Russia willing for deep strategic arms reduction

June 28, 2009 · Posted in Blogroll, Uncategorized · 1 Comment

According to this Washington Post article, Russia is willing to engage in drastic reductions in its strategic arsenal as part of a START-replacement treaty with the US:

"We are ready to reduce by several times the number of nuclear delivery vehicles compared with the START-1 pact," [President Medvedev] told a news conference in Amsterdam.

"As far as warheads are concerned, their numbers should be lower than envisaged by the Moscow 2002 pact," he added.

He was referring to an interim pact called the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) which commits the sides to further cuts in their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012.

Naturally, this Russian direction must be judged in light of the inevitable shrinkage of Russian strategic nuclear forces in the forthcoming years, as existing delivery systems (particularly ICBMs and missile submarines) reach the end of their operational lives and their replacements are produced in insufficient quantities for a 1-on-1 swap.

Tags: <nuclear weapons, START>