MISSILE BARGAINING

The words "legacy of the Cold War", as was probably expected, have acquired a firmly negative meaning in the world. This unflattering phrase was awarded to military bases, missile arsenals, bunkers and staff and intelligence organizations oriented to the "main adversary"… And maybe, no-one really thought that the world has also inherited a system of treaties signed between the USA and Soviet Union, which more or less guarantee the balance of forces and the observance of some rules of the game, from the "Cold War" that was following by the "d?tente" and Gorbachev's "new thinking".

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or to be more precise the treaty that bans it, was signed in 1972. Its essence was to create that same "MAD", i.e. mutual assured destruction: if all sides do not have even a theoretical chance to survive a nuclear war, it will probably not start. The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty was signed in 1990 and concerned the limitation of conventional forces in Europe.

Now it cannot be ruled out that the whole system of treaties left over from the time of confrontation between Moscow and Washington might collapse very soon, many analysts think. The USA has announced its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and Russia its withdrawal from the CFE Treaty. Although formally, Moscow does not link its withdrawal from the CFE Treaty to the ABM Treaty, Romania's former president and now senator, Ion Iliescu, clearly said at his news conference in Baku that Russia's withdrawal from the CFE Treaty should be seen as a response to the US decision to deploy missile defence systems in Europe.

Meanwhile, the problem of missile defence systems did not appear yesterday. The USA started talking about its withdrawal from this treaty several years ago. Their arguments were quite persuasive: when this treaty was signed, only the USA and USSR had missiles that could reach each other's territory. Now many others have ballistic missiles. Iranian Shahabs and North Korean Nodons and Tephodons are quite a real threat from which you have to defend yourself. At that time, Russia's objection was quite flabby, but when Washington announced its plans to deploy missile defence systems in former member countries of the Warsaw Treaty, Moscow saw this as an attack against itself. This is not the first time that the deployment of American missiles in Europe has caused tensions between Moscow and Washington.

Now Russia firmly says that the elements of the US missile defence system deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic threaten the country's security. In any case, the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, Yuriy Baluyevskiy, has published a large article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where he criticized US plans to deploy elements of the missile defence system in Europe.

Baluyevskiy stressed that White House representatives speak in their official statements about defence from missile threats from "rogue states". However, today Russia is on the list of threats to the USA again, which was clearly stated by Pentagon boss Robert Gates. The Russian army chief of staff also recalled the words of Condoleezza Rice who said in an interview with the French press six years ago: "I am not tired of saying that the main threat to the world today comes from cornered Russia, in the sense that part of its nuclear potential might fall into bad hands, namely "rogue states" or political organizations. I also know that at some point, its interests will be in conflict with ours."

Baluyevskiy supposes that the deployment of elements of the US missile defence system in Europe is the beginning of a new round of the uncontrolled arms race. It started because the USA itself is unilaterally destroying the international mechanism in the sphere of disarmament and control over weapons, which was created for many years during the "Cold War". "Degradation of the global and regional regimes of control over weapons is going on," Baluyevskiy said. In the general's opinion, there are persuasive examples of this: the USA's withdrawal from the missile defence treaty and the new American nuclear doctrine, which not only lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons, but also "turns it out of a political means of deterrence into a battlefield weapon". 

The Russian commander is sure that today's Iran and North Korea of the recent past are only a cover for the real purpose of the system: to change the strategic balance in their own favour by creating conditions for more effective use of strategic nuclear forces. Baluyevskiy writes in Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the main target of the missile defence system in Europe is Russia.

Representatives of Washington snappishly reply: Unlike the Pershings of the early 1980s, these mine-based missiles and radars are defensive weapons, at least to the same degree as the air defence systems sold by Moscow to Syria. Besides that, the Americans think that they have every right to defend their country from missiles that can be launched from the territory of Iran or North Korea. For this reason, Washington should not wait for Moscow's consent if Prague and Warsaw agree to deploy the radars. Plus, if Iran does not have missiles that can reach Europe today, it does not mean that Iran will not have them tomorrow.

"Within eight years, Iran will get missiles that are capable of hitting targets in Europe and even in the American continent," US Assistant State Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation John Rood recently said. In his opinion, Iran can always get any necessary missile technologies from the North Korea, which is already supplying ballistic missiles to Iran.

In turn, the US intelligence service warns that by 2015, the Iranians might develop their own ballistic missiles that can reach Europe and the USA. "Our assumptions are based on the possible period of developing missiles in Iran with little aid from foreign states," Rood said. Assistant US State Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried also said that Iran has hundreds of medium-range Shahab-3 missiles and is developing new armaments. Besides that, the USA is also afraid of the Islamic Republic's plans to develop missiles carrying satellites since this technology is similar to the technology required for developing long-range missiles.

