The spitting of nuclear warheads: Russia and the USA remain with their interests

On the eve of the summit in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the presidents of the United States and Russia announced the end of the work on the text of the document to reduce strategic offensive weapons (START). Moreover, George Bush said that he was ready to sign it, and Vladimir Putin noted that he was pleased with the agreements reached.

What each of the leaders of the state puts into his words, it becomes clear when you analyze the limits of compromises achieved by the parties. Although these boundaries have not yet been officially declared, nevertheless the so-called "leaks" on both sides have been made so much that it is possible to talk with almost absolute confidence about what will be recorded in the future START-3 agreement and what clearly will not be there.

The first and most importantly - the parties will take legal obligations by 2010 deeply reducing their nuclear arsenals from 7000 - 6000 ammunition to 1700 - 2200. But, and this must be emphasized specifically, we are talking only about those nuclear charges (ulcers), which are placed on their national delivery products and are counted specifically for them. That is, for each of the ground intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic missiles of atomic submarines, as well as for air -based cruise missiles and nuclear bombs designed for heavy bombers. The warheads located on nuclear-technical bases in the "prompt-exposed reserve" will not be included in these limits. And the exact number of these "spare charges", as the US Secretary of Defense Donald Ramsfeld said, it is also not planned to denote the new document on the START. Which, of course, really does not like his Russian colleague Sergei Ivanov.

It is clear why. The point is not that the principle of transparency is violated here - it was not supposed to be checked at the bases before - neither in START -1, nor in START -2. It will not be possible to do this later. The problem is different: Russia cannot go by storing warheads. Her nuclear charges are quite “great” and cannot be at the bases for a long time. In addition, the maintenance of such a “operational reserve”, its protection and expenses for utilities (electricity, heat, ventilation, etc.) of such structures, and in this case they will have to be built more, they can become an excessive cargo for the military budget and an unstable economy of the country.

But the United States such concerns of a "strategic partner" are not very worried. They say that each side chooses its own path here. Moreover, Washington no longer produces nuclear warheads and is forced to have them in reserve, “just in case”, and Russia continues to create ulcers and can change the old head parts of missiles for new ones. At the same time, the American diplomats that I had to meet, refer to such a rather interesting thesis as: "The Russian delegation never once during the bilateral negotiations was said by the word that your country does not produce new warheads." Therefore, they conclude in Washington, if there is money for new nuclear charges, then there will be storage.

It is difficult to object to anything. Moreover, if you remember that recently the United States has begun to sharply curtail its financial assistance to Russia under the program of "joint reducing the threat", better known as the Nanna -Lugara program. By the way, and, according to the agreed text, the START-3 Washington does not undertake any obligations to provide Moscow with any economic support in reducing strategic weapons, although in the START-1 agreement, which continues to operate before 2009, such an obligation is recorded.

There will be no restrictions on the number of warheads installed on the ballistic missiles of the one and the other side, as the Start-1 and Start-2 provided for the number of warheads. What, of course, is not without benefit. We will be able to renew the life for our heavy missiles for a long time (SS-18 "Satan" with 10 shared heads of individual guidance). They may have 154 of them under the START-1 agreement. Although SNV-2, which ordered to live long, demanded their complete liquidation. And also, if necessary and if possible (if there is money), Russia can equip new topol-M missiles with three nuclear charges of individual guidance. Which, of course, should "brighten up" the disappointment of some of our specialists from the new strategic agreement with the United States.

So far, it is not determined before the presidential summit exactly how the new START -3 will be called - an agreement or agreement. The number of votes that must be obtained for its ratification in the State Duma and Congress will depend on the name. And although officials in Russia and Washington express full satisfaction with the agreements reached, the discussion of the document and its approval in both parliaments will not necessarily pass smoothly.

Leading Russian experts in the field of strategic weapons-Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee, Alexei Arbatov, former chief of the 4th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, Researcher at the Center for Disarmament, Energy and Ecology, Pavel Pavel, other experts, including the Ocean, have already called the SNV-3 not a good good agreement ": He relieves the sides of many important positions enshrined in START-2, but never entered into force. Including does not connect future reductions in strategic weapons with restrictions on defensive systems, that is, with NPR. What the Kremlin was so stubborn so stubborn.

But, apparently, diplomacy is really an art of possible. And the legal obligation to reduce nuclear arsenals to the minimum level today also costs a lot. If you choose - with or without an agreement, then the answer is obvious.

