Last weekend the Russian Federation MID (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) published a report on the United States’ violations of obligations in the sphere of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and arms control. The document speaks of Washington’s failure to comply with the provisions of the START Treaty and the Treaty on Elimination of Medium and Short-Range Missiles, as well as failure to fulfill the regime for control over missile technologies. Moreover, the United States is accused of delivering weapons to Georgia, which in Moscow’s opinion is a violation of a number of OSCE documents. The Russian Federation MID report was a response to a similar document by the US Department of State that in late July accused Moscow of failing to fulfill the provisions of the START Treaty. However, according to Kommersant ’s information, Russia and the United States planned this exchange of «compliments» back in the fall of last year.
The report entitled «Cases of Violation by the United States of Its Obligations in the Sphere of Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Arms Control» appeared on the Russian Federation MID website on Saturday. The document points out that a series of Russian concerns regarding the United States’ compliance with the START-1 Treaty, whose effective period ran out in December of last year, were simply not eliminated at the appropriate time. Notably, Moscow did not receive advance notice and telemetry information on the flight tests of the Trident-II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that were carried out from the eastern missile range of the United States. Washington explained this by saying that the missiles belonged to Great Britain, which does not have treaty obligations to the Russia in the area of SNV (strategic offensive arms). «Such unmonitored activity involving SLBMs by the American side in effect deprived us of the opportunity to monitor one of the basic parameters under the START-1 Treaty,» they emphasized on Smolenskaya Square.
The authors of the report also pointed out the unsanctioned conversion of five intercontinental ballistic missile launching silos at the Vandenberg test range into interceptor missile launchers. The procedure for retrofitting B-1 bombers for nonnuclear weapons also raised questions. «The United States never did offer convincing evidence that the set of procedures they used makes certain that it is impossible to convert the nonnuclear bombers back into the nuclear version,» they noted at the Russian Federation MID.
Moreover, the Russian Federation MID claims that Washington violated the provisions of the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate and Short-Range Missiles. «In order to finish work on elements of its missile defense system, the United States is using an entire family of missile targets that simulate a broad spectrum of intermediate-range ballistic missiles,» the authors of the document explain. The launching of these items is interpreted as testing a «new type» of land-based intermediate-range ballistic missile, which is a direct violation of the basic provision of the treaty — Article VI, which prohibits «producing medium and shorter-range missiles and conducting flight tests of them.»
The rest of the violations mentioned for the United States deal with failure to comply with the international regime for control of missile technologies, control over conventional arms in Europe, and other agreements. Washington also is accused of violating the OSCE document on small firearms. Notably, the more than 18,000 American rifles, carbines, and heavy machine guns supplied to Georgia in 2008, in Moscow’s opinion, contradicts the OSCE directives «to refrain from transferring weapons to zones of tension and armed conflicts that introduce a destabilizing military potential in the region or in some other way promote regional instability.»
The Russian Federation MID document was a response to the report by the US Department of State entitled «Adherence and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.» In it in late July Washington accused Moscow of failing to fulfill the conditions of the START Treaty. The exchange of jabs allowed some observers to draw the conclusion that the process of the «reset» of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States is slowing down, and as a result, the prospects for ratification of the START-3 Treaty are uncertain. However, according to Kommersant ’s information, these jabs were agreed upon by the parties back last year.
«We knew about the State Department report back in October 2009 when the discussion of START-3 was just underway,» Vladimir Orlov, the director of the PIR Center (Center for Policy Studies in Russia), explained to Kommersant. «Even then the Americans were signaling to us that they would be forced to present a report in which Russia would be nipped at a little. At the same time, our colleagues from the United States were saying outright that we could prepare something of our own and in that way feed the domestic forces of our conservatives both ways.» However, as the expert admitted, the Russian Federation MID report seems harsher than the American one. «If the process of ratification of START-3 had been more dynamic in the United States, our report would be milder,» Mr. Orlov stated. «But at this point we do not have a
