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Just Like Old Times

A New Arms Race Between US and Russia?

By Siegesmund von Ilsemann, Uwe Klussmann, Georg Mascolo and Christian Neef

The specter of a new military rivalry between Moscow and Washington has been looming since Vladimir Putin delivered a speech highly critical of the United States at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. Is it the birth of a new arms race between the former arch-enemies?

Western guests who visited the Kremlin in Moscow in the spring of 1989 -- prime ministers, cabinet ministers and journalist alike -- were presented with an unusual gift: A steel ring the size of a small plate with a metal fragment attached to it, the whole thing secured to a heavy brass base.

The inscription on the base, "January 14, 1989 - SS-20 - Kapustin Jar," identified the date and location of the Soviets' destruction of their first intermediate-range SS-20 missile. A photograph on the base of the souvenir depicts the powerful explosion, which left little more than the finger-long fragments embedded into the commemorative ring.

Though perhaps not to everyone's taste, the souvenir was politically significant as a symbol of a shift in US-Soviet relations which hardly anyone had expected. On Aug. 28, 1988, the Americans and Russians launched an effort to destroy 2,611 nuclear warheads -- the Pershing and SS-20 missiles that had kept Europeans terrified for years. The first jointly monitored arms reduction treaty had finally come into effect.

The explosions seemed to melt the ice of the Cold War. Suddenly Moscow's supreme military commander was inspecting the weapons of Russia's arch-enemy and diplomats were exchanging previously classified information about their military forces. The Berlin Wall came down just over a year later. US President George Bush, Sr. called it the dawning of a "new world order," when the last Soviet czar, then-President Mikhail Gorbachev, announced the end of his empire.

But now the dream of friendly coexistence seems to have gone up in smoke once again. At the Munich Conference on Security Policy last weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the US against new attempts to secure global dominance. Putin sharply criticized what he called the US's "virtually unrestrained use of military force" and its "disdain of fundamental principles of international law." The United States, he said, has "overstepped its national borders in every way."

The Russian president was especially harsh in his criticism of the current state of arms control, which had seemed like a guarantee of peace for decades. Russia, according to Putin, has lived up to its arms reduction commitments, whereas the West has blocked the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and, in clear violation of existing agreements, is positioning its armies close to Russia's borders.

Putin complained to the assembled politicians that "new high-tech weapons," the "militarization of outer space," and Washington's plans to establish the front lines of its new anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic threaten the security of his country. "Who needs the next step of what would be, in this case, an inevitable arms race?" he asked rhetorically.

Was Putin's attack merely a verbal show of strength for the benefit of fellow Russians at home? Was it an effort to enlist the support of those countries that are facing increasing doubts over Western policies? Or was it truly an expression of the openness Putin had promised upon his arrival in Munich?

Whatever the explanation, with the American superpower backed into a corner in its war on terror, speeches like Putin's can easily create a dangerous dynamic, confirming old fears and reviving a thirst for revenge. On the other hand, is the web of treaties that the superpowers once hammered out in a series of tough negotiations capable of stopping today's global arms race?

Talks over limiting strategic nuclear weapons launched a major shift in policy in the late 1960s. Nowadays the two major nuclear powers possess only a third of the 70,000 warheads with which they once could have destroyed the world many times over. Washington and Moscow have abided by their mutual commitments to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to 2,200 operational warheads each by 2012. Nevertheless, the treaty remains a farce, because the two parties are free to decide whether to dispose of excess nuclear warheads -- or simply put them into storage.

The US Senate never ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed by 161 countries. Although Washington has adhered to the terms of the treaty, its military planners are urging the administration to retain the option of resuming underground tests for the purpose of building new nuclear weapons. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty has been obsolete since 2001, when the Bush administration withdrew from the agreement. And the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987, now seems outdated in a world in which every country but the United States and Russia is free to establish such systems. Even the conventional equilibrium in Europe, which was painstakingly maintained until 1990, is out of balance now that Moscow's former allies have joined NATO in droves.

Undisputed leader

As the system of treaty-based arms control disintegrates, US military dominance is growing. Indeed, the Western superpower has already positioned itself as the virtually undisputed world leader when it comes to weapons technology.

US tanks are already capable of destroying many Russian tanks from ranges at which their Russian counterparts are not even capable of striking their adversaries, while the US's Stealth bomber, currently matchless in the world, is virtually invisible to radar systems.

Similarly, US troops are capable of observing and attacking their enemies while escaping detection themselves using remote-controlled cameras mounted on drones. And the crews of American attack submarines can locate virtually any other ship in the world's oceans using advanced sensors, without exposing themselves to danger.

But Washington has achieved its greatest gains precisely in an area once considered successfully defused as a result of arms control efforts. American long-range missiles are now so precise that experts believe that a US first strike could destroy Moscow's nuclear capability. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, US experts Keir Lieber and Daryl Press described the end of the strategy of "mutually assured destruction," which has preserved the balance of power and prevented nuclear war since the 1960s.

In contrast, Russia's fleet of missile submarines has been reduced to a mere nine vessels. The country now only has bombers stationed at two airbases, and the absence of an early warning system leaves the Russian aircraft almost completely vulnerable to a surprise attack. The same applies to the mobile launchers for Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles, which now hardly ever leave their hangars -- hangars which the Americans have in their sights.

Lieutenant General Sergey Chemezov, the head of Rosoboronexport, the Russian state defense export agency, paints a dramatic picture of the dismal state of the country's weapons industry. The majority of weapons manufacturers, says Chemezov, a close confidante of President Putin, are in a "difficult situation," with 75 percent of their production facilities obsolete. According to one study, one-third of Russia's arms manufacturers are "virtually bankrupt."