Sept. 21, 1997. “State Duma to Debate START-2 Treaty ‘Soon’,” FBIS, Country: Russia (Document ID: FTS 19971217001166), i?om EAR-TASS, Dec. 17,1997. “Russia: Gen. Yakoviev Urges Ratification of START II,” FBI& Cenhal Eurasia (FBIS-TAC-98-0511, from Zzesfiya, Feb. 20, 1998. More broadly, Yeltsin said in hi Internet session of May 1998 that “klhe future does not belong to nudear weapons. In the final analysis we wiii have to eliminate nuclear weapons.” See “Russia: Yeltsin Says Nuciear Weapons Have No Future,” FBIS, Central Eurasia (FBIS-SOV-98-1321, from Pans AFP b-id, May 12, 1998. Compare Miiylov: No Alternative to Nuclear Weapons,” FBIS, Cen&ul Eurasia (FBIS-TAC-98-054).

602 I Orbk

“Russia:

Strategic

Arms Reduction

These statements suggest that the nuclear superpowers may someday come to agree on the concept of minimum deterrence just as they have come to agree on the concept of strategic stability. Any such projection, however, must take account of Russia’s renuclearized military doctrine and its sensitivity to potential changes in the East-West nuclear balance. Those factors indicate that Moscow probably will be much more reluctant to accept a force of 1,000 (not to mention several hundred) warheads than to accept the START II/START III package permitting 2,000-2,500 warheads. Because of its historic concern about a two-front war and hostile encirclement, the Russians probably want to deploy a nuclear force that approximates the combined total of their potential adversaries. That is particularly true because NATO and China each surpass Russia in size of conventional forces and in the rate at which these forces are being modernized. Moreover, Russia apparently views itself as a “great power” (veZ&qz derzhaua) ranking below the United States but above other European or Asian powers. This means that Russia probably would hesitate to reduce its nuclear force to a level that might invite comparison with the nuclear forces of Britain, France, or China.% It is not yet clear how Moscow will assess the impact on Russian security of the May 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. Concerns that a “minimum deterrent” strategy might lower Russia’s standing as a global nuclear power would be reinforced by consideration of the East-West nuclear balance. The United States and NATO are discussing missile defenses that would protect Western territory against “rogue state” attacks of up to several hundred warheads. This means that Russia would be unlikely to reduce its strategic force much below 1,000 warheads without calculating carefully the effect of Western missile defenses on the strategic balance. Also, a Russia with several hundred or even 1,000 nuclear warheads presumably would be more apprehensive of attack by Western long-range conventional weapons than would a Russia with 2,000-2,500 nuclear warheads. Finally, reduction to a minimum deterrent force almost certainly would lessen the number of silo-based ICBMs, and perhaps of mobile ICBMs. The Duma might well accept (explicitly or implicitly) the elimination of MIRVed ICBMs in order to gain the compensating advantages of the START II/START III package. But it is hard to imagine that Russian leaders would see any net gain in reducing their land-based forces even further at a time when a tightly controlled nuclear arsenal stands at the center of Moscow’s new military policy.

36 ‘Ihere has been speculation within the U.S. that Russia would insiit that Britain, France, and China participate in any START lV negotiations. See Elaine M. Grossman, “Strategic Comman d Chief Sees Long Road Ahead to START IV,” Inside fbe Pentagon, Mar. 5, 1998. In February 19% the commander in chief of the SRF said that after the conclusion of START III, “this process must also be joined by the remaining members of the nuclear club-France, Britain, and China.” See “Russia: Gen. Yakovlev Urges Ratification of START II.”

Fall 1998 I 603

BENSON Conclusion Over the past twenty years the Russian government has come to accept an American approach to strategic arms control that emphasizes reduction, then elimination of destabilizing, first-strike weapons. The prolonged Duma examination of START II may produce an alternative strategic doctrine that is more in keeping with Russia’s historic military strengths and more attuned to Russia’s current view of prospective military threats. Such an alternative to strategic stability appears compatible with the START II/START III package, but probably not with proposals to limit superpower nuclear arsenals to 1,000 or fewer strategic warheads. Reductions of that magnitude probably would require the same degree of Russian-U.S. agreement on how to cope with nuclear and missile proliferation that the two nations have achieved on how to eliminate destabilizing nuclear weapons in their own arsenals. Such a consensus would emphasize close cooperation in stopping the spread of dangerous weapons (such as missile technology to Iran) as well as in deploying missile defenses that could defeat attacks by third parties without undercutting either superpower’s capability to retaliate against an attack by the other. The United States and Russia have not yet achieved this consensus either with respect to proliferation or with respect to missile defense.

604 I O&s