I think everybody would agree at this point that the odds that the START follow-on treaty will be signed before START expires on Saturday are not particularly high. Unless, of course, the presidents are willing to dash to Reykjavik or Geneva for a quick signing ceremony on an extremely short notice. I would not discount this possibility entirely - the symbolic value of not having a gap between arms control agreements is fairly high - but the signs are not very encouraging.
On some level it wouldn't really matter - the new treaty had no chance of entering into force before the deadline anyway. But it would be a serious blow to the disarmament efforts. A failure would make a bridging transparency arrangement very much impossible. But more importantly, if there are issues that cannot be resolved by December 5th, I don't think they will be resolved by December 25th (or by May 2010, for that matter).
The book
Comments
Pavel, at this point what are the differences? What are the major issues?
Frank Shuler
USA
There is a key issue to consider here. The US refuses to nagotiates nuclear sea-based cruise missiles, which the US has considerable amounts of, but insists on limiting the locations and deployment areas of Russian road-mobile ICBMs. This sort of un-even diplomacy is obviously skewed in favor of the US. I suspect that any new agreement will either lift restrictions on the possible locations of the Topol-M and RS-24, or (more likley) will impose some controls on the US nuclear cruise missile arsenal.
Feanor
Should the United States then conclude that all ten Oscar II Class submarines (Project 949A (Antey) and their 24 each P-700/SS-N-19 Granit/Shipwreck SSM missiles are strategic nuclear weapons and should be accounted for the the latest START+?
The United States has 350 nuclear capable Tomahawk tactical missiles in storage of which only 100 are maintained in “active inventory”. These weapons are not deployed at sea but held in reserves at two US Naval bases. As the US draws down the numbers of B-61 tactical nuclear weapons, the N-Tomahawk’s are expected to join them.
The central issue here is START itself. Are we negotiating a follow up treaty to START that will simply include new limits on launchers and warheads or are we now negotiating a entirely new treaty that will take START’s place?
Frank Shuler
USA