Obama, Medvedev Sign Treaty to Cut Nuclear Arms - courtesy of Internazionale

PRAGUE—U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed Thursday the most significant arms-control treaty in nearly two decades, declaring a new chapter of cooperation between the nations on nuclear issues and beyond.

"The pursuit of peace and calm and cooperation among nations is the work of both leaders and peoples in the 21st century," Mr. Obama said. "We must be as persistent and passionate in our pursuit of progress as any who would stand in our way."

While hailing the moment, Mr. Medvedev tempered his praise with a warning that any "qualitative and quantitative increase in [antiballistic missile] capability" could render the treaty inoperative.

In a ceremony full of pomp, the two leaders signed the treaty side by side, seated at an inlaid wooden desk in Prague Castle, inside a rococo ballroom adorned with gold leaf, dramatic friezes and gilt chandeliers. The ceremony came nearly a year to the day after Mr. Obama appeared in Prague’s castle square to lay out his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

"It is just one step on a longer journey," Mr. Obama said after Thursday’s signing. "As I said last year in Prague, this treaty will set the stage for further cuts. And going forward, we hope to pursue discussions with Russia on reducing both our strategic and tactical weapons, including non-deployed weapons."

The treaty has been dubbed New Start, a reference both to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty it replaces and what both sides say is a reset relationship between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. It caps the number of deployed nuclear warheads at 1,550 a side, a 30% reduction from the 2,200 limit agreed to in the Moscow Treaty of 2002.

Intercontinental missiles, submarines and heavy bombers would be limited to 700 a side, less than half the number agreed to in the 1991 treaty, the last comprehensive and verifiable arms accord.

But because of quirks in counting warheads aboard heavy bombers, the actual number of nuclear weapons could be considerably higher in seven years, when the treaty if fully in force.

The greater meaning of the accord may be verification and inspection rules that guarantee nuclear cooperation and the protracted negotiations that Russian and American officials say have promoted cooperation on issues from missile defense to Afghanistan to Iran.

Mr. Medvedev praised the "enhanced cooperation and trust" between the two countries. Mr. Obama called the ceremony "a testament to the truth that old adversaries can forge new partnerships."

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Duma’s committee on foreign relations, said the accord will improve Russia’s sense of stability while allowing both sides to shed outdated armaments that should have been given up long ago.

"It’s a win-win situation," he said.

"The broader significance is much greater than the narrow, technical significance," said George Perkovich, director of the nuclear program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It really does give traction to U.S.-Russia relations."

The treaty must still be ratified by two thirds of the U.S. Senate and both houses of the Russian Duma, but Mr. Obama is already looking toward the next steps. Forty-seven heads of state will be in Washington next week for a nuclear security summit where the U.S. president wants commitments to secure all of the world’s fissile materials within four years. Much of those materials are in Russia and its sphere of influence in the former Soviet states.

Mr. Obama will need Russia’s cooperation as he pushes the United Nations Security Council later this month to adopt tougher sanctions on Iran to isolate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Messrs. Obama and Medvedev discussed Iran sanctions in an 85-minute private meeting Thursday before the signing ceremony.

The U.S. administration wants to move quickly to the next round of arms negotiations, which promise to be far more difficult. Those talks would aim at bringing nuclear weapons caps to 1,000 or below, and would include Russia’s advantage in tactical "battlefield" nuclear weapons and the U.S. advantage in mothballed nuclear warheads, still functional but not counted under the caps because they are not deployed. Russian leaders have vowed to go no further unless the U.S. includes its missile defense program in the talks.

"I don’t think it’s the end of the road for arms control with the Russians," a senior U.S. administration official said confidently.

The New Start negotiations proved much more difficult than expected when they were announced a year ago in London. One U.S. negotiator conceded "there was a miscalculation." The Obama administration didn’t understand the grievances nursed by the Russians over what Moscow saw as inequities in the 1991 treaty, which was negotiated just after the Soviet Union’s collapse when Russia was at its weakest.

U.S. negotiators made concessions to Moscow that will keep some Russian ballistic missile development secret. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly said his country could pull out of the treaty if the Kremlin believes the U.S. missile defense system in Europe is becoming a threat.

That has given conservatives in the U.S. an opening to criticize the treaty. Calling it "False Start," the Republican National Committee declared in a statement this week that Mr. Obama was "sacrificing future weapons programs and caving to Russian demands."

Liberal arms control groups have lamented loopholes that would allow hundreds of warheads to be deployed over the 1,550 cap. That is because each heavy bomber deployed counts as one nuclear weapon, even though one planes can carry dozens of warheads.

The White House began the ratification process immediately, tasking Brian McKeon, a National Security Council aide to Vice President Joe Biden, to lead efforts in the Senate. Briefings of individual senators on the particulars of the treaty were to begin Thursday. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stressed that past arms control treaties had been approved with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.

"We are hopeful that reducing the threat of nuclear weapons remains a priority for both parties," Mr. Gibbs said.

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