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U.S.-Russia II: Analysts Call for Less Reliance on Mutually Assured Destruction By Mike Nartker Despite recent tensions in the U.S-Russian relationship resulting from the recent war in Iraq, the two countries are still capable of developing a strategic partnership and of moving away from the Cold War-era doctrine of mutually assured destruction, says the paper, prepared by analysts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and the Institute for Applied International Research in Moscow (see GSN, April 10). To do this, however, a “new and positive agenda” — including joint missile defense development and a reduction in the readiness of the two countries’ nuclear arsenals — needs to be developed based on transparency, confidence-building and cooperation, the paper says. At a discussion yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment, IAIR Deputy Director Yury Fedorov said current U.S.-Russian tensions were causing a “quite serious” crisis, but hopefully “a short one.” The planned summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to be held in St. Petersburg June 1 will hopefully mark the beginning of the end of the crisis, he said. U.S. and Russian analysts have determined two key areas where U.S.-Russian interests coincide and where better cooperation could be achieved — missile defense and early warning of missile strikes, according to the paper (see GSN, May 21). In the area of missile defense, while initial stages of U.S.-Russian cooperation has begun, Russian scientific and technical capabilities in the field could be further exploited, the paper says, highlighting Moscow’s active missile defense system. Russia also possesses well-developed technical capabilities to detect missile activities that could be better be exploited through improved U.S.-Russian cooperation, the paper says. It notes the wide geographical area Russia can monitor for missile activity through radar stations positioned in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Siberia (see GSN, Nov. 1, 2002). “Despite the weakened capabilities of the space arm of the Russian warning system, the satellites and ground centers in the system can be an important addition to the American space network, which does not possess equally strong capabilities across all regions for global monitoring,” the paper says. In addition to joint missile defense and early warning of missile activity, the United States and Russia could engage in more advanced, longer-term cooperative projects, the paper says. One such project could be the joint development of new strategic systems, it says, noting that both the United States and Russia will have to replace older sea- and land-based strategic missiles. Transparency and Confidence-Building For the United States and Russia to improve cooperation and thereby develop a better strategic partnership, they must first improve transparency with regard to their strategic doctrines, the paper says. “Without this, it is hard to eliminate mistaken interpretations — and therefore, suspicion,” it says. The Carnegie-IAIR paper outlines several possible measures to improve transparency between Moscow and Washington, including joint discussions of nuclear policies; mutual notification of approaches to nuclear targeting, nuclear weapons development and deployment of reserve nuclear command structures; information exchanges of the nuclear potential of other nations; and full exchange of information on detected missile activity by other nations (see GSN, April 17, 2002). One important confidence-building measure could be a decision by both Washington and Moscow to reject ICBM launches based solely on information received from early warning systems, the paper says. The rejection of launch-on-warning plans could be confirmed by several technical measures undertaken by both countries, including the dismantlement of devices that ensure a rapid opening of missile launch silos and the removal of on-board electrical batteries from missiles, it says. “The continuing existence of such plans … once more emphasizes the obvious discrepancy between surviving aspects of nuclear deterrence and the new relations between the U.S. and Russia,” the paper says. The United States and Russia also need to share more information about their ballistic missile submarines, which can approach targets undetected and attack quickly, according to the paper. Such information-sharing could vary in levels of detail — from information on where a submarine is located at a particular time to information noting that at specific times certain submarines will not be in the vicinity of their home bases, the paper says. Highlighting the importance of information-sharing related to ballistic missile submarines is a concern that rogue states or terrorist groups may acquire one to use in an attack on either the United States or Russia, the paper says. Improved information sharing could help prevent “regrettable U.S. or Russian reactions to provocation by third parties,” it says.
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