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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 - 12:53pm Jun 24, 2001 EST (#5956 of 5957)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD4811rshowalter 6/12/01 7:44am

" It seems to me, and has for many years, that when competent American professionals meet each other -- in situations where cooperation and competitions are both issues -- they ask, routinely, in the ways that matter for the interaction, two questions:

. . . . .

" In complex circumstances, there are many such questions, asked step by step, and the good negotiators and professionals I've seen in action ask them. And, in my experience, the pros only proceed when they have worked through reasonable answers to these questions, step by step -- so that they when they are under pressure, they have alternatives to act on, or relate their logic and expectations to.

" Putin and his staff, I believe, should think these matters through, in this spirit, and decide, in view of all the circumstances, including the wishes of other nations, how it wishes to proceed, . . .

" We face situations so complex that they are hopeless unless decisions are made on the basis of facts and models that are as correct as we can reasonably make them.

It seems to me that President Putin is proceeding in this careful manner -- and I hope with some of the same concerns almarst has expressed -- because almarst cares about peace.

We know that the public Putin cares deeply about peace as well - - on the 22d, he gave a beautiful moving speech that indicated that.

I think it makes sense to post Patrick Tyler's Week in Review piece.

rshowalter - 12:56pm Jun 24, 2001 EST (#5957 of 5957)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Just What Game Is Putin Playing? By PATRICK E. TYLER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/weekinreview/24TYLE.html

MOSCOW -- "To earn his black belt in judo, President Vladimir V. Putin spent years sizing up opponents before trying a throw. So it shouldn't be surprising that soon after that soul-gazing summit with President Bush, the Russian leader delivered an unexpected blow to his new partner — and radically shifted the terms of the debate about missile defense.

"Mr. Bush had seemed exuberant that he had created some momentum in Europe for his proposals when Mr. Putin shifted the ground under him. The Russian leader said if the United States acted unilaterally by withdrawing from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty to build the missile shield, Russia would pull out of all arms control treaties of the last 30 years. Then it would increase the power of its nuclear arsenal manyfold by abandoning its commitment to phase out multiple warheads on its ICBM's, one of arms control's signal achievements under the second strategic arms reduction treaty.

"The Russian leader insisted he was not trying to threaten anyone. But with disarming candor he demonstrated that though Russia has a relatively weak hand to play in international affairs, he intends to play it as best he can to undermine American unilateralism where it threatens — at least in his view — Russian national interests.

"Russia has inherited much of the bargaining power of the Soviet state as the only country with the capability to destroy the United States with nuclear weapons. It maintains a huge, if aging, nuclear arsenal that includes strategic rockets that have multiple warheads, but are due to be dismantled or replaced with single warhead missiles.

"Because Europe is watching, Mr. Bush, for now, needs Russia's assent to modify the ABM treaty. Mr. Putin explained how he and Mr. Bush should proceed: first, examining the missile capabilities of so-called rogue states, then determining the best way to counter those threats with missile defense technologies and then discussing where such defenses conflict with the treaty.

"And Mr. Putin laid down the markers of how Russia might respond if it turns out that Mr. Bush had feigned cooperation. Russia possesses an enormous potential to play the spoiler by spreading its most sophisticated weapons technologies to unstable places around the world — something Mr. Putin now says he has no intention of doing. But there have been rumors in Russia's defense establishment for a year that Moscow might sell an Oscar II class nuclear submarine to China. Like the ill-fated Kursk that sank last summer, the Oscars carry a complement of superfast torpedoes and cruise missiles designed in Soviet times to destroy American aircraft carriers. And China has been looking for weapons to keep the American fleet at bay in the event of a showdown over Taiwan. The list could go on: Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq are hungry for the advanced missiles that Moscow produces, but Mr. Putin has withheld them while working with Europe and the United States to stem the flow of dangerous technology.

"It seems Mr. Putin has found an excellent position. As long as he sticks to fundamentals — the long record of arms control that has created the only existing security guarantees in the nuclear age — Mr. Bush will carry the responsibility for any consequences of a decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty. The cost of a withdrawal, Mr. Putin said, will be Start I and Start II — not to mention the likely abandonment of Start III negotiations, which hold the promise to cut in half again the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.

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