On April 6, 2008, during the second day of the summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Sochi, the United States and the Russian Federation issued a “Strategic Framework Declaration.” Much of the text – which outlines broad objectives regarding core areas of the bilateral relationship – addresses WMD-related issues. Yet, “moving the U.S.-Russia relationship from one of strategic competition to strategic partnership,” as called for in the declaration, will require the United States and Russia to overcome major bilateral differences on some issues. [1] In addition, Russia and the United States probably lack the capacity to achieve their stated joint strategic objectives without the support of other countries that play important roles – both positive and negative – in areas central to their evolving relationship.

Strategic Nuclear Arms Control
The Strategic Framework Declaration begins by stressing that, “We acknowledge that today’s security environment is fundamentally different than during the Cold War. We must move beyond past strategic principles, which focused on the prospect of mutual annihilation, and focus on the very real dangers that confront both our nations. These include especially the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.”

Nonetheless, the first item listed in the text, “Post-START,” is very much an issue inherited from the Cold War confrontation between Moscow and Washington. In this case, the two governments reaffirm their intent “to carry out strategic offensive reductions to the lowest possible level consistent with our national security requirements and alliance commitments.” Although noting that the “Moscow Treaty” remains in effect, the two sides also state that they will seek “a legally binding post-START arrangement.”

Moscow and Washington affirm in the declaration that these strategic arms control measures will represent “a further step in implementing our commitments” under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the NPT’s Article VI, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Presidents George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) on July 31, 1991, after a decade of difficult negotiations and only months before the USSR’s disintegration. The treaty required both countries to reduce their strategic holdings to 6,000 nuclear warheads on a maximum of 1,600 strategic delivery systems (land- and sea-launched ballistic missiles as well as long-range bombers) by December 5, 2001.

Although these limits remain in force, in their May 2002 Russian-American Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), Washington and Moscow committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals even further – to between 1,700 and 2,200 “operationally deployed strategic warheads” by December 31, 2012. Nevertheless, the verification of SORT (also known as The Moscow Treaty) depends heavily on extensive on-site inspections, data exchanges, and other compliance measures found in START. When SORT was signed, it was widely assumed that Russia and the United States would either simply extend START beyond December 2009, when it expires, or negotiate new verification measures before the accord’s expiration.

Until recently, Russian and American negotiators had made very little progress in negotiating a follow-on agreement to START. Decrying what he termed the “stagnation” in Russian-American arms control, in June 2006 President Putin called for a renewed bilateral dialogue aimed at replacing the 1991 START agreement with a new bilateral arms control accord before START expires. [2]Formal Russian-American discussions began in March 2007. Thus far, the main point of agreement between the two governments has been their decision not to extend the original treaty past its scheduled expiration date.

If START expires without a new agreement, both governments will have to rely primarily on less effective national means of verification after December 2009. Questions also exist about the Moscow Treaty’s lack of detailed verification procedures or comprehensive rules for warhead reductions, the absence of a timetable, its 90-day withdrawal clause, and other uncertainties associated with the document, which runs only three pages (shorter than the Strategic Framework Declaration).

During their joint press conference at Sochi, President Putin recalled that, “Last year in Kennebunkport, Mr. Bush and I agreed to start work on a new agreement that would replace the START Treaty…We agreed that it would be necessary to maintain all the useful and necessary parts of the START Treaty. We’re going to continue working on this.” [3] The problem is that the sides disagree over what “useful and necessary parts” of the treaty should be preserved and which should be abandoned or altered.

Russian negotiators are pushing for a new formal treaty that would replace START and supersede SORT. [4] The Kremlin wants the new accord to be legally binding and more detailed than SORT, which it perceives as insufficiently constraining to ensure predictability and parity in the Russian-American strategic nuclear relationship. For example, Moscow favors firm limits on the number of U.S. nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, as well as restrictions on their possible deployment in foreign countries. Russian representatives also would like to require the United States to eliminate warheads removed from its active stockpile rather than simply placing them in storage, which makes them readily available for reentry into the operational force. Finally, Russian officials, while open to eliminating some of START’s more burdensome implementation requirements, generally support retaining some of the detailed verification and data exchange provisions that have long characterized strategic arms control agreements. [5]

The Bush administration, however, values flexibility over predictability. Although U.S. negotiators recently announced that the United States would accept a legally binding treaty, they continue to seek a new agreement that would enable Washington to adjust its nuclear arsenal rapidly to meet unanticipated strategic challenges as well as technological opportunities. [6] Washington officials, for example, desire greater freedom to convert strategic missiles for use as long-range, high-speed conventional strike weapons. To hedge against technical and other possible problems with the U.S. nuclear stockpile, U.S. policy makers also wish to retain a larger number of reserve warheads than Moscow would prefer.

