START is about something more

With the START treaty with America, Dmitry Medvedev changes the vector of Russian foreign policy - in the hope that the US and Europe will invest in Russia

Golden chandeliers, hundreds of cameras, a military band playing a bravura march. Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev entered the hall as if they were about to write their names into history right here and now. Since the time of Mikhail Gorbachev, not a single Russian leader has signed treaties with the Americans with such fanfare. "A historic event has now taken place in this hall," Medvedev began when the START treaty was signed. Obama nodded. Then a Czech journalist asked Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov: “Now is Russia again a world leader?” Ryabkov was confused. “Russia has always been a world leader,” he replied after thinking.

A year ago, when Barack Obama agreed with Dmitry Medvedev to sign a new START, Washington believed that this was a step forward on their part: after twenty years of unequal relations, the United States is finally treating Russia with emphatic politeness - as a great power - and signing such a solid contract. Washington hoped that Moscow would be flattered, or at least appreciate Obama's nobility, and would not balk at negotiating a new treaty.

It was decided to agree on the document by the time the previous START treaty expires - by December 2009. But delays arose at the end of the year, and Vladimir Putin directly linked the START treaty with missile defense. This meant that the treaty would not be signed - for the Americans, the condition was unacceptable. "A few months ago [the signing of the treaty] seemed unlikely even to some of the delegations," Medvedev admitted in Prague.

The unexpected turning point in the negotiations surprised even experienced Russian Foreign Ministry officials. Of course, today, when he has so many domestic political problems, it is very important for Barack Obama to sign an agreement with Russia. But Moscow made concessions, not Washington. For Dmitry Medvedev, this is also a great success, and it's not about the warheads. “The new modernist direction in our foreign policy has suddenly gained the upper hand,” a senior Russian diplomat muses. First, an agreement of this level with the Americans is a breakthrough in bilateral relations after so many years of open hostility. Secondly, Moscow has improved its position in Europe, where relations between Russia and the United States are closely monitored.

CONTRACT FOR THE HOLIDAY

At the end of March, the New York Times got a printout of a telephone conversation between Obama and Medvedev. From it it followed that the Russian president, as before, linked START with missile defense, and Obama was very angry. "Dmitriy! We have agreed! shouted the American President. - We can't go for it. If that means we won't sign the treaty because of it, then so be it." And Obama hung up. Never before have Obama's advisers seen him so furious, a White House source said.

Interlocutors in Moscow and Washington say that since December last year, Russia has struggled to push Obama on the missile defense issue. Moscow believed that the Americans needed the new START treaty more than Russia. First, Obama is in a tough spot on all fronts and needs success. Secondly, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which means that he wanted to speed up the signing of such a symbolic document from this point of view.

But, to Moscow's surprise, Obama took a tough line: no, he would not sign the treaty "by the holiday." Such intransigence was explained, in particular, by pragmatic considerations - serious concessions to Moscow would put an end to the ratification of START in the Senate. Republicans would accuse the president of surrendering to the national interest.

Obama's unexpected firmness impressed the Kremlin. In addition, Obama was successful in the Senate with his health care reform, and the Kremlin and the government were also surprised by this: it turns out that Obama is not such a loser as they have already begun to think about him, but, on the contrary, a strong hardware player.

Sources in the Foreign Ministry say that the idea to put pressure on Barack Obama belonged to Vladimir Putin. It was he who believed that there was no point in rushing with START, and he slowed down the course of negotiations in December. Although he did not officially participate in the negotiations, this is the business of the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry. In December, American diplomats were nervous: no one understood what Putin was really thinking and how to understand it, because there was no contact with him.

It was only in March that Putin officially joined the talks - he met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And just a few days later, Moscow stopped fighting so hard for the technical details of the document and even for linking START with missile defense. Washington is confident that Putin was involved in making decisions on strategic offensive arms from the very beginning and it seems that his opinion was decisive.

EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES

As a result, there is only a hint of linkage to missile defense in the preamble to the treaty - and this is a key concession on the part of Moscow. The preamble states that strategic defensive weapons must not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the sides' strategic offensive weapons. The American side is not obligated to anything.

