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Current and Former Russian Officials Criticize Efforts to Prevent Missile Proliferation By Mike Nartker MOSCOW — Current and former senior Russian officials last week criticized two international agreements that seek to prevent the spread of ballistic missiles, and they called for expanded and more binding measures (see GSN, Feb. 26). While there are international treaties to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, there are only two lesser agreements that deal with ballistic missile proliferation. The Missile Technology Control Regime is an informal 33-nation group that agrees to implement similar export controls on missile technology. The 2002 Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation calls on more than 100 participating nations to exercise “maximum possible restraint” in developing and deploying ballistic missiles and to avoid aiding the ballistic missile programs of any countries that might be developing weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, July 2, 2003). In remarks before a two-day nonproliferation conference held in Moscow last week by the PIR Center, former Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev criticized the MTCR for failing to prevent what he called the growing spread of ballistic missiles. Addressing the conference Friday, Sergeyev said the regime did not have enough members and lacked adequate verification measures to be effective in preventing missile proliferation. While praising the Code of Conduct as an important “first step,” a legally binding international treaty to prevent missile proliferation is still needed to help close remaining “loopholes,” Oleg Skabara, head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, said during the conference Saturday. Skabara criticized the code for failing to offer incentives to encourage countries to give up missile proliferation activities. Such a lack of incentives has resulted in a number of countries of concern, such as China, India, Israel and North Korea, refusing to join the code, he said. When Russia joined the code in 2002, it viewed the agreement as a “first step” toward the creation of an international missile treaty, Skabara said. A U.S. State Department official in Washington told Global Security Newswire today, though, that instituting a missile proliferation treaty would require developing a negotiable, verifiable treaty to stem missile proliferation while allowing legitimate activities. “That’s a pretty tall order,” the official said, adding that the Hague Code of Conduct was created, in part, because it was achievable. Some U.S. experts in Washington today agreed with some of the Russian criticisms. Arms Control Association Research Director Wade Boese told GSN that the United States has been opposed to an outright missile ban on the view that such weapons are indeed legitimate. In addition, Bush administration officials have typically shied away from any international agreement seen as “tying their hands,” he said. He also agreed with Sergeyev’s criticisms that the MTCR lacks enough members to be truly effective. More and more countries such as India and Pakistan, Boese said, are developing the capability to become ballistic missile producers and therefore a need exists to bring these countries into the supplier-based system of the regime. Some of Russia’s criticisms of the regime, though, may also be “market driven,” Boese said, noting that Russia also likely wants to prevent non-MTCR countries from engaging in the types of missile sales it is prohibited from dealing as a regime member.
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