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with reporters while flying to Moscow in mid-March, she made clear the Administration’s continuing lack of enthusiasm for traditional arms control treaties: “I don’t think we have objections to a formal agreement. The more important question is what is it that we will be formalizing.” Rice observed that she wanted to avoid a START-like document that “almost filled this (aircraft) cabin” because it was no longer necessary given that, “It’s a very different world now.” [7]

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates concurred that the administration would not favor the pursuit of a legally binding treaty embodied in a lengthy document that required protracted negotiations. [8] When in Moscow on March 18, Gates stated that, “I told both President-elect Medvedev and President Putin that we don’t have the time to create a telephone book-size agreement on this, that there are ways in which we need to deal with strategic arms, to provide each other with predictability and confidence, but also take into account the uncertainties of a 21st century world.” [9] At the same Moscow press conference, Rice praised SORT because it focused on “operationally deployed warheads, which is really what matters” and because the Moscow Treaty “didn’t try to do too much.” She added that the Administration would like the next strategic arms control treaty to be more formal than SORT but less elaborate than START: “an agreement that brings forward some of the positive elements of START in terms of verification and the like, but preserves the essential insight of the Moscow Treaty, which is that this is a different world in which you don’t need the kind of highly articulated, expensive limitations and verification procedures that attended the strategic arms relationship with the Soviet Union.” [10]

A few days before the Sochi meeting, Sergei Prikhodko, a key Putin advisor on national security issues, complained that, “The Americans want to reduce everything to extending the Moscow 2002 Treaty, supplementing it with some confidence building measures and measures to enhance transparency. At the same time, attempts are being made to apply limitations only to ‘operationally deployed warheads,’ leaving warheads in storage unconstrained by any numerical limits.” [11] Russian strategists have long worried about the ability of the United States to reconstitute its pre-START capacity by rapidly transferring (“uploading”) these reserve warheads back into their operational systems.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
The Sochi Strategic Framework includes a single sentence on arms control and intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF): “Taking note of our Joint Statement on the INF Treaty at the sixty-second session of the UN General Assembly, we will engage in a high-level dialogue to analyze current and future intermediate-range and shorter-range ballistic and cruise missile threats and inventory options for dealing with them.”

The 1987 Russian-American INF Treaty defines intermediate-range nuclear forces as systems “capable of attacking targets at ranges of 500–5,500 kilometers.” The treaty prohibits the two countries from developing, manufacturing, or deploying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with these ranges. Its negotiation ended one of the most dangerous confrontations of the Cold War, the so-called “missile crisis” of the early 1980s, when Soviet and American missiles faced each other across the east-west divide in Europe. [12]

For several years, Russian national security leaders have chafed at the limitations the treaty places on their country’s mid-range missile arsenal. In January 2005, then Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov discussed Russia’s possible withdrawal from the INF Treaty during a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, then U.S. Secretary of Defense. [13] Ivanov complained that the accord uniquely discriminated against Russia and the United States by making them the only countries legally forbidden to possess intermediate-range missiles. Ivanov remarked: “When we signed the treaty, nobody besides the US and USSR possessed these missiles. I don’t think anyone even in their worst dreams could imagine missile technology could spread so quickly...I think you may see all countries have them except Russia and the US.” [14]

Since then, Russian defense experts have engaged in an open debate regarding whether to withdraw from the INF accord. In October 2007, Putin told Rice and Gates in Moscow that his government would find it difficult to continue complying with the INF Treaty unless other countries ratified the agreement as well: “If we are unable to make such a goal of making this treaty universal, then it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of such a treaty, especially when other countries do have such weapons systems.” [15]

At present, most Russian commentators appear to oppose abrogating the INF treaty because, on balance, it still promotes important Russian security interests. For example, treaty proponents warn that its demise could hurt Russia more than the United States by allowing NATO to deploy missiles much closer to Russian territory than during the 1980s, when the United States placed new intermediate-range missiles in Germany, Italy, and other NATO countries. In addition, they caution that constructing a new intermediate-range missile arsenal could require the Russian defense industry to divert resources from rebuilding its fleet of longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, which Russian experts see as more valuable in countering global threats. [16]

Washington and Moscow are currently seeking to strengthen the INF Treaty by encouraging other countries to join the accord. At the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly, they issued a joint appeal to that effect. [17] French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s recent statement that Paris would consider supporting a global ban on short- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles has renewed Russian hopes that other countries might accede to the INF Treaty. [18]

Presumably the “high-level dialogue” and joint threat assessment mentioned in the Strategic Framework will allow Moscow and Washington to discuss how to induce other countries to adhere to the INF’s provisions. Within this context, they might also consider additional means to curb the proliferation of ballistic missiles.

