ANALYSIS: START deal marks first step toward Obama's disarmament goal

By Chris Cermak and Albert Otti Apr 6, 2010, 17:38 GMT

Washington/Vienna - A new treaty between the United States and Russia on drastic reductions to their nuclear arsenals marks the first step in President Barack Obama's long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

Yet the pact still leaves both countries with more than enough nuclear arms to assure each other's mutual destruction and is unlikely to be enough to convince budding nuclear powers to end their quest for the world's most destructive weapon.

'Any country that's serious about getting nuclear weapons is not going to be impressed,' Robert Hunter, a former US ambassador to NATO, told the German Press Agency dpa. Yet the agreement 'helps over time to delegitimate nuclear weapons.'

The New START Treaty marks the most comprehensive deal since the original Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 1991. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev finalized the details in a telephone call on Friday, capping more than a year of intense talks.

The two leaders will sign the treaty on April 8 in Prague, returning to the site where Obama last year declared his vision of a nuclear-free world, though he admitted this was unlikely to be achieved in his lifetime.

Both sides are required within seven years to reduce their arsenals of long-range nuclear warheads to 1,550, about one-third below current levels and nearly three quarters below the level agreed in 1991. Nuclear launchers like submarines and heavy bombers will also be cut.

The reductions will take both countries a little further in the direction of complete disarmament, 'but it's still a long way from zero,' said Hunter, now a senior adviser with the RAND Corporation, a Washington-based think-tank.

The Obama administration touted the agreement as the first tangible result of its more conciliatory foreign policy approach and efforts to 'reset' relations with Russia, which earlier this decade had reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

But the negotiations proved extremely difficult. The original START Treaty expired in December without agreement, prompting some nervousness about whether a deal could actually be finalized.

There were major differences over US missile defence plans in Europe and how to verify the pact. While the text of the treaty has yet to be released, the White House said no restrictions were placed on missile defence, which has been strongly opposed by Russia.

The treaty could help the United States at two important upcoming nuclear conferences - a Washington summit on preventing nuclear terrorism, hosted by Obama in April, and a UN review meeting of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York in May.

The United Nations conference takes place once every five years. At the last NPT meeting in 2005, no headway was made on the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea. Developing countries were unhappy about a lack of progress on disarmament by existing nuclear powers.

'The only review conferences that have been successful have been ones where serious disarmament commitments were undertaken,' said British disarmament expert Rebecca Johnson.

But beyond the US-Russia pact, nuclear weapons states would need to take additional steps to reduce their arsenals, said Johnson, who heads the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy in London.

The NPT conference will pose a number of additional challenges, including the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Johnson said the START treaty could also have a positive impact on the Washington nuclear security summit.

Preventing terrorists from getting access to dangerous nuclear materials, as well as nuclear disarmament, were two key elements of Obama's speech in Prague nearly one year ago.

'We come with more credibility (and) Russia comes with more credibility having negotiated this treaty,' said US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But while progress could soon be achieved on these two fronts, Obama has yet to make good on other promises made in the speech, including the United States' ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty.