In his State of the Union address, Bush offered proposals that could quickly cut each arsenal by more than half, to roughly 4,700 strategic warheads and bombs for the United States and about 4,400 for the former Soviet Union. That is far below the levels called for by the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). But as Yeltsin introduced himself on the world stage, he appeared to go Bush one better, proposing that each side go down to about 2,500 warheads. He also announced that his country would no longer target U.S. cities or military installations (American missiles are still aimed at Russian military targets, including some in Moscow). And he tried to horn in on the American Star Wars program, offering to combine U.S. and Russian technology in a new, global missile-defense system. At Camp David, the leaders proclaimed a new friendship between their countries. “From now on, we do not consider ourselves to be potential enemies,” said Yeltsin.
Yeltsin’s gambits are clearly designed to attract foreign financial support and to get him out of a costly arms race without demoting Russia to second-class status. Even as he throws in the towel, he is trying to join the winning team. Bush isn’t sure he wants a teammate. The U.S. president bluntly staked his country’s claim to be the “one sole and pre-eminent power” in the world, as he said before Congress-“the undisputed leader of the age.” In the administration’s eyes, Yeltsin is still no Mikhail Gorbachev. Washington isn’t even convinced that he will survive for long. But last week Yeltsin clearly established himself as a full member of the superpower club, and Bush agreed to hold two full-scale summits with him this year.
The cuts proposed by Bush and Yeltsin mark a major change in arms-control tactics. This time, neither side is trying to protect weapons systems that are still on the drawing boards. But each side is also looking out for its own interests. Bush called for the elimination of all land-based strategic missiles with multiple warheads (MIRVs), the category in which Moscow is strongest. On submarine-launched ballistic missiles, where the Americans are strongest, Bush offered to reduce warheads only “by about one third.” Moscow wants across-the-board cuts. “Our suggestion is that we get rid of MIRVed warheads on [all] ballistic missiles, ground-launched or sea-launched,” said Aleksei Obukhov, an arms-control expert at the Russian Foreign Ministry. “That would constitute a major contribution to stability.”
Washington believes that sea-launched missiles contribute more to stability than land-based missiles; they are harder for an aggressor to find and destroy. But Yeltsin isn’t likely to be pushed offshore. “Your definition of what’s most stable is influenced by whether you have three warm-water coasts or nine time zones on land,” says Jack Mendelsohn, deputy director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. In the end, Bush and Yeltsin will probably negotiate a trade-off- so many Soviet ICBMs in exchange for so many U.S. Trident submarine warheads.
One catch is that Bush cannot be entirely sure Yeltsin speaks for the other three former Soviet republics where strategic missiles are deployed: Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. He said his proposals are based on “constant interaction” and “agreements” with the other republican leaders. But there are many points of friction between Russia and its partners. Early last week Yeltsin snubbed the Japanese foreign minister and skipped the Moscow session of the Mideast peace talks in order to visit the Black Sea, where the Ukrainians claim control of the former Soviet fleet. Despite such problems, nuclear weapons are under unified commonwealth command, which Yeltsin effectively dominates. “We think Yeltsin can deliver,” says a senior U.S. official, “but of course it’s something we have to watch.”
If Bush and Yeltsin can reach agreement, verification is not likely to be the problem it has been before. This time, the Russians want technical and financial help from the United States in dismantling their weapons. “In the past, we sought an intrusive verification system so that we could see what was going on,” says a senior aide to Secretary of State James Baker, who visited Moscow last week. “Here’s a case where they’re coming to us and saying, ‘We’d like to go through with this destruction process, and we need your help to do it.’ So we’re partners in the exercise.”
Yeltsin’s proposal to enlarge the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) scored a neat rhetorical point. In 1983, Ronald Reagan offered to share SDI technology with the Soviets–a promise that some U.S. officials aren’t eager to keep. Pressing his case at a news conference in New York, Yeltsin said Moscow had its own plans for a missile shield, and he stressed that Russia has extensive experience in space. At Camp David, Bush expressed “a lot of interest” in Yeltsin’s proposal and said it would be discussed by experts from both sides. “There are a lot of practical problems, of course,” said a senior U.S. official, “but there are also new political reasons to take a good hard look at it.”
But a power struggle at home could thwart Yeltsin’s disarmament prices soaring as a result of his economic reforms, his government has only about a 10 percent approval rating in opinion polls. He has come under increasingly sharp attack from conservatives, including his own Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi, and the chairman of the Russian parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov. Looking to the outside world for politically helpful economic assistance, Yeltsin compared the commonwealth to “a baby in diapers. You don’t want to drop it,” he said.
Ironically, some American officials are just beginning to approve of Yeltsin. Long suspicious of his emotional stability and his devotion to democracy, they are beginning to respect his skills. When Baker and his aides discussed arms control with Yeltsin last week, they were surprised by the improvement in his grasp of detail. “He knew it, he knew it cold,” said one U.S. official. “And it was very, very, very technical. It was really impressive.” At Camp David, Yeltsin revealed that he and Bush are on a first-name basis. “We say ‘Boris,’ we say ‘George’,” he told reporters. The question is whether Yeltsin can hang onto power long enough to cash in on all the dividends of peace.
