A successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty might address U.S. plans to deploy long-range, conventionally armed missiles, Russia suggested yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 2).
The U.S. Defense Department has proposed deploying by 2015 a small number of long-range conventional missiles that could hit targets halfway around the world with just 60 minutes' notice (see GSN, July 1). Moscow, though, has said it would be unable to distinguish whether such a weapon carried a nuclear or conventional warhead.
"Some countries, including the United States, are working on non-nuclear strategic weapons. This is a subject of negotiations with our American colleagues," Interfax quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. "President Dmitry Medvedev said many times that it was a key problem for Russia. Hopefully, it will be resolved within the framework of the Russian-American treaty (on the reduction of strategic offensive armaments)."
Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed in July to cut their nations' respective deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads under a START successor, down from the 2,200-warhead limit the states are required to meet by 2012. The leaders also pledged to restrict strategic delivery vehicles on each side to between 500 and 1,100 (Interfax I, Nov. 2).
Nuclear armaments will remain a necessity to Russia for the foreseeable future, Lavrov added, according to RIA Novosti.
"If there were only five nuclear powers in the world and they abandoned their nuclear weapons, after which only conventional weapons -- muskets, cannons and pistols -- would remain, we would have disarmed ourselves a long time ago," he said.
Additional nations possess nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, though, and nuclear technology might continue to proliferate, Lavrov said.
Nuclear disarmament "means many things, including practical agreements that will prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons technology anywhere in the world," he said (RIA Novosti, Nov. 2).
After meeting with Lavrov, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed hope yesterday that the ongoing arms reduction negotiations between Washington and Moscow would eventually incorporate other nuclear-armed countries (Interfax II, Nov. 2).