President Barack Obama discusses the START treaty, during a phone call with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia in the Oval Office, , March 26, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)Questions Persist Over Arms Pact's Missile Defense Terms -- Global Security Newswire
Russia yesterday reaffirmed its right to withdraw from a pending successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty if the United States bolstered its missile defense forces past a certain degree, possibly throwing into question a compromise the countries had reached on the issue, the Washington Times reported (see GSN, March 29).
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week approved the final terms of the pact, which would require the United States and Russia to both lower their respective strategic arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads. Each nation's fielded nuclear delivery vehicles -- missiles, submarines and bombers -- would be capped at 700, with another 100 allowed in reserve. The leaders are expected to sign the document in the Czech capital of Prague on April 8.
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My Comment: Missile Defense has always been the sticky point in any U.S.-Russian nuclear arms agreement. The fact that it should be coming out now .... before the treaty is even signed .... is a bad omen that tells me that if the U.S. continues with its missile defense program .... which they say they will .... the Russian's will eventually walk away from the treaty.
Is this a potential disaster .... you betcha. But what infuriates me is that for the past week the US main stream media has been giving a distorted view of what this treaty will mean to both parties and the consequences if both sides continue the path that they are following. Instead, for the past week all that I have been listening to are high praises directed towards President Obama and the work that he has done to get this arms control agreement.
What our media pundits and reporters should have done is first .... read the treaty, and two .... read what the Russian Press and negotiators have been saying since the agreement. The Russians are not happy with this treaty, and everyone is now positioning themselves to make this treaty fail.
From where I am standing .... there will be a signing in Europe that will ratify this agreement. But as soon as this agreement is signed, the old U.S.-Russian differences on US missile defense will rear it's ugly head (again). In the end, the political crisis that will erupt will have the potential to make last years controversy over positioning 10 missile interceptors in Poland a cakewalk in comparison .... but for the moment .... the American public is blind to what is coming down.