| Boris Nemtsov, leader of
the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), proposes that all democratic
forces agree to back one candidate for president after the parliamentary
election in 2003. The formula is simple. Each party nominates
its own candidate. The Duma election shows who has won. All democratic
forces support the candidate whose party gathered the most votes,
Russia and the USA have launched the ratification of the Treaty
on Strategic Arms Reductions, which was signed in an attempt to
fill in the vacuum left by the US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM
Treaty and refusal to ratify START-2. Hearings in Russia and the
USA are being held behind closed doors, but this newspaper has
learned some details of the recent State Duma hearing.
On October 1 Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, deputy chief
of the General Staff Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky and head
of the nuclear munitions department of the Nuclear Energy Ministry
Nikolai Voloshin informed deputies at the closed sitting of the
Duma defence and international affairs committee about the Russian
leaders' attitude to ratification. "The Strategic Reductions
Treaty can be seen as a new treaty of friendship and cooperation
between Russia and the USA," said Mamedov. He said the US
Senate had held four hearings on the treaty and the attitude of
most Senators was positive.
At the same time, Mamedov pointed out that we would most probably
"need to adopt provisos to the treaty but provisos that would
not kill the treaty or distort its essence." In particular,
one such proviso could stipulate the liquidation of the amount
of warheads mentioned in the lower reduction ceiling [Ed. the
treaty provides for the liquidation of 1,700-2,200 warheads].
Another proviso might stipulate an extension to the treaty for
reductions in warheads on its expiry (Ed. the treaty will expire
on December 31, 2012) This means that if the USA does not liquidate
something by this time, it would be able to unilaterally refuse
to do so after the expiry of the treaty)
First Deputy Chief of the General Staff Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky
assured the deputies that the treaty would not disrupt Russia-US
strategic stability. "We abandoned the principle of quantity
in favour of the principle of quality long ago," stated the
deputy chief of the General Staff. He believes that "there
is no need at all to have so many warheads which could destroy
the USA several times over. The main issue concerns the quality
of the warheads. Consequently the quantitative reduction in the
nuclear arsenal will not affect national security." Nikolai
Voloshin of the Ministry of Nuclear Power added that the national
nuclear industry can ensure treaty implementation and has enough
facilities to utilise scrapped warheads.
The next stage of ratification provides for a closed sitting of
Duma committees where deputies will discuss the military- technical
and the military-political aspects of the treaty. The committees
on defence, industries and energy will discuss the military-technical
aspect, while the committee on international affairs, defence
and security will deal with the military- political aspect.
This will be followed by closed parliamentary hearings and the
submission of the document to the State Duma for ratification
in mid-October.
Alexei Arbatov and Andrei Nikolayev expressed the general opinion
of State Duma deputies about the treaty ratification:"The
treaty is not quite what we wanted but it is the best we could
have at that moment." But Duma vice-speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky
was negative about the treaty as "they are reducing their
weapons, whereas we are liquidating them." On the other hand,
Zhirinovsky believes that there have been technological advances
and that the importance of weapons slated for scrapping will soon
pale before the power of new weapons. "The ice breakage could
be part of a meteorolgical weapon of the future. We could raise
the temperature two degeees insome places and this would plunge
a whole continent under water at some other place, like the ferry
off Senegal," he said.
The deputy speaker believes that the treaty would not be ratified
before spring, as this should be done simultaneously with the
US Congress, which "will be busy with elections and the war
against Iraq until then."
The strategic offensive forces of Russia include all elements
of the classical triad of the nuclear-missile forces, namely ICBMs,
SLBMs and long-range air-launched cruise missiles, as well as
their delivery vehicles. In all, Russia has 824 delivery vehicles
for strategic offensive weapons, meaning launchers with 1,682
missiles carrying 5,518 nuclear 1-Kt to 1.2-Mt yield warheads,
with aggregate throw weight of at least 3,600 Mt.
The strategic offensive forces of the USA have 5,949 nuclear warheads
with the aggregate throw weight of over 2,000 Mt mounted on 551
ground-based silo-launched ballistic missiles (Minuteman-3 and
Peacekeeper), 432 Trident missiles on 18 Ohio-class submarines
and the cruise missiles mounted on 254 B-52 and B-2 heavy bombers.
See also:
Arms
Control
|
