U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was shocked, taken aback — according to the news reports.
Why? She should have known.
The Russians have made it clear — they’ve said so in the Conference on Disarmament, and Putin said so at a security conference in Germany last year, before saying it again yesterday before assembled journalists, Rice, and U.S. Defense Secretary Gates. They don’t like the U.S. missile defense system. They are very much opposed to it.
Putin is angry, and has said so consistently. Russia was furious when the U.S. unilaterally abrogated its bilateral treaty on Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) — and the U.S. said soothingly that it was only because it didn’t reflect new realities, that the new Russia was no longer the enemy that the old Soviet Union was during the Cold War, and so on and so forth …
Then, the U.S. surprised everyone by proposing to put its Missile Defense Shield (a more realistic version of Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” proposal) in Eastern Europe, right on Russia’s doorstep — just like the U.S. deployed nuclear weapons in Europe during the Cold War. When Russia objected, the U.S. was surprised, shocked: So, the U.S. then proposed sharing the technology with Russia. The real target, the U.S. said, was Iran. Russia didn’t believe it for a second.
Why should anyone be surprised, then shocked, now? Unless, of course, you don’t take others seriously …
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists after a meeting with Rice and Gates in Moscow, also attended by the Russian Defense Minister, that Russia could not accept the deployment in Europe of U.S. missiles that had an “anti-Russian” character. Lavrov added that Russia wanted the deployment suspended while Russian-U.S. talks continued.
The Associated Press reported from Moscow that: “The Pentagon plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland, linked to a missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic. The Pentagon says the system will provide some protection in Europe and beyond for long-range missiles launched from Iran, but Russia believes the system is a step toward undermining the deterrent value of its nuclear arsenal. Russia sees the missile defense plan, which Washington describes as a hedge against the threat of missile attack from Iran, as a worrisome step toward weakening Russian security. It has been a long-standing dispute, and Putin’s remarks seemed to raise the level of tensions. After keeping Rice and Gates waiting for 40 minutes, Putin began the session with a lengthy monologue in which he also said Russia might abandon its obligations under a 1987 missile treaty with the United States if it is not expanded to constrain other missile-armed countries…”
The AP report on the tense Moscow meeting is posted here.
The Guardian reported that “Since denouncing the US during a memorable speech in Munich earlier this year, Mr Putin has withdrawn from the conventional arms forces in
On Saturday, Rice met with a group of Russian human rights activists — including the government-appointed ombudsman, whose inclusion in the meeting must have assuaged some Russian concerns. The U.S. has been accused of overlooking Russian human rights violations, particuarly in Chechenya, in exchange for Russian support for the “Global War on Terrorism”. Saturday’s meeting appeared to be a way for Rice to get back at Putin — which he no doubt fully anticipated.
The AP reported that Rice said to journalists after Saturday’s meeting that: ” ‘In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development … I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma [the Russian Parliament]’ …”
The AP added that “The U.S. is concerned about the centralization of power and democratic backsliding ahead of Russia’s legislative and presidential elections in December and March. Putin will step down next year as president. He has said he would lead the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party in the parliamentary elections and could take the prime minister’s job later.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071014/ap_on_re_eu/us_russia_rice_25;_ylt=AuIS3KKiDDKMGJ_4B3pqNLapg9IF
Part of Russia’s annoyance is caused by the U.S. position in the Conference on Disarmament, which meets at the UN’s Office in the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Conference on Disarmament has been deadlocked for ten years. Who you blame for this would depend on your ideology or politics. China has argued for several years that the U.S. must respect its top security priorities, if the U.S. expects China to do the same….
Despite intense diplomatic speculation, Russia has not wavered from its support of China’s position in the Conference on Disarmament: other countries main security concerns should be given equal weight with those of the U.S. For the U.S., it’s negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (“FissBan”, as it is known to the disarmament experts) — but only for any new production. Those who already have big stockpiles of the fissile material needed to make nuclear explosions, can just keep their supply.
For China, it’s prevention of an arms race in outer space (known as PAROS).
Russia has said it is willing to start negotiations on a “FissBan” (and so, now, too, has China) — but Russia and China also wants to start work simultaneously on PAROS.
It wasn’t just a joke when Putin said yesterday that Russia might put its missile defense on the moon.
The Guardian newspaper wrote on Friday that: “It has become a commonplace of international diplomacy that Russia and China often work together on key issues. They have frustrated western hopes for sanctions or other tough action on disputes ranging from Burma and Darfur to Iran. They are blocking a solution on Kosovo. What few in the west have spotted is that Sino-Russian rapprochement has reached such a point that the two huge countries’ relations with each other are far warmer than either US-Russian or US-Chinese relations. In other words, the famous US-Russia-China triangle Nixon and Kissinger created by their path-breaking overtures to Beijing in the early 1970s is completely reversed … Now Russia and China are together and the US is out of the loop. It is a stark fact that Condoleezza Rice and defence secretary Robert Gates cannot ignore today as they start two days of talks in Moscow. No more easy concessions from Moscow and Beijing. Both powers are big boys and can bargain as hard as anyone from Washington, whether neocon or ‘realist’…”
The Guardian analysis on Russian-Chinese relations is here.