Fried pointed out that in connection with the development of Iranian weapons, it is necessary to deploy missile defence facilities in European states. "We need to find a way to defend the USA from a missile threat, defending Europe at the same time," he said. According to the assistant state secretary, the missile defence system has proved its effectiveness by hitting 27 of 35 targets during trials. Thus, new reports about the success of Iran's missile programme boost the statements of top US officials that mine-based missiles and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic are needed to defend Europe from Iranian missiles.

But if the USA started talking about its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty several years ago, Russia's withdrawal from the CFE Treaty was officially announced in February this year, when the director of the security and disarmament department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Anatoliy Antonov, told journalists in Moscow: "Judging by their deeds, not words, NATO members are clearly not interested in the renewal and effective work of the CFE Treaty, and in having clear "rules of the game" that would meet the current realities in this sphere." In Antonov's opinion, "as a result of the expansion of the alliance, some key restrictions stipulated by the 1990 CFE Treaty are considerably exceeded. Thus, the actions of the NATO countries question the viability of the entire European regime of control over conventional forces." Commenting on Russia's possible withdrawal from the Convention Forced in Europe Treaty if the ratification of its adapted version is delayed, Antonov answered: "The CFE Treaty has a whole set of instruments that allow its members to defend their interests - from raising issues of concern with the joint consultative group to withdrawing from the treaty in case of exclusive circumstances that threaten their supreme interests. Finally, there are also other norms of international law that can be applied in this case".

The Russian diplomat said that "Russia will define on the basis of its own interests, specific situations and the actions of other members of the treaty which of these instruments should be used and when". Antonov also said that Russia has ratified the CFE Treaty adapted in 2004, while NATO countries have not done it, linking the ratification to the withdrawal of Russian troops and military hardware from Georgia and Moldova. Although NATO refers to certain obligations undertaken by Russia in Istanbul, Antonov said on behalf of Moscow that "there was no link between the ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty and Russia's bilateral agreements with Georgia and Moldova in Istanbul". "We are not going to pretend that the 1990 CFE Treaty is functioning normally and suits us. We raise the following issues with our partners. They bear responsibility for the future fate of the treaty," the diplomat concluded. The first reports about Russia's plans to raise the issue of "adapting" the CFE Treaty again since the expansion of NATO "violates the previous quotas" appeared in June 2006.

Then the same arguments were repeated by Vladimir Putin during his Munich speech: "The Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty was signed in 1999. It took into account the new geopolitical reality - the liquidation of the Warsaw bloc… NATO countries openly said that they will not ratify the agreement, including the provisions on flank restrictions (on the deployment of a certain number of armed forces on the flanks) until Russia withdraws its bases from Georgia and Moldova. We are withdrawing our troops from Georgia at a high pace. We have solved these problems with our Georgian colleagues, and everyone knows that. In Moldova, there is still a group of 1,500 servicemen who carry out peacekeeping missions and guard arms depots left over from Soviet times." And then the president started making accusations: "But what is going on at that same time? At that same time, so-called light American vanguard bases with 5,000 soldiers each turn up in Bulgaria and Romania. It turns out that NATO is moving its vanguard forces to our state borders, but we are not reacting to these actions, strictly following the treaty." Recently, Putin spoke on this subject in his address to the Federal Assembly. This time he spoke about a moratorium on the CFE Treaty. Then Sergey Ivanov stressed that because of the restrictions imposed by the CFE Treaty, Russia could not gather a sufficient military group in Chechnya in the past.

Naturally, Russia's statement was accepted with regret. And it is obvious that by announcing its withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, Moscow got "material for bargaining" with Washington during the negotiations on the missile defence system. It is clear that on both sides of the Atlantic, there will soon be many people who would like to accuse Moscow of destroying the CFE Treaty and Washington of launching "a missile race". 

In any case, superpowers' guilt for the death of the two treaties left over from "the Cold War" is a subject of another conversation. The thing is that another issue remains unnoticed here: the political responsibility of those "rogue states" whose missile programmes and nuclear preparations, if we call a spade a spade, destroyed the ABM Treaty. And what's more, no-one remembers the leaders of aggressive separatism, be it Chechnya or Nagornyy Karabakh. Their activities also undermined the CFE Treaty. It is obvious that nowadays it is hardly possible to establish global security without solving regional problems.