Nuclear Forces

MOSCOW -- The 30,000 nuclear weapons on the territory of the former Soviet Union will not fall into reckless hands, both Kremlin presidents, Boris N. Yeltsin and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, said yesterday.The assurances went to Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who also met with Defense Minister Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov in a day that reflected the unsettling limbo into which the country has sunk.He talked first with Mr. Yeltsin, as president of Russia and co-founder of the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

MOSCOW - Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov warned yesterday that American development of new types of nuclear weapons, armed actions that bypass the U.N. Security Council and anti-Russian attitudes inside NATO could force his nation to adopt tougher defense measures. With NATO due to admit seven former Communist states next week, including three Baltic countries that were part of the Soviet Union, Ivanov stressed Moscow's desire to see the Western alliance leave behind its Cold War roots.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's strategic nuclear forces would be largely unaffected by a U.S. military pullout from the Philippines because the Air Force and Navy have not based nuclear weapons there for years, anti-nuclear activists and military experts said yesterday."

MOSCOW - It was meant to be an impressive display of military might. Instead, Russia wound up looking like the former superpower that couldn't shoot straight. A missile launched from the Karelia, a nuclear-powered submarine in the Barents Sea, veered off course yesterday and automatically self-destructed, Russian wire services reported. It marked the third time during the exercises for Russia's nuclear forces, billed as the largest since the Soviet era, that a missile launch went awry.

NIZHNY TAGILL, Russia - A squabble among Russia's top brass about the future of the armed forces spilled over into the public arena yesterday as President Vladimir V. Putin and his generals attended a major arms show aimed at spit-shining the military's image. Military and national security leaders have struggled for months over ways to restructure the armed forces and resuscitate the country's military-industrial complex as part of Putin's goal of overhauling the Russian government. At a closed-door meting earlier in the week, Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, recommended eliminating the strategic nuclear forces as a separate branch of the military and folding it under one of the remaining three.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S move to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons and his "stand down" order ending four decades of Strategic Air Command alerts has prompted predictable calls from Congress to turn all America's swords into plowshares.Typically, the lawmakers proposed defense cutbacks affecting other lawmakers' states. For example, Sen. Sam Nunn of aircraft-building Georgia called to an end to the ground- and space-based Strategic Defense Initiative, while contending America still needs large numbers of the B-2 bomber.

MOSCOW - It was meant to be an impressive display of military might. Instead, Russia wound up looking like the former superpower that couldn't shoot straight. A missile launched from the Karelia, a nuclear-powered submarine in the Barents Sea, veered off course yesterday and automatically self-destructed, Russian wire services reported. It marked the third time during the exercises for Russia's nuclear forces, billed as the largest since the Soviet era, that a missile launch went awry.

MOSCOW - Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov warned yesterday that American development of new types of nuclear weapons, armed actions that bypass the U.N. Security Council and anti-Russian attitudes inside NATO could force his nation to adopt tougher defense measures. With NATO due to admit seven former Communist states next week, including three Baltic countries that were part of the Soviet Union, Ivanov stressed Moscow's desire to see the Western alliance leave behind its Cold War roots.

WASHINGTON -- The new U.S.-Soviet arms treaty will barely dent the Pentagon's $50 billion-a-year strategic nuclear weapons budget, according to government officials and independent analysts.They see the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed Wednesday by President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow, as a huge boost to national security -- contributing to international stability and reducing the chances of nuclear war -- but as a near-pygmy in the budget arena.There are three main reasons:* The first, which complicates any estimate of savings, is that the Bush administration cut back several major missile and bomber programs last year, and it is hard for analysts to assess how much that was done for budgetary reasons and how much it was done in anticipation of a treaty.

WASHINGTON -- After launching bombshells on issues ranging from climate change to arsenic, President Bush took a different approach on missile defense. But for all the expectation, the strong language in support of missile defense was not backed up with much detail about how to build one. Mr. Bush did not set a date for fielding a system. He did not talk about cost. And he did not describe the technologies or system design. The reason for these big blank spots is that the Bush administration is learning, like the Clinton team before it, that deployment of a missile defense puts one in touch with some very hard realities about the threat, the technology and the impact on the United States, its allies, Russia and China.

WASHINGTON - The White House chief of staff refused yesterday to rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons during a war with Iraq to prevent what he called a "holocaust" caused by the possible use of weapons of mass destruction by Baghdad. "Should Saddam Hussein have any thought that he would use a weapon of mass destruction, he should anticipate that the United States will use whatever means necessary to protect us and the world from a holocaust," Andrew H. Card Jr. said on NBC's Meet the Press.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush announced a widely praised decision in November to unilaterally slash the size of the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal. His proposal, which would cut the number of U.S. warheads from 7,000 weapons today to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads a decade from now, was intended to fulfill his campaign promise to "leave the Cold War behind." Two months later, the bloom is coming off the Bush plan. Just last week, the Pentagon made public the main conclusions of the yearlong classified review it undertook to fill in the details of Mr. Bush's vision.

WASHINGTON - Don't believe all the tough talk. The recent opening of simultaneous "consultations" in Moscow between the United States and Russia on nuclear cutbacks and missile defense is the latest sign the Bush administration prefers engaging Russia on nuclear issues rather than going it alone. Until now, the administration said negotiating reductions with Moscow, which was cutting its forces anyway, was unnecessary, and administration officials had questioned the need for a binding agreement to overhaul or replace the 1972 ABM treaty.

WASHINGTON -- After launching bombshells on issues ranging from climate change to arsenic, President Bush took a different approach on missile defense. But for all the expectation, the strong language in support of missile defense was not backed up with much detail about how to build one. Mr. Bush did not set a date for fielding a system. He did not talk about cost. And he did not describe the technologies or system design. The reason for these big blank spots is that the Bush administration is learning, like the Clinton team before it, that deployment of a missile defense puts one in touch with some very hard realities about the threat, the technology and the impact on the United States, its allies, Russia and China.

WASHINGTON -- While awaiting word on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated his desire for deep cuts in nuclear forces. He reportedly would consider a treaty permitting Russia and the United States only 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads each. Although Mr. Putin's proposal springs largely from Russia's economic weakness, it is a very sound idea. Whoever wins Florida's electoral votes would be well advised to take his suggestion seriously.

NIZHNY TAGILL, Russia - A squabble among Russia's top brass about the future of the armed forces spilled over into the public arena yesterday as President Vladimir V. Putin and his generals attended a major arms show aimed at spit-shining the military's image. Military and national security leaders have struggled for months over ways to restructure the armed forces and resuscitate the country's military-industrial complex as part of Putin's goal of overhauling the Russian government. At a closed-door meting earlier in the week, Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, recommended eliminating the strategic nuclear forces as a separate branch of the military and folding it under one of the remaining three.

WASHINGTON - Don't believe all the tough talk. The recent opening of simultaneous "consultations" in Moscow between the United States and Russia on nuclear cutbacks and missile defense is the latest sign the Bush administration prefers engaging Russia on nuclear issues rather than going it alone. Until now, the administration said negotiating reductions with Moscow, which was cutting its forces anyway, was unnecessary, and administration officials had questioned the need for a binding agreement to overhaul or replace the 1972 ABM treaty.

MORE VALUE WAS lost on the New York Stock Exchange a week ago than the Russian economy produces in 10 years.Russia's economic troubles certainly played a role in triggering the Wall Street correction. But, to put it in perspective, it's important to remember that Russia's entire economy is roughly the size of Illinois'. From a purely American standpoint, the real concern in Russia's domestic crisis is not how it affects the economy, but how it affects the security of her immense arsenal of nuclear weapons.

CHICAGO -- You would think that 10 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States would be doing everything it could to get Russia to reduce its bloated, aging and dangerous arsenal of approximately 6,000deployed strategic nuclear warheads. You would be wrong. In fact, as revealed in official documents obtained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and released recently, U.S. negotiators have sought to allay Russian fears about a possible U.S. national missile defense system by ruling out any future reductions in strategic nuclear warheads below the 1,500-2,000 level and encouraging Russia to maintain its nuclear forces on constant alert.

MORE VALUE WAS lost on the New York Stock Exchange a week ago than the Russian economy produces in 10 years.Russia's economic troubles certainly played a role in triggering the Wall Street correction. But, to put it in perspective, it's important to remember that Russia's entire economy is roughly the size of Illinois'. From a purely American standpoint, the real concern in Russia's domestic crisis is not how it affects the economy, but how it affects the security of her immense arsenal of nuclear weapons.