“Yes, we agreed with the Americans,” admits Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international committee of the Duma, “in order to facilitate the ratification process for them. But they also met us halfway by mentioning missile defense in the preamble. When the Bush administration withdrew from the old ABM treaty in 2000, there was no mention of missile defense in international documents at all. And now it is."

In addition, Kosachev says, there is a hint of missile defense in the 14th chapter of the treaty, which says that each of the parties can withdraw from it "in exceptional circumstances." Exceptional circumstances, as follows from the statement that the Kremlin issued immediately before the signing of the agreement in Prague, this is the build-up of the missile defense system by the Americans.

In Prague, Obama promised to start a "serious dialogue" with Russia on missile defense. A few weeks ago, NATO Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen came up with an idea that was very pleasing to Moscow - he proposed creating a pan-European missile shield. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs accepted this proposal with great enthusiasm. Deputy Minister Sergei Ryabkov even told Newsweek that the real author of this idea is not Rasmussen at all, but Vladimir Putin. And he expressed it two years ago to George Bush - the more pleasant it is to hear it from the NATO Secretary General. Rasmussen, says Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, is ahead of the most radical supporters of rapprochement with Russia.

EXAMPLE FOR EUROPE

The signing of the START treaty will have little effect on the future of Russian nuclear weapons. Media is rapidly becoming obsolete and would have to be cut short anyway. “Russia did everything it could. She achieved a fairly equal agreement with a weaker contractual position,” says Vladimir Evseev from IMEMO RAS.

It's not about the warheads. The most important implications of the signing of the START treaty lie outside the military realm. Russia managed to agree on something with America, and this opens up huge prospects, says a source in the Foreign Ministry. Now the most important thing is the second step, echoes Mikhail Margelov, head of the international committee of the Federation Council.

After the signing of START, Dmitry Medvedev said that in Prague he and Barack Obama discussed primarily economic issues. "The economy is the most neglected area in our relations," he complained, adding that the signing of START was "the start of a long journey." A source in the Foreign Ministry explains: Moscow is counting on American investment in Russian modernization. According to him, during the crisis, the Russian authorities became disillusioned with China. The partner, who has always been perceived as a welcome alternative to the West, behaved quite harshly and showed that he was not going to meet Russia halfway. Vital investments today can only be attracted from the US and Europe - and for this, Moscow is making concessions to Washington.

The signing of START "revived the institutional memory," says Mikhail Margelov, and the Russian authorities began to relearn how to negotiate with the Americans. And they are not far behind either. Dmitry Rogozin notes that not so long ago the United States appointed a special envoy for the CFE Treaty, the treaty on conventional arms in Europe, from which Russia withdrew in the last months of Vladimir Putin's presidency. Washington will probably try to come to an agreement with Moscow on this issue as well, a source in the Foreign Ministry agrees.

Possibly, Rogozin adds, the Americans will even offer to conclude a new treaty, although so far no proposals have been received. The new US Special Representative for the CFE Treaty, Victoria Newland, speaks excellent Russian - she learned it when she was a trainee in the Far East: "She worked on a Russian fishing schooner, but so far she is silent like a fish," the ambassador to NATO jokes.

Rapprochement with the United States will certainly lead to better relations between Russia and the European Union, says another source at the Foreign Ministry. According to his forecast, already at the next Russia-EU summit in Rostov, the start of negotiations on a visa-free regime between Russia and the Schengen countries may be announced. A senior European diplomat adds that in recent months Moscow has approached European countries closest to it with offers to invest in Russian modernization. There is no positive answer yet, but the example of the United States, the diplomat suggests, will certainly inspire the Europeans.

Finally, an inevitable consequence of the signing of START should be Russia's support for US sanctions against Iran. “Sanctions by themselves very rarely lead to any results, although sometimes they are indispensable,” Dmitry Medvedev hinted in Prague. Mikhail Margelov believes that recently Iran itself has been making great efforts to persuade Russia to support the sanctions: “How to regard the latest statement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Russia and the UK should pay compensation to Iran for the occupation after the Second World War?”

A source in the Foreign Ministry believes that after the signing of START, Russia's relations with the West are the best in the last ten years: “Only one thing is alarming. We believe that the West is still indebted to us and must make concessions. But from an economic point of view, we are now much more interested in him than he is in us.

Mikhail Fishman and Elena Chernenko contributed to the preparation of the article