Nuclear Nonproliferation
The Russian-American Strategic Framework adopted at Sochi proclaims that “our two countries will provide global leadership on a wide range of cooperative efforts that will advance our common nonproliferation goals. These will include new approaches focused on environmentally-friendly technologies that will support economic growth, promote the expansion of nuclear energy, and create a viable alternative to the spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies.” The document then affirms Moscow’s and Washington’s continued support for a broad range of nuclear non-proliferation activities, including: various programs aimed at expanding the use of nuclear energy while limiting the spread of sensitive fuel cycle technologies; the accelerated timetable for implementing nuclear security upgrades in Russia adopted by Bush and Putin in their Joint Statement on Nuclear Security Cooperation, signed at their February 2005 summit at Bratislava; and the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and other measures aimed at limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction to countries of proliferation concern as well as to non-state actors.

At present, Moscow, Washington, and other countries are pursuing largely independent initiatives to limit the spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies, which can be used to manufacture nuclear bombs as well as nuclear fuel. In essence, they aim to create a multinational system that would guarantee the delivery and return of nuclear fuel to states that restrict their use of nuclear energy to peaceful pursuits. These endeavors rely on market incentives, rather than coercive methods, to encourage countries to lease fresh nuclear fuel from designated provider states that already possess advanced civilian nuclear industries and then repatriate the resulting spent uranium fuel to the original supplier for reprocessing and disposal. The assumption underpinning these policies is that guaranteeing states the right to purchase and store fuel internationally at modest cost should make it unnecessary for them to develop indigenous uranium enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. The motives of those countries that nevertheless attempt to develop their own expensive sensitive nuclear technologies independently would then receive extra scrutiny from the international community since manufacturing their own fuel would cost them more than leasing it from foreign suppliers. Although other factors might influence their decision, including considerations of prestige or self-reliance, a desire to achieve the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons could be one (unwelcome) consideration.

The Strategic Framework endorses various Russian and American initiatives seeking to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons technologies. For example, it notes Washington’s support for Russia’s establishment of an International Uranium Enrichment Center on its territory. In May 2007, the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan, a major supplier of uranium, signed an agreement to create an International Center for Uranium Enrichment in Angarsk, Russia. [19]

The framework document also relates Moscow’s backing for the U.S.-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), an international consortium of nuclear energy producing countries seeking to develop more efficient and more proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycle technologies than existing commercial ones. In May 2007, senior officials from Russia and other countries attended GNEP’s inaugural meeting in Washington. The participants issued a joint statement that declared as their dual objectives “the safe and secure expansion of civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” and curbing “the spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies.” [20] Moscow’s potential contributions to the GNEP include sharing nuclear fuel cycle technologies and facilities as well as cooperating in developing more advanced plutonium recycling techniques. [21]

In addition, the Strategic Framework notes both that Moscow is trying to create a stockpile of low enriched uranium that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could use to guarantee nuclear fuel supplies to recipient countries and that the United States has pledged to contribute $50 million to a future IAEA international fuel bank that would also help the agency provide reliable nuclear fuel supplies. Both governments further endorse in the Sochi declaration the IAEA Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO).

The Strategic Framework also affirms Moscow’s and Washington’s expectation that they will “sign in the near future and work to bring into force” the bilateral civil nuclear energy agreement that the Russian and U.S. governments initialed in June 2007. Putin and Bush originally discussed such an arrangement at their joint news conference held on the sidelines of the July 2006 G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg. [22] The proposed nuclear energy accord is only a framework agreement. The two governments would need to negotiate separate arrangements for any cooperative civil nuclear energy project conducted under its auspices. [23] Even so, the agreement would establish the essential legal basis for expanding Russian-American cooperation in the area of civil nuclear power to encompass possible joint business ventures as well as the transfer of nuclear materials and nuclear technologies.

