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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 04:47pm Jun 16, 2001 EST (#5290 of 5291)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"Although the two will talk again next month in Italy at a meeting of the leading industrial nations, Mr. Bush said he had invited Mr. Putin to Washington next fall and to take a detour to visit Mr. Bush's beloved ranch near Crawford, Tex. Mr. Putin accepted.

"And Mr. Putin in turn invited Mr. Bush to visit Russia sometime soon. Mr. Bush also accepted.

"Everybody is trying to read body language," Mr. Bush said during the news conference. "Mark me down as very pleased with the progress and the frank discussion."

"Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Putin was the climax of his first overseas trip as president, a five-day, five- country trip that underscored priorities of his that have caused friction with European allies and Russia.

"In regard to the missile shield, some of those allies are also reluctant to scrap the ABM Treaty, and Mr. Bush's success or failure in bringing Russia on board could have a profound influence on, for example, the attitudes of France and Germany, both important allies that have expressed qualms.

"Before today's meeting, senior administration strategists said they were prepared to offer the Russians arms purchases, military aid and joint antimissile exercises as incentives to scrap the 1972 treaty. These officials said the proposal might include the purchase of Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could be integrated into a defensive shield over Russia and Europe.

"But Mr. Bush said that nothing like bargaining had occurred today, and aides said that such matters would be discussed in coming weeks and months by the leaders' advisers, not by the presidents themselves.

""I offered something," Mr. Bush told reporters. "Logic and a hopeful tomorrow. I offered the opportunity, which the president is going to seize, for us, as leaders of great powers, to work together."

Ii "n fact, Mr. Bush said that he had directed Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who accompanied him here today, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to begin a series of discussions with their Russian counterparts.

"Today's meeting brought together two men with extremely different backgrounds — a former Texas oilman with a brief history in government and a former K.G.B. spy with the resume of a bureaucrat — and innumerable points of potential conflict.

(more)

rshowalter - 04:48pm Jun 16, 2001 EST (#5291 of 5291)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"But before their meeting, as they posed for photographers in and around a picturesque castle in what used to be a corner of the former Yugoslavia, they seemed relatively relaxed. At one point, as they sat in adjacent chairs, they leaned so close to one another that their foreheads almost touched.

"During their discussions, they took at least a bit of time out from substantive issues to talk about their families. Mr. Bush recalled at the news conference that during their talks, Mr. Putin had told him, "I read where you named your daughters after your mother and mother-in- law."

""Yes," Mr. Bush remembered replying. "I'm a great diplomat, aren't I?" He said that Mr. Putin responded: "I did the same thing."

"But all of that bonhomie could not paper over points of contention, including the issue of NATO expansion. On Friday, during a speech in Warsaw, Mr. Bush said that he envisioned an Atlantic Alliance that would include the Baltic states and stretch all the way to Russia's borders. That kind of talk has long made Moscow nervous.

"But in an indicator of Mr. Putin's clear desire to start his relationship with Mr. Bush — or at least the part of it on public display — in an amicable vein, the Russian president said he had been heartened by Mr. Bush's remarks, which also cast Russia as a part of Europe and potential ally.

"We value this," Mr. Putin said. "When a president of a great power says that he wants to see Russia as a partner, and maybe even as an ally, this is worth so much to us."

" Mr. Putin also said, "Russia is cooperating with NATO," adding, "There's no need to fire up this whole situation."

" That challenge facing Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin was not nearly as daunting as the one that confronted the representatives of Washington and Moscow decades ago, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Back then, each meeting of this kind was a delicate, dire attempt to stave off the prospect of nuclear annihilation — to keep the cold war on ice. The surnames of certain American and Soviet leaders seemed linked together, like a single tense, symbiotic unit: Kennedy and Khrushchev, Nixon and Brezhnev, Reagan and Gorbachev.

"And yet the issue hovering over all others at the talks today between Mr. Bush, a former Texas oilman, and Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. spy, once again involved missiles."

________

That's as good as could be expected. Much to do, but the possibility of sorting a lot out seems to exist.

And stances, between Russia, the US, and the other countries in NATO seem conducive to communication.

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