Russia 2, America 0

Michaela Dodge / February 14, 2011

Last Monday, Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, made clear yet again that Moscow reserves the right to withdraw from New START, a strategic nuclear weapons arms control agreement with the United States. Ryabkov threatened that if the U.S. expands its missile defense system qualitatively or quantitatively, the Kremlin would retaliate with military or technical measures.

In addition to these threats, the Russians are also preventing any negotiations about tactical nuclear weapons until the United States reconsiders the plans for the NATO missile defense shield in Europe and dismantles its tactical nuclear weapons. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, said that any U.S. missile system in Europe would be aimed only at Russian missiles. Russia admitted that it is ready to continue to discuss future disarmament with other nuclear powers; however, “it would be better to start with the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe,” according to Ryabkov. The fact that the Russians are able to make these demands is another poke in the eye to the Obama Administration’s statements about how New START will lead to an agreement on reductions of tactical nuclear weapons. (more…)