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| Cold war winner takes all |
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| struggling |
| 05/14/02 at 19:17:50 |
| [slm] Cold war winner takes all as nuclear cuts are agreed Ian Traynor in Moscow and Julian Borger in Washington Tuesday May 14, 2002 The Guardian The hardline American under-secretary of state, John Bolton, was still in Moscow yesterday on the latest leg of his constant shuttling back and forth between Russia and America, when President George Bush unexpectedly curtailed his travels. Ten days before he is due in Moscow for the first time, Mr Bush declared that months of haggling over the arcane details of throw-weights, verification procedures, and missile counts were over; Washington and Moscow had agreed to bin two thirds of their nuclear arsenals. Mr Bolton had just finished the latest round of talks with his Russian counterpart, Georgy Mamedov. The treaty is to be signed next week, the first such international deal to bear Mr Bush's signature and something of a departure for an administration inherently hostile to international commitment and any constraints on America's freedom of action. If the talk of radical strategic arms reductions evokes memories of the cold war and endless negotiations in Vienna, Geneva, and Helsinki, the new agreement, as Mr Bush emphasised yesterday, marks a definitive end to the cold war era. For the Americans, the agreement underlines the realities of the post-September 11 world in which the Republicans exhibit a take-it-or-leave-it approach to international relations and strategic stability. For the Russians and for President Vladimir Putin, the deal is a harsh lesson in those new realities. The extent of US compromise has been to agree to a bilateral negotiation on nuclear arms with the Russians and then to dignify the outcome with an internationally legally binding treaty which will outlive both presidents. That is the sole US concession. In six months, by contrast, Mr Putin has made one concession after another. His responses to US requests have betrayed this very acquiescence. American troops in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan? Suppose so. The US pulling out of the 30-year-old ABM treaty with Moscow? A mistake, but never mind. And what about US Green Berets going into Georgia? No tragedy. Mr Putin has spent much of the past eight months putting on a brave face while seeking to play an extremely weak hand as shrewdly as possible. But he has clearly decided to align himself with an all-powerful Washington come what may, calculating that this is his best bet for managing Russia's decline. The White House made it clear that it was agreeing to no more than the strategic cuts it had planned to make anyway. It is clear, however, that President Bush is expecting more in return for putting his signature on a legal document. He already has Moscow's cooperation with his war on terrorism so far. He will also need Mr Putin's acquiescence in any military action against Iraq. The White House was also hinting heavily yesterday on a payoff in terms of Russian acceptance of the planned US missile defence system, and Washington's abandonment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. Such a deal would represent a triumph for the Bush-style diplomacy. The strategic thinkers who came to the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld argued that the US should pursue its national interests, and other nations that wanted to benefit from the Pax Americana would eventually fall into line. The softening of Moscow's attitude towards missile defence represents a victory for this aggressive world view. A year ago, most European pundits predicted that Russia would never accept the anti-ballistic system. If Russia now accepts it, European objections will lose their weight. http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,715325,00.html |
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