Compelling Logic of Start II : Duma must see treaty’s great value to Russia

No negotiations between Moscow and Washington have been more complex, arduous or vital than those that sought first to limit and then to slash the superpowers’ nuclear arsenals. The crowning achievements of decades of talks came only in the last few years, as the Cold War gave way to an under- standing--the ultimate success of which is still being tested--that both sides gain enormously when points of tension are reduced and cooperation increases.

START I, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in 1991, calls for reducing long-range nuclear arsenals over seven years, by 35% on the Russian side and 25% on the American. START II, potentially the most far-reaching disarmament pact ever, followed less than two years later and has now been ratified by the U.S. Senate on a vote of 87 to 4. But the treaty’s fate at the hands of Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, is shrouded in doubt.

Many in the Duma argue that Russia gave away too much in START II negotiations, especially in agreeing to drastically cut its land-based multiple-warhead missile force. When it ratified START II the Senate set a condition: The United States would not begin reducing its arsenal as the treaty calls for until the pact was approved by the Duma. If the Duma fails to act on the treaty, this country will be left with the burden of maintaining thousands of redundant nuclear warheads that contribute nothing to national security.

START I requires the two sides to cut their deployed nuclear warheads to between 6,000 and 8,000, down from a Cold War high of up to 12,000. START II would reduce each country’s ceiling to no more than 3,500 by 2003. That still allows each side a surfeit of strategic warheads and assures the deterrence that nuclear weapons have always provided, while significantly easing the costs and risks of maintaining a hugely inflated nuclear arsenal.

The Senate, for various reasons, took three years to act on START II. In apparent defiance of the odds, Washington hopes the Duma might be persuaded to ratify it this year. But the Russian presidential election set for June complicates an already bleak picture. Nationalist politicians, not all of them radicals, increasingly question the value to Russia of its more cooperative relations with the West, which the START treaties boldly exemplify. A victory in June by an extremist candidate could lead to a demand to renegotiate or even scrap START II.

START II’s compelling logic is that it is overwhelmingly in the self-interest of both countries, because it goes far to ease tensions and save resources and because the controls called for in dismantling discarded weapons lessen the chance of nuclear diversion. The converse is no less true: A refusal to implement START II would inevitably work to fuel suspicions and raise tensions. START II is clearly in Russia’s national interest, just as it is in the U.S. interest. The challenge is to get Russia’s nationalistic politicians to acknowledge that fact.