The agreement would also facilitate Moscow’s efforts to expand Russia’s role as a provider of international nuclear fuel services. Although Taiwan, South Korea, and other countries have expressed interest in storing their spent nuclear fuel in Russia, their atomic energy agreements with the United States forbid them from transferring U.S.-origin nuclear material elsewhere without prior American consent. Section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act requires Russia and the United States to negotiate a separate bilateral accord in order for Russia to import U.S.-controlled spent nuclear fuel or collaborate with the United States in many other areas of peaceful atomic energy (e.g., developing advanced nuclear technologies). U.S. officials have not yet secured congressional approval of a Section 123 waiver, but Secretary Rice indicated that the two countries made further progress on the issue at the March 2008 2+2 talks in Moscow. [24] That same month, the State Department designated U.S. Ambassador Jackie Wolcott as special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation and assigned her lead operational responsibility for realizing the U.S.-Russian nuclear energy agreement. [25]

The Strategic Framework Declaration adds that both countries will “continue to expand and strengthen” their Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GI), which the two presidents had also launched at their July 2006 meeting in St. Petersburg. The initiative aims to improve coordination of nonproliferation programs that contribute to averting nuclear terrorism. [26]The GI’s current priorities include decreasing the availability of nuclear material to terrorists; improving the capabilities of participating nations to counter trafficking of such materials; promoting information sharing and other cooperation between law enforcement agencies engaged in combating nuclear terrorism; improving legal and regulatory frameworks in this area; minimizing the use of highly enriched uranium and plutonium in civilian activities; and strengthening national capabilities to manage the consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack. [27] Although the GI began as a bilateral Russian-American initiative, it has since gained widespread international support even among non-G-8 members. More than 50 countries joined the GI in its first year; as of April 2, 2008, 63 nations were full partners. [28]

With respect to specific states of proliferation concern, Bush and Putin devoted most of their attention at Sochi to Iran. The Strategic Framework document affirms that the United States and Russia “remain committed to political and diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated solution guaranteeing that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.” The declaration, like previous joint Russian-American statements, called on Iran to comply with UN Security Council resolutions, specifically mentioning their requirement that Iran suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities.

Before traveling to Sochi, President Bush repeated his endorsement of Russian efforts to discourage Tehran from seeking sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies by offering to deliver fresh uranium fuel and repatriate spent fuel from Iran’s Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr. [29] American and Russian policy makers have argued that this longstanding offer means Iran has no legitimate need for an indigenous capacity to manufacture or reprocess nuclear fuel. At their Sochi press conference, the U.S. president again applauded Putin’s “leadership on the Iranian issue.” [30]

Iranian leaders rejected the Russian proposal a few days after the summit. Mohammad Saidi, deputy head of the Iranian atomic energy organization, argued that, “Unfortunately, the export of nuclear fuel in the world has turned from a trade and economic matter into a political problem, and there is no such thing as guaranteed nuclear fuel supplies.” Saidi instead called for constructing an international uranium enrichment facility on Iranian territory. [31]

Bush also said that he and Putin had “briefly touched on the six-party talks with North Korea – the need for us to work together to help that nation move forward.” [32] The Strategic Framework proclaims both governments’ continued commitment to the Six-Party Talks, the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, and “the ultimate goals of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Although U.S. and Chinese officials have assumed the lead role in negotiating with the North Koreans, Russian representatives have also encouraged Pyongyang to roll back its nuclear program. In addition, Russia chairs the Six-Party Working Group responsible for addressing regional security issues. Its chairman, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, has declared his government’s long-term objective of establishing a more permanent institution than the Six-Party talks to address northeast Asian security issues. [33]

Conclusion
The U.S.-Russia Strategic Framework Declaration is not a formal, legally binding document. Rather, Russian and U.S. officials characterize the text as providing general guidelines for their successors in shaping bilateral security and economic relations. At Sochi, President Bush stated that its signing shows “the breadth and depth of our cooperation.” [34] President Putin, however, correctly described the text more as a summation of past progress than a roadmap for future Russian-American relations when he observed: “Of course, it does not provide any breakthrough solutions on a number of issues, but we did not really expect this. It is important that the document sums up the positive achievements of the past few years.” [35]

Where the text does discuss future issues, it does so without much detail. In addition, while Russia and the United States clearly are the most important countries for many WMD issues, realizing their joint nonproliferation goals – especially regarding curtailing the development of intermediate-range ballistic missiles or expanding the use of more proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycle technologies – will require other governments to adhere to the declaration’s principles. Securing the support of these other key players for the positions enunciated in the Strategic Framework could prove problematic given that they were excluded from its drafting.

Richard Weitz – Hudson Institute