From: Stasi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ABM Treaty: Russia Calm But May respond With MIRVs - FT HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY: : Russia calm over US withdrawal from N-arms pact: But Moscow may respond by putting multiple warheads on long-range missiles, write Andrew Jack and Stephen Fidler Financial Times, Dec 13, 2001 By ANDREW JACK Russia reacted yesterday with rhetorical calm to a US decision to withdraw from an important bilateral arms treaty, but some politicians indicated Moscow would respond by placing multiple nuclear warheads on its missiles. Dmitry Rogozin, a senior pro-Kremlin politician, said that Russia would develop heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles loaded with multiple nuclear weapons following the US decision to withdraw from the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty. Mr Rogozin, head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee and a member of the pro-Kremlin Unity party, said the US action was no "tragedy or drama", and that it freed Russia from its restrictions in the Start II arms reduction agreement. President George W. Bush yesterday informed leaders of the US Congress of his decision to withdraw from the treaty, of which he must provide six months' notice. Withdrawal will allow the US freely to test various missile defence programmes and begin construction of testing facilities in Alaska in the short northern summer next year. He and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, failed at a summit meeting in the US last month to reach agreement on the treaty. US officials have said that Russia had indicated it could accept the testing programme for missile defence but wanted advance consultation before each test, a requirement at which Washington balked. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment said it would have been easy within the treaty to secure agreement on the Alaska construction. "They are breaking the treaty on very dubious grounds. This is the easiest thing in the world to do within the treaty," he said. US officials have said that Mr Bush's attempt to create a new type of relationship with Russia, which the US no longer viewed as an enemy, meant that the ABM treaty was no longer a centrepiece of Russian-US relations. The reaction in Europe was expected to depend in part on Russia's response, but coming on the heels of the US decision last week that was seen by allies as an attempt to derail negotiations on a biological weapons convention, it appears likely to reinforce fears about US unilateralism. Yet, the Russian response was calm. Russian press agencies cited anonymous senior officials stating that they had already been informed of the US decision to launch the six-month notice period for withdrawal from the treaty from today. Russia's public position has long been to preserve the treaty as the cornerstone of strategic stability, and it has argued that it contains sufficient flexibility to allow testing of the US's planned national missile defence system. However, top officials have already indicated privately and increasingly publicly that they are prepared for a withdrawal and while they disagree with that, they are not overly concerned. Igor Ivanov, the foreign affairs minister, said earlier this week during a visit to Moscow by Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, that the two countries had failed to agree on missile defence but that Russia had drawn up plans taking into account the possibility of a unilateral US withdrawal. Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Russia's Communist party, said the US had already in effect withdrawn from the ABM treaty, and called the decision "an aggressive policy designed to impose a diktat on the whole world". Russian generals have previously talked about multiple nuclear warheads, but they are constrained by the country's limited military budget, and the growing emphasis on creating rapid-reaction forces for dealing with conflicts with conventional weapons on the country's southern borders. That was one reason why Russia was pleased to see Mr Bush agree to substantial reductions in its nuclear arsenal in line with its own proposals of 1,500 weapons. However, despite a likely agreement on nuclear force reductions - and the apparent willingness of the US to codify it - any decision by Russia to place multiple warheads on its strategic missiles would be regarded as worrying by arms control supporters. Yet their greatest concern may be the reaction of China. Arms control experts say China is worried that its small nuclear force would be rendered ineffective by even a limited US missile defence system, and that US development efforts will encourage it to increase its force and perhaps place multiple warheads on its missiles. But US officials have repeatedly said China intends to increase its force of nuclear weapons - comprised of about two dozen ICBMs - regardless of what the US decides to do about missile defence. Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-1998 _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
