If you've been following the "nuclear news", you'll remember that the START treaty (a long-standing, and successful, arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia) expired December 5. Negotiations have been underway to put in place some kind of follow-up agreement, but they keep hitting snags. Since no agreements were ready by the December 5 deadline, Obama and Putin agreed to uphold the terms of the original START I treaty for some indefinite period of time until negotiations made some progress.
The latest (and potentially significant) snag in the negotiations is Putin's recent re-awakening of the missile defense issue. You may remember that there used to be a treaty in place between the U.S. and Russia called the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. This treaty prevented both sides from building "missile defense shields", and it was seen as crucial in maintaining the cold-war balance of power and limiting the offensive arms race. As a part of President Bush's nuclear policy, the U.S. pulled out of the ABM treaty, and began working on a new missile shield in Europe. Ostensibly, this missile shield is intended to protect against nuclear attacks from Iran or North Korea, not Russia. However, Putin warns that the U.S. missile defense agenda could drive Russia to develop new offensive capabilities. A relatively recent article on this can be found here:
New York Times article on Putin's recent statements
While this may just be a negotiating tactic, Putin is holding up START treaty negotiations over the missile defense issue. Negotiations are supposed to restart in the middle of this month.
Meanwhile, back home, a group of republican senators is claiming they will oppose a follow-up START treaty unless the Obama administration funds modernization efforts for our existing nuclear arsenal:
Wall Street Journal opinion piece
Overall, what we are seeing here is Obama's idealistic nuclear disarmament agenda being confronted with real world complexities. It will be a very interesting year to keep tabs on the "nuclear news"!
