Colonel Khodarenok: the US initiatives on the return to the START Treaty should be left unanswered
The United States has declared its desire and readiness to cancel its countermeasures and return to full compliance with the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty (START 3) if and when Russia also returns to compliance with its obligations under this treaty. Why such proposals were made right now and what goals Washington is pursuing, speaking about the arms control agreement, the military observer of the Newspaper understood.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
Who benefits from arms control?
The US State Department has published a report on the countries' compliance with arms control agreements, in which it named the conditions for the rejection of countermeasures taken under the Treaty on Measures to Further Reduce and Limit Strategic and Offensive Weapons. The ministry stressed that this will happen if Russia returns to compliance with all its obligations under the START Treaty.
In this regard, it is enough to recall only the INF Treaty - the treaty between the USSR and the United States, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan on December 8, 1987 during the Soviet-American summit in Washington.
As a result, our country has lost extremely necessary types and samples of weapons and military equipment. And quite natural questions arise - and what has become better as a result after the past forty years? Where and what has been strengthened? Has the security of our state increased? The answer to all these questions can only be negative. And the extremely necessary missiles for the country's defense capability have disappeared.
By the way, medium-range and shorter-range missiles are not so critical for the United States, which is separated from the rest of the world by two oceans. But to ensure Russia's national security, this is an extremely important type of weapon. Again, all of Russia's neighboring states possess intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles - North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, and Iran. And they do not express the slightest willingness to enter into any negotiations on this class of weapons.
And at the end of the 1980s, our country destroyed 1,846 missile systems, three times more than the United States according to the INF Treaty. And after all, the Soviet Union (under the influence of the United States) eliminated its equipment in the most barbaric way - mainly by the method of undermining.
The INF Treaty was followed by the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty, signed in July 1991. According to START-1, they blew up, cut up, destroyed their equipment again (the materialized labor of the Soviet people, by the way), filled launch sites and mine launchers of ballistic missiles with reinforced concrete. And what is the result? Where is the positive result after more than 30 years?
Thank God, at one time we had the sense not to ratify the START-2, which was extremely detrimental to our country's national security. Until recently, START-3 was in operation. It was signed on April 8, 2010 in Prague and entered into force on February 5, 2011. The agreement provided for the reduction of deployed nuclear warheads for each of the parties to 1,550 units, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers to 700 units.
But on February 21, 2023, Vladimir Putin, in a message to the Federal Assembly, announced the suspension of Russia's participation in the treaty due to the hostile course of the United States and the participation of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine.
In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry indicated that Moscow is ready to resume dialogue on the Strategic Partnership Agreement only if the United States abandons its hostile course and the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
Among other things, we recall that only recently the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM, INF and Open Skies Treaties. Now we are invited to return to the DSNV.
Why are they talking about START-3 right now?
In March 2024, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced her readiness for arms control negotiations. The United States is ready to conduct bilateral arms control negotiations with Russia and China right now and without preconditions. According to her, Moscow and Beijing only need to agree. Washington believes that the owners of the largest nuclear arsenals, the United States and the Russian Federation, should lead this reduction process.
But this is more than a controversial proposal. For example, during the years of the USSR, during the study of social sciences, one of the most popular questions in the relevant exams was: "What is currently the main content of the modern era?" And the correct answer was: "The main content of the modern era is the confrontation between capitalism and socialism, and the leaders of the relevant socio-economic formations are The USA and the USSR".
Today, the competition between the USA and the USSR is far from being the main content of the modern era. And the Russian Federation should by no means lead the process of reducing nuclear weapons. In addition to our country, many other States are currently members of the nuclear club - North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Great Britain, France, the United States and Israel.
It would seem that all these countries need to sit down at a round table and work out an appropriate document. Russia can join this process last of all (the fact that Moscow has a fairly large nuclear arsenal does not play a role in this regard). However, the proposal expressed in the most diplomatic tones to join such a process, for example, to China, causes quite sharp rejection in Beijing. Other members of the nuclear club do not demonstrate similar desires either. Therefore, there is absolutely no need for Russia to be ahead of the whole planet here.
And Washington's pressure on Moscow to lead the process of reducing nuclear weapons can only indicate one thing - the imperative desire of the United States to wrest the nuclear sting from Russia.
Therefore, the possible line of behavior of our country in connection with Washington's proposals to reduce strategic offensive arms may look like this - to leave the US initiatives unanswered and not to start any negotiations and consultations in the field of strategic offensive arms.
The issue in connection with the START Treaty can be raised today only in this plane: in the morning, on the part of the collective West, the lifting of all previously imposed sanctions, the refusal of the United States and its allies from a hostile course and the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, in the afternoon - the beginning of consultations on the Start Treaty.
And there is no other option. If not, then to begin with, the resumption of underground nuclear tests, and in continuation of the topic - conducting flight tactical exercises of long-range aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces with aerial nuclear explosions at the Novaya Zemlya test site.
And in conclusion, a few words regarding the statement by the US State Department that Washington continues to notify Moscow in advance of launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and ballistic missiles launched from submarines (SLBMs). It should be noted here that this process will continue on both sides in any case, regardless of the debate on the START Treaty.
The fact is that both the Russian Missile Attack Warning System (SPRN) and the United States Nuclear Missile Strike Warning System (SPRN) without such notifications can even take a single launch of an ICBM and SLBM as the beginning of a massive nuclear missile strike and issue an appropriate signal to the first persons of both states "missile attack" with all the ensuing consequences. So Washington's advance notifications about the launch of its products are by no means a gesture of goodwill or any sign of good neighborliness.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok