Bush, Putin Vow to Slash Warheads

Reflecting the change in relations between two Cold War adversaries, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin vowed Tuesday to cut their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.

Bush’s offer came first, at a White House news conference attended by both men. Putin responded later in the evening during a speech to a high-powered U.S. and Russian audience, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, at the Russian Embassy in Washington.

During the next 10 years, Bush said, the United States will bring its number of nuclear warheads, now approximately 7,000, down to the range of 1,700 to 2,200. At the news conference, Putin made no specific declaration to cut the number of Russian weapons, but he noted that “we, for our part, will try to respond in kind.”

Several hours later, he did. Weapons, Putin noted, only stand in the way of better relations. “We no longer have to intimidate each other to reach agreements,” he said in his speech, which was hosted by the embassy in cooperation with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Nixon Center, two think tanks.

Tuesday’s announcements followed a meeting at the White House that primarily focused on the nuclear arsenal but also addressed terrorism, the Middle East peace process, trade and other issues. In a joint statement, the two presidents said the former adversaries now have “a new relationship . . . founded on a commitment to the values of democracy, the free market and the rule of law. The United States and Russia have overcome the legacy of the Cold War. Neither country regards the other as an enemy or threat.”

The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States gave new impetus to attempts to forge closer ties between the two countries--forcing the Bush administration to adopt a less unilateral approach to the rest of the world and jolting Moscow because of its own problems with Islamic fundamentalism.

The reduction in nuclear weapons by both sides would be the lowest levels of warheads since the 1960s. At the peak of the Cold War, the combined nuclear arsenal numbered about 30,000 weapons. But times are different now, Bush noted. “We’re . . . working hard to put the threats of the 20th century behind us once and for all,” he said.

With his unilateral decision on the cuts--which would take the U.S. arsenal below the level that some military planners consider the minimum requirement for deterrence--Bush sliced through the arms control process that has been the foundation of Washington-Moscow diplomacy since the Kennedy administration.

Bush presented the numbers as a decision made in Washington alone and not as a target to be negotiated with Moscow. That would have been the way arms levels were determined in the past, when each side argued for years over numbers of warheads and how to verify any agreement.

At the news conference, Putin had indicated that Moscow wants a negotiated agreement, with specific numbers and processes under which adherence can be confirmed--a course that would prohibit a buildup if Washington decided it had eliminated too many weapons. Such an agreement would be linked to the future of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which Bush considers outdated--and which both nations consider a crucial document blocking U.S. tests of a missile defense system.

It was unclear whether Putin’s later remarks meant that he will not seek a negotiated agreement.

Bush and Putin agreed to begin negotiations on revisions to the ABM treaty, but Powell said no agreement on that issue should be expected any time soon.

At his evening address, Putin said he supports a “radical program of further reductions of strategic arms by at least three times,” meaning a two-thirds reduction, Russian officials later clarified. With an arsenal of 5,858 nuclear warheads, that would leave Moscow with about 1,900--although Russia has talked to U.S. officials about both countries cutting back to 1,500, a figure the Russians can afford to maintain.

The two-thirds cutback would keep “a minimal level necessary for maintaining strategic balance in the world,” Putin said.

Some Pentagon officials have said privately that 2,500 warheads is about as low as the U.S. arsenal should be allowed to go. If the total force is too small, they said, the nation would have no choice but to hit cities in retaliation for an attack. The ability to attack hardened military targets requires more weapons than are needed to target populated areas.

But there was no talk about the grim arithmetic of nuclear strategy Tuesday. Bush treated Putin as a trusted friend. According to a senior administration official, Bush concluded a discussion of terrorist attacks by telling Putin, “You’re the kind of guy I like to have in a foxhole with me.” After their news conference, Bush took Putin on an unplanned tour of the private residence on the third floor of the White House, surprising their wives at lunch.

Although a U.S.-Russian treaty setting limits on nuclear forces would require congressional approval, no action by the lawmakers is required for the unilateral cuts. As commander in chief, Bush has constitutional authority to determine force posture as long as the changes are not covered by treaty.

Bush and Putin had met three times--in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, in Genoa, Italy, and Shanghai--before the Russian leader arrived here on his first presidential visit to the United States.

Their dialogue Tuesday reflected the rapidly evolving state of play in the U.S.-Russian relationship, as they find themselves allied in the war against terrorism and facing an arms control environment that has changed dramatically during the past decade.

Still, on the first of three days of talks that will continue at Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, this evening and Thursday morning, the very different approach they took to the issue of long-range nuclear warheads also reflected the distance between the two leaders.

Expressing frustration with the rigorous parsing of sentences and the mathematics of Cold War arms talks, Bush said, with Putin at his side: “A new relationship based upon trust and cooperation is one that doesn’t need endless hours of arms control discussions. . . . My attitude is, ‘Here’s what we can live with.’ ”

“I looked the man in the eye and shook his hand. And if we need to write it down on a piece of paper, I’ll be glad to do that. But that’s what our government’s going to do over the next 10 years. . . . Let me say this: We don’t need arms control negotiations to reduce our weaponry in a significant way.”

Their extended efforts to portray common ground notwithstanding, the differences between Russia and the United States remain where they have been at least since the start of the Bush administration nearly 10 months ago: over the heart of the Cold War relationship--nuclear weaponry--and particularly the future of the ABM treaty.

Russia views the treaty prohibiting testing and construction of missile defense systems as the heart of arms control, because it is an insurmountable obstacle to one side achieving a meaningful strategic advantage if the two maintain a balance in offensive weapons.

Bush repeats at every opportunity, as he did Tuesday, his view that the treaty is a relic of the Cold War that should be junked, to allow the United States to protect itself from a missile launched not necessarily by Russia or China but by a “rogue state”--terminology for Iraq or North Korea--or by terrorists.

These differences are likely to be the centerpiece of any diplomatic business conducted--around tours of canyons, chuck-wagon barbecue and a quintet of singing cowboys being brought in to entertain--during the overnight visit that Putin and his wife, Ludmila, are paying at the ranch.

The informal tenor, common among more like-minded allies but rare in the long history of Washington-Moscow dialogue, suggests an aggressive effort by Bush and Putin to be at ease with each other. For Putin, the warming relationship offers an opportunity to demonstrate to skeptics at home that ties with the United States are genuinely growing warmer.

And if the two leaders can get over the hurdle of the ABM treaty--leaving some structure in place while allowing the United States to test a defensive weapon--they will have moved onto an entirely new course that signals the end of the immediate post-Cold War period, analysts say.

But not yet, in the view of some critics.

Describing the reductions Bush announced as welcome, Tom Collina, director of global security of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said they nevertheless “do not adequately respond to current security threats of proliferation and terrorism.”

“For all Bush is saying about leaving the Cold War mind-set, he’s still there, because the United States and Russia are calibrating forces to each other, rather than dropping them” to the level needed to meet the threat from less powerful but nuclear-equipped nations, he said.

But at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington public policy center, senior fellow Ariel Cohen said that a treaty with Russia wouldn’t address “the multipolar balance of nuclear power in the world. It is no longer ‘us and them.’ We are going beyond the Cold War paradigm of arms control.”

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.