Russia's Foreign Security Policy in the 21st Century: Putin, Medvedev and Beyond by Marcel De Haas

Author:Marcel De Haas [Haas, Marcel De]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, Political Freedom, Security (National & International), General
ISBN: 9781136990328
Google: rSfGBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-04-05T13:37:18+00:00

Nuclear deterrence

Also in the field of nuclear deterrence President Medvedev continued the line of his predecessor when in September 2008—as part of a huge plan of modernization of the military—he announced an upgrade of the nuclear deterrent by 2020, not only in relation to the US missile shield plan but also to the armed conflict with Georgia of summer 2008 (Dyomkin 2008). And on 5 November 2008, the day after Obama was elected President of the USA, in his first state of the nation speech to the combined Houses of Parliament, President Medvedev repeated the statement of Sergei Ivanov of July 2007, that Russia might deploy missiles— short-range Iskander missiles whereas Ivanov mentioned cruise missiles—to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, to neutralize, if necessary, a missile defence system (Socor 2008h; Solovyev 2008). This was part of Moscow’s reply to the missile shield and other undesired aspects of US security policy. Only when the international financial crisis started to hit Russia as well, Moscow took a softer tone towards the West, also in relation to the build-up of strategic nuclear weapons. In December 2008 the Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces stated that Russia would stop developing certain strategic weapons if the USA would drop plans for a missile shield in Europe. At the same time Russia’s military were testing whether the life span of older nuclear missiles could be extended. The latter was an indication that financial troubles might force open the door for arms control negotiations, since more of the appeasing initiatives —towards mutual reduction of nuclear arms with the USA—were subsequently made by Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov (Halpin 2009a; Whitmore 2009). However, simultaneously Medvedev continued to utter strong talk on strengthening the nuclear deterrent, but that was done for domestic, usually military audiences. For example his speech to the highest MOD organ, the Defence College, on 17 March 2009, at which, by tough anti-Western talk, he sought support from the generals in executing the intended military reforms (Halpin 2009b; Litovkin 2009b). On 1 April, ahead of the G20 summit in London, Medvedev and US President Obama, who met for the first time, agreed to start talks on nuclear disarmament (Whitmore 2009). Both parties apparently were seeking improved relations by focusing on issues of less disagreement, before dealing with hard topics such as missile defence and NATO enlargement. Having lost its conventional military superiority after the demise of the USSR, Moscow was interested in discussing nuclear arms, since that more or less equal deterrence with the USA was the only ‘evidence’ of its superpower status. However, contrary to the USA, Russia did connect (US) missile defence to strategic nuclear reductions (Felgenhauer 2009b, c). From 19–20 May the USA and Russia held their first talks on ways to cut the stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Finding a replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1) before it expired on 5 December 2009 was the primary aim. As expected, RF Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that

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