US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven PIFER: “The US expects Ukrainian support as far as amendments to ABM Treaty are concerned”

The two strategic partners, Russia and the US, now take almost opposite approaches to the future anti-missile defense treaty. Two weeks ago, Ivan Aboimov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia in Ukraine, addressing a press conference in Kyiv, in fact accused the US of trying to undermine the foundations of this treaty and hence upset the strategic balance between Russia and the USA.

As is known, the US approved last summer a law authorizing America to set up a new anti-missile system after a preparatory stage. It is intended to protect the United States from possible individual enemy missile attacks. Russia is dissatisfied with such US plans. Moscow says this violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, for the latter bans covering the whole country with an anti-missile umbrella, as America is planning now. At present, this treaty allows the US and Russia each to defend from a possible missile attack only one 150-km-wide area. The rest of the territories in fact remains almost defenseless, so neither side of the treaty, it was calculated, will never dare be the first to unleash a nuclear conflict, given the consequences of a retaliatory nuclear second strike. Thus should America put its intentions into practice, Russia will have to take steps in reply so as to make up for US defense advantages. And this means a new arms race.

Steven Pifer, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the US to Ukraine, speaking to The Day’s correspondent, explained America’s approaches to this sore point which may become an apple of discord between the two nuclear superpowers, with all the negative consequences for such countries as Ukraine, which try in such cases to pass painlessly between Scylla and Charybdis.

“I guess the first thing I would say: this is not SDI, which was conceived as a defense of the U nited States against a Soviet missile attack. This is concern driven by our intelligence estimate, which we’ve shared with the Ukrainian government, that early in the next decade North Korea, followed by countries like Iran and Iraq, will acquire long-range ballistic missile capabilities. So the threat concern is not how do you deal with Russian ballistic missile force; it’s how you deal with a very small number of ballistic missiles that North Korea, Iran, Iraq might possess in, say, five or ten years from now.

“This summer a decision was taken on what the architecture of a phase one of this limited defense would look like. We have not yet taken a decision to deploy this system. But under the plan, what is envisaged is deployment in Alaska of up to 100 interceptor missiles and a new radar system, and it would also upgrade existing early- warning radars that we already have either in the United States, Greenland, or Great Britain. The timing here is that in order for this system in Alaska to have an operating capability in the year 2005, construction of the site would have to begin in 2001. In order to begin construction in 2001 President Clinton would have to make either a go or a no-go decision in the summer or second half of the year 2000.

“The concept envisages a second phase, which would involve another deployment of a limited number of interceptor missiles. But that decision process and any process regarding negotiations to amend the ABM Treaty would be put off several years down the road because it’s not nearly as urgent.

“Our intention is that we would like to negotiate with Russia and also in the special consulting commission in which Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan participate, to agree on an adaptation or a change to the ABM Treaty. When the ABM treaty was negotiated in 1972, in fact there was at that time a recognition that the strategic situation might change. So, the treaty specifically has provisions that allow for its adaptation or amendment to reflect changes in the strategic situation.

“Our intention is that we would like to proceed with the negotiation of adapting the ABM Treaty to allow a limited deployment of interceptor missiles, while at the same time continuing to proceed on reducing strategic offensive arms.

“I just conclude by saying three things that are not happening.

“First at this point, there has been no decision to deploy. That decision will be taken a year from now.

“Second, we do not see this system as posing any threat to the Russian strategic forces. Russian strategic forces now number in the thousands in terms of warheads. They are very sophisticated, and we believe the Russians probably have what we call penetration aids and decoys, things to confuse a radar system. So we don’t see 100 interceptor missiles as posing a threat to their deterrence against the United States.

“And the last thing, there has been no decision to end or abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by the United States.”

“We think the treaty will remain, should remain an important element of the strategic equation. We would like to see some limited changes to the treaty to allow the deployment of a limited defense that would provide protection against the rogue states.”

“And what made the US establish its anti-missile base in, of all places, Alaska? Russia claims this place of deployment clearly confirms the anti- Russian essence of the American plans.”

“I guess one point is the location of Alaska. That’s determined more by the location of North Korea than of Russia. I think actually if somebody was choosing to develop a defense against Russia you would probably use some very different locations.”

“The United States is certain that the 100 anti-missile missiles in Alaska should not be regarded as upsetting the military balance with Russia, the more so that one hundred Russian interceptor missiles have already been deployed around Moscow. But the main threat, according to Russian analysts, lies in the fact that, while deploying a limited anti-missile system in Alaska, the US will implement advanced technological innovations, which will allow your country to reliably cover all the fifty states with a nuclear umbrella in a short time. The strategic balance will thus be disturbed, and disturbed irreversibly, given Russia’s economic weakness.”

“Because of the construction lead time the Russian concern of what we call a break-out capability shouldn’t be that great. Break-out capability is the capability to quickly break out from the limitation under a treaty. The construction lead time for this is well over four years. So even if the Russians had a concern that we might someday try to break out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, they would have ample time to take an appropriate response. That’s four years of construction time in addition to the time for debate and discussion in the United States that would be totally transparent to the Russians. When we told the Russians in August about what we are thinking, I don’t think that they were all that surprised because they can read the newspapers and see the discussions that have been taking place in Congress and between Congress and the executive branch in the last couple of years. And one big emphasis that we put on it, and why we’ve tried to engage the Russians is we want to explain to them very carefully, these are what our plans are, so they have a very good understanding of what the program will be, because our belief is that when the Russians understand what we’re trying to do they will see that this defense is limited and would not threaten Russian forces.”

“However, the warnings do not come from Russia alone. For example, Greenland was reported not to agree to the deployment of anti-missile system elements on its territory should Russia object.”

“The ABM Treaty in 1972 basically said each side can have early warning radar on its borders, and made two exceptions for the American radars in Greenland and Great Britain. Just for background, the US has five major early warning radars for the United States. Three are in Britain, Greenland, and Alaska, which look basically over North Pole. There is one in California that looks out over the Pacific Ocean and one, I believe is in Massachusetts, which looks over the Atlantic Ocean. There are some questions in NATO about our intentions, and we try to start a process now to brief the NATO allies so that they understand what is going to happen.”

“And how does the United States assess Ukraine’s stand on the current situation with the ABM Treaty? The point is that journalists, for instance, have recently found it difficult to make any conclusions, for these problems were shrouded under a certain veil of secrecy.”

“ABM has been an issue that has been very much part of the US-Ukraine dialogue over the last four months. In part, because Ukraine is a