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Putin wants missile defense-nuclear weapons linkage; but untapped potential synergy between the West and Russia beckons if the two sides can move closer
Washington Wire Global Report Dec. 29, 2009
News reports have Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arguing for new offensive strategic nuclear weapons in Russia, countering the introduction of U.S. missile defense systems to maintain what he casts as a desirable Cold War-style strategic balance.
The State Department has been quick to take the position that negotiations over a new START treaty focus on nuclear arms reductions as a separate issue from missile defense.
President Ronald Reagan's robust support for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed "Star Wars," has been credited as a major factor bringing financial pressure to bear on the old Soviet Union and helping to hasten its demise. Currently SDI is known as missile defense, including a range of missile interceptors, and energy-based weapons such as an airborn laser, in various stages of development.
President Barack Hussein Obama II aroused controversy by delaying the development of missile defense in Europe, which had been viewed as important to defend Europe against the emerging missile threat from Iran, especially given Iran's reputed nuclear weapons program.
Joint missile defense systems involving both the United States and Russia, or shared elements such as radar, do not appear to be on the immediate horizon, but are cognizable given the leadership of both nations in space and aviation, including what has been, for Russia, at least a rudimentary missile defense system, albeit one with nuclear-tipped interceptors.
At least one news source has Putin pointing out that there are differences of opinion as to whether a new treaty is even necessary. While the Bush administration and Russia had moved away from legal formalisms in favor of a results-oriented approach, the Obama administration has shown greater interest in the old-style treatymakins.
Absent from current discussions about nuclear arms reduction and missile defense is the question of whether the growin power and sophistication of American conventional missile capabilities mean that the United States could actually destroy Russian strategic forces, at least land-based forces, on the ground with conventional arms.
However, the issue at hand is whether missiles already flying lose their effect if a missile defense system can intercept them, and therefore undermine any deterrent effect from the Russian systems in place.
The bottom line, however, is that Western forces wish to develop stronger partnerships with Russia, and there is no reason to believe that NATO would have reason to attack.
It might be that Putin's anxiety over missile defense is really an anxiety over the twin security vulnerabilities of weak conventional forces and population decline.
Russia has seen a need to upgrade its conventional forces heightened by difficulties addressing assymetrical threats such as terrorism, even while flexing its muscle more effectively against Georgia in the context of the attempted Russian annexation, or subjugation, of Georgian separatist territories.
At the same time, Russia's biggest vulnerability is its declining population.
In the face of questions about Russian conventional forces and population collapse, the nuclear arsenal provides an emotional blanket that nevertheless risks being rendered, more and more, as big an anachronism against terrorism as it is in the face of both missile defense that can shoot it down, and conventional forces, such as cruise missiles or stealth aircraft, that could destroy strategic forces with little advance warning.
Russia is stronger with the West than against it, and both sides ultimately instinctively long for the security that would come from greater partnership. Other cultural and socio-political obstacles, such as rule of law issues, complicate the matter, but there is still untapped synergy scientifically, technologically, politically, and militarily on the missile defense issue.
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