By Jenifer Mackby and Edward Ifft
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Friday, April 20, 2007 9:54 PM

The crowning international security agreement that reduced and stabilized nuclear forces in the former Soviet Union and the United States is set to expire in 2009. Indeed, the future of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) lies in limbo following recent meetings between Russian and the U.S. U.S. officials said they were not going to engage in Cold War-style arms control. With the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under great stress (principally because of North Korea and Iran), Russia hinting it may withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), fears that terrorists may acquire weapons of mass destruction and suspicions of cheating under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, the benefits of START should not be allowed to end.

START established an ingenious and highly effective monitoring/verification regime that also provided the basis for the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), or Moscow Treaty, which has no verification provisions of its own. START led to the complete removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and their adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapon States, considered a major achievement especially in retrospect. It would be difficult to argue for strict monitoring and inspection regimes for Iran and North Korea while simultaneously shedding a regime such as START that governs thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Russia. Thus, in the broad political sense, START supports our counter-terrorism and nonproliferation efforts

Five specific aspects of the START Treaty seem especially relevant:

All of these valuable, hard-won benefits would be lost if START were allowed to end and not be replaced by another legal regime. Russian President Putin called for new talks on START and weapons reductions with the United States in June 2006. A recent study in Arms Control Today by Russian scholars Anatoli Diakov and Eugene Miasnikov contains a detailed analysis from the Russian perspective. The international community reflected these views in the "13 Steps" they agreed upon at the 2000 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This commitment, accepted by all States Parties, called for continued reductions in nuclear weapons and specified that these reductions should be verifiable and irreversible. It also called for measures to reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons and a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies. The Bush administration has changed the U.S. approach to these matters, but other nations have not changed their views toward the commitments embodied in the 13 Steps. At each NPT review conference many non-nuclear weapon States complain vociferously about the failure of those possessing nuclear weapons to work towards nuclear disarmament, a commitment provided in the Treaty.

The arms control community around the globe would doubtless like a more ambitious approach that would include further reductions beyond the 1,700-2,200 strategic nuclear warheads ceiling contained in the SORT Moscow Treaty. They would also like to see an attempt to deal with the problems posed by tactical nuclear weapons and the thousands of non-deployed nuclear weapons piling up as reductions in deployed systems are carried out. It is difficult to imagine any counter-terrorism scenario that would require more than a few hundred nuclear warheads, although it may be a bit premature to legislate further reductions beyond 2012 when the Moscow Treaty takes effect. Department of Energy officials have made clear that the new Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) should make it possible for the U.S. to reduce substantially its stockpile of spare nuclear warheads.

The parties to START are required to meet no later than a year before the scheduled expiration, or December, 2008, to consider how to proceed. Although Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are parties to START, a bilateral replacement agreement is most appropriate (SORT is bilateral), since these three countries no longer have nuclear weapons. Some high-level U.S-Russian discussions on the subject have already begun. The simplest solution would be to extend the tTreaty, something that is provided for in the treaty itself. Failure to agree would presumably just defer the decision to the next administration, which arrives in January, 2009.

However, neither of these easy options seems to be the first choice of either side. In the rather brief negotiations for the minimalist Moscow Treaty in 2001-2002, Russia managed to obtain the form it wanted -- a legally-binding treaty -- and the U.S. basically dictated the content. Both sides would probably like to see a less intrusive, less expensive regime and neither wants to endure a long, painful negotiation. Clearly, the rest of the world would strongly prefer a legally-binding regime. This raises the thorny issue of ratification. However, the Bush administration should have little difficulty in gaining Senate approval for any sensible new agreement -- recall that the Senate gave its approval for ratification of the Moscow Treaty 95-0. On the Russian side, the Duma is far less cantankerous than it was when it was frustrating Yeltsin and Putin in the 1990s.

With the Cold War over and the required START reductions -- most notably a ceiling of 6,000 deployed warheads on 1,600 delivery systems -- completed, START may not now seem as important as when it was signed in 1991. However, it would be a huge blunder to throw out the baby with the bathwater and allow the START regime to terminate without a replacement. Unnecessarily burdensome requirements that reflect Cold War suspicions do not need to be imposed on both defense establishments. For example, notification requirements on deployments of heavy bombers and procedures on the conversion of nuclear systems to conventional use could be eased. The number of on-site inspections could probably be reduced somewhat without lowering confidence in compliance.

However, it is important that whatever arrangement replaces START contains at least some agreed definitions and counting rules -- an area in which START was quite fastidious. A failure to do this would invite confusion and misunderstandings, even in an informal agreement. Whichever approach is followed, if we proceed intelligently and with sufficient good will, a looming crisis in the world's most dangerous weapons can be avoided and a safer future brought into view.

Jenifer Mackby is a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Edward Ifft was a senior negotiator for START and is adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.