The Foreign Service Journal, December 2009

32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9 level of trust in the bilateral rela- tionship, it set a range rather than a specific number for the accept- able level of warheads that the United States or Russia could de- ploy — no more than 1,700-2,200 warheads each by Dec. 31, 2012. What is most noteworthy is that this level is nearly two-thirds below that which existed in 2002, and that it has already been reached. The Moscow Treaty also explic- itly permitted each side to deter- mine for itself the composition and structure of its strategic offensive forces consistent with the overall war- head limit. Thus, the United States and Russia were able to determine, consistent with the limit, how many de- ployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers it would have and how it would apportion these warheads among its deployed strategic offensive arms. Finally, the two par- ties agreed in the Moscow Treaty that the START Treaty remains in force in accordance with its terms. Conse- quently, START’s confidence-building measures and comprehensive verification regime will continue in force until the treaty expires. START Follow-on Treaty: Limits and Benefits The START Follow-on Treaty is intended to combine the predictability of START with the flexibility of the Moscow Treaty, but at lower levels of deployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and warheads than those in the START and Moscow treaties. While the final numbers are still being negotiated, in the Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty signed in Moscow on July 6, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their strategic delivery vehicles from 1,600 to a range of 500- 1,100, and their associated warheads from 2,200 to a range of 1,500-1,675, within seven years of entry into force of the new treaty. They also agreed that these num- bers may be further narrowed during the course of the negotiations. As with the Moscow Treaty, the new pact will permit each side to determine for itself the composition and structure of its strategic offensive stockpile, within stipu- lated limits. This flexibility is intended to give each side the freedom to determine how best to meet its nuclear security requirements. Addition- ally, recognizing the changed strategic environment and lessons learned from years of implementa- tion of the START and Moscow Treaties, the plan is for this new treaty to adapt and simplify START provisions on definitions, data exchanges, notifications, elim- inations, inspections and verifica- tion procedures, as well as con- fidence-building and transparency measures. The inclusion of these provisions (albeit simplified) will enable each side to monitor, with a high degree of predictability, the existing force structure and modernization programs of the other. Both sides historically have depended on such pre- dictability to enable continued cooperation. The significance of the START Follow-on Treaty ex- tends beyond the bilateral military relationship between the United States and Russia. The deep reductions that it envisions and the concomitant commitment to seek even deeper reductions in the future also respond to interna- tional calls for demonstrated progress toward nuclear dis- armament. That achievement is expected to enable the United States to lobby the international community more credibly and effectively to strengthen nonproliferation norms and hold violators of those norms accountable. According to the chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Sec- retary Rose Gottemoeller, “The ability of the United States to persuade other nations to act collectively against those states committed to developing nuclear weapons will be bolstered through reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. It is a matter of moral suasion.” (Gottemoeller’s talk, “The Long Road from Prague: The Administration’s Views on Nuclear Weapons Reductions and Arms Control” — an Aug. 14 address to the USAF/ DTRA Conference on Confronting Global WMD Threats: New Direction of a New Administration — is available at www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/127958.htm. ) The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: Lineage and History The five nations that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty acknowledges as nuclear weapon states — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and the People’s Republic of China — voluntarily halted nu- F O C U S The whole world is watching closely to see if the U.S.-Russia “reset” button will re-energize the pace of bilateral efforts to cut nuclear force levels.