The U.S. and Russia Battle Mistrust to Finalize Nuclear Arms Agreement

In the recent New York Times article "Twists and Turns on Way to Arms Pact with Russia", published March 26, 2010, Peter Baker reports on the multiple hurdles that the two countries have jumped in order to finally come to an agreement on the long time issue of nuclear arms reduction. Rose Gotemoeller of the United States and Anatoly Antonov of Russia were appointed to head the agreement between the two nations, and although the majority of the agreement was supposed to come from the administration of both states, their respective leaders, Obama and Medvedev, were incredibly focused and involved in the negotiations. At first the two countries simply wanted to extend the original Start I treaty that expired in December, but negotiations proved that they needed to tackle more than just the extension and update of inspections and verifications systems and modest arms reductions. President Obama took a trip to Moscow in July in order to "narrow differences over treaty goals" as American negotiators pushed for a specific numerical limit for arms and Russian negotiators pushed to leave it relatively undefined, eventually compromising by enacting a target range. The Russians also brought up missile defense, wondering how Moscow was expected to cut its arsenal while the U.S. could negate the small nuclear force. Also, the Russians refused an update of the verification system because they viewed it as an agreement made when the country was weak and therefore American inspections were an insult, as well as unnecessary between to friendly countries. In addition to those demands Russia called for a reduction in American missile launchers and refused to the American proposal of required telemetry (the science and technology of automatic measurement and transmission of data by wire, radio, or other means from remote sources, as from space vehicles, to receiving stations for recording and analysis). However, at a meeting concerning climate change in Copenhagen the two leaders met and finally found common ground on all of the above issues, and the Americans left in celebration, but none of the agreement was put down in writing. Later a team of Americans traveled to Moscow and finalized everything, except for the sore subject of missile defense. After one final push in Moscow Russia and the U.S. drafted their statements, but Russia stipulated that it would pull out of the agreement if it deemed American defense missiles to be a threat, and the U.S. clarified that it would continue to build its defense system, but it was not making a target of Russia. The two leaders ended everything with a phone call stating " 'If you want something done right,' Mr. Medvedev began in English, and Mr. Obama finished his thought: 'you do it yourself.'"

This article related to Comparative Government because of the huge foreign relations issue that arose. The agreement increased the legitimacy of both governments, as well as the transparency in the realm of nuclear arms. The breakthrough in foreign policy also serves as a landmark on the road to rebuilding relations between the two major countries.

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