War on the sidelines

Chechnya is hardly a noticeable topic of Russian-American negotiations

Boris Yunanov

Washington

All the first half of May in Washington, they desperately prepared for the Russian-American meeting at the top. This despair filled the corridors of the brain centers, swam into the rooms, adheres to telephone tubes and computer monitors: refining the last details of the alleged agreements, in Washington, Moscow phones and email addresses again and again.

Everything was in vain. At the other end of the planet, to the complete bewilderment of the Americans, there were "holidays." Phones were silent, newspapers did not come out, everyone was on vacation, the power walked - from top to bottom. For Americans who are not accustomed to any other holidays besides Christmas, it looked unthinkable. In particular, the employees of the American administrative machine, which repeatedly proved their effectiveness, seemed nothing more than a symptom of serious breakdowns in the state structure of the Russian Federation. “Russia is an extremely unorganized country,” one of them complained to me. And he added that if it were not for the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Igor Ivanov and his deputy Georgy Mamedov, "we may not have been able to have time with the latest approvals in the field of disarmament."

It seems that it is precisely such a fate that the decision that was actually already adopted by the US administration awaits the abolition of the infamous Amendment of Jackson - Vanik - everything looks like not Russia insisted on it, as if not Moscow, a goodwill was needed from the American side - to prove the correctness of the Kremlin’s current course for partnership with America.

However, the summit that begins exactly in a week has already been proclaimed here nothing more than "doomed to success." The reason seems to be logical, but also paradoxical at the same time: almost all points of its agenda do not cause discussions, because they have lost their relevance at the stage of their discussion. Even such as a "strategic compromise" to reduce strategic nuclear weapons, Russia -NATO and technological cooperation of Moscow with Tehran. Perhaps the only problem, in the approach to which there is no unity even in Washington itself, is Chechnya. In America, they are well aware that this is Putin's sick corn. And since America needs a strong and pro -American -tuned Russian president, perhaps it may not be better on the corn.

“I don’t think that Bush and Putin will begin to talk much about Chechnya, most likely this topic will remain peripheral,” the director of the Russian and Eurasian programs of the Carnegie Foundation Andrew Kachins believes, in particular, what can America be here? Once again, reminding the desirability of political settlement in Chechnya? But it has already been. ”

In Washington, by the way, they are ready in advance for the fact that the Russian side will express dissatisfaction with the broadcasting of Radio Liberty in Chechen. One of the local experts called this decision of the Congress "stupid." Firstly, because the Russian language is also understood in Chechnya. And secondly, “Freedom” practically does not have a potential audience there: almost the entire local intelligentsia emigrated to the west in the first Chechen war, having received refugee status. For example, in the US capital, the Chechen diaspora, including artists, writers, artists, has about 6 thousand people.

But the Americans, for their part, can remind Putin that the Chechen trace repeatedly noticed in Afghanistan has not yet brought anywhere - no irrefutable evidence of the connection of the Chechen resistance with Ben Laden and Al -Qaeda has not yet presented them. And therefore, the Kremlin’s insistent attempts to connect the problem of Chechnya and the fight against international terrorism may come across more preferential assessments of the West.

"Given that in the modern world, the most acute and intractable are just regional religious and ethnic conflicts, the Chechen problem should be on the advance of Russia's relations with the Western world," says Jackson Dil. "The influential Washington observer," especially in the light of what is happening in the Middle East. "

“Why does Putin get away with almost everything that comes out sideways to Sharon?” He asks in the article “Free Access to Chechnya”, published in the weekly application to “Washington Post,” - after all, Israel on the western coast of Jordan the world community regarded the military and political catastrophe; The Arafat intensified its positions, which was contributed to more than a thousand Western journalists who have been in Israel over the past 2 weeks.

But the whole world exploded from indignation after the operation of the Israelis in the refugee camp in Jennin - in fact, the first in the last 8 years. The Russians recalls J. Dil, since September 1999 they held 33 similar punitive actions only in the same village of Tsotsan-Yurt, another 20 in old atagi. The American gives the "memorial": about 2 thousand Chechens disappeared in filtration camps, at least 12 thousand civilians were killed under aggravating circumstances. At the same time, Putin is by no means closer to the goal than Sharon. The puppet government of Chechnya discovers the inability to manage the republic, Russian soldiers die every day in Chechnya. And at the same time, the whole world keeps amazing silence, and the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva votes against the resolution, authorizing the investigation of humanitarian violations in Chechnya, emphasizes the American journalist.

It is not yet known that the Bush Jr., who took on the eve of a trip to Moscow for the most difficult solution to the Middle Eastern problem, thinks about Russian politics in Chechnya. But, as they say, he read the article by Jackson Dila very carefully ...