U.S. and Russia Sign START
Today President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which the Christian Science Monitor says represents the “first major strategic accord between the former superpowers since the end of the cold war.”
The two countries reached an agreement last week, but earlier this week, sources reported that the treaty contained an opt-out clause, which Russia hinted it will use if the U.S. continues to build and strengthen missile defense in Europe.
According to Bloomberg, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said if “the U.S.’s build-up of its missile defense strategic potential in numbers and quality begins to considerably affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces,” Russia will back out of the treaty. He added that his country and the U.S. “should begin to jointly analyze threats and only after we’ve done this can we reach a common understanding of these threats…This would enable us to make decisions on what steps we need to take, including what facilities to build and where.”
Dmitry Suslov, an expert with the Council on Foreign and Defense Policies, told the Monitor that his country “is laying down the message that this new treaty is fine, but we should not interpret this as a new era in relations. The strategic picture is changing in ways that Russia is not completely comfortable with, and we need to keep our options open.”
Under the new START, Russia and the U.S. agreed to reduce long-range missiles by 30 percent. Russia and the U.S. signed the previous treaty in 1991. Both countries reduced nuclear warheads to 6,000 and delivery vehicles to 1,600. Eleven years later, the Moscow Treaty, a follow-up to START, required warhead reductions to between 1,700 and 2,200.
(ISIFA Photo)
Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, Russa, START