U.S., Russia Split Over Scope of Arms Treaty Follow-Up but Concur on Goal, Negotiator Says

The Pentagon's desire to place conventional warheads on submarine-launched and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, to be able to strike terrorists or other targets anywhere in the world within an hour, has drawn the keen attention of Russian negotiators.

Discussing negotiations over a follow-up to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), Undersecretary of State John Rood told reporters last week that Russia wants the new treaty to control not just strategic nuclear weapons but also "conventional strategic forces," including "conventionally armed missiles" and "long-range bombers that drop a conventional weapon."

START, which expires next December, limits the number of strategic intercontinental missiles and bombers each country can have and the number of nuclear warheads and bombs each delivery system can carry. The treaty does not explicitly limit nuclear warheads or bombs by number, but it allows each country no more than about 6,000 warheads.

Under an agreement signed in May 2002 in Moscow by President Bush and then-President Vladimir Putin, the United States and Russia have pledged to reduce the number of deployed nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. Nothing, however, limits the numbers held in reserve stockpiles, nor does the agreement contain any of the START provisions for verification.

Rood said Wednesday that he had just returned from his 11th session with his Russian counterpart over the past 18 months, the first since late October, when the Bush administration provided Moscow with its draft version for a follow-up or extension of START. Rood would say only that the 50-page document set limits on strategic nuclear warheads and contained provisions to provide "confidence" and "predictability." In arms control, those terms mean some form of on-site inspection and transparency in defense budgeting and strategic planning.

Rood said the United States wanted to change START's method of factoring delivery systems into warhead limits because "that doesn't always correspond to the same number of nuclear warheads that you possess." For example, the B-1 bomber, which is counted as a strategic delivery system, has had its nuclear capability removed -- yet the bomber still counts, and is available for Russian inspection, under the START system. "Our preference would be to move away from that to a limit on actual nuclear warheads," he said.

The Russians "have provided us reactions and commentary on the U.S. draft treaty. . . . We'll translate it, we'll study it, we'll give it to our relevant experts to conduct analysis," he said. They also told Rood that additional Russian views would be presented, which he took to mean counterproposals, he added.

"We would like a treaty which sets limits on strategic nuclear weapons," Rood said. "Our colleagues in Russia would like a treaty with a broader scope than that. . . . They would like the scope of a treaty to cover all strategic forces, including those that are conventionally armed." The Russians have apparently concluded that more discussion at the Pentagon of new strategic systems carrying conventional warheads poses a threat to them.

One scenario used by the Pentagon in assessing Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability, a National Academy of Sciences study noted this year, is the need to strike "a ballistic missile launcher poised to launch a nuclear weapon at the United States or at an ally." Last year, the secretaries of defense and state told Congress that they supported a conventionally armed submarine-launched Trident missile in the near term while work begins on a long-range conventional strike missile, based in the United States, that could be ready by 2014.

Rood insisted that the United States has stuck to nuclear warheads being "the appropriate focus" of the START talks. "We have a national policy that we have implemented to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons to the lowest possible level, and we are increasing reliance on conventional forces in the United States military," he said.

Despite differences with the Russians on the scope of a START follow-up, there is no difference of opinion on the objective, Rood said: "Both sides were very clear that we want to reach an agreement on a successor . . . before the expiration of the START treaty." He added that he expects to have additional talks before the Bush administration departs "so that we hand this off to the next administration in hopefully the best shape that we can."

National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that flood Washington and uncovers the fine print that rarely makes headlines -- but should. If you have any items that fit the bill, please send them to fineprint@washpost.com.