Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

ate risks for Russia.” 74 But since then, this Russian demand
to curtail even the new adaptive phased Obama
program for missile defenses became the principal
obstacle to the successful conclusion of the treaty. 75 It
has also become a matter of public controversy within
Russian politics. Putin’s aforementioned remarks
from December 2009 underscore that point. 76 Putin’s
demands relate both to the domestic power struggle
in Russia and the Russian hawks’ demand that they
be free to build nuclear weapons without constraint.
Thus it appeared that Russia’s hawks were willing to
obstruct the treaty to gain total freedom of action to
build offensive weapons against a nonexistent threat. 77
Putin, Defense Minister Serdyukov, and the General
Staff all argued for slowing down negotiations to insist
on linking offenses to defenses and to maintain
the primacy of Putin’s line on these issues over Medvedev’s
apparently less confrontational approach.
They did so regardless of the fact that doing so placed
chances for U.S. Senate ratification at greater risk. 78
Indeed, during the final stage of negotiations, Russia
demanded that the treaty include a joint statement
signed by both sides stating Russia had the right to
terminate the treaty should it deem U.S. missile defense
programs to be dangerous. 79 This, too, would
have doomed the treaty in the U.S. Senate. Russia has
also stated in the treaty-related documents its right to
unilaterally withdraw from the new agreement if it
believes U.S. missile defense deployments upset “strategic
stability.” 80 Even though this is in no way legally
binding, in reply to this revelation:
In a not-yet-released letter obtained exclusively by The
Cable, Arizona Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, and
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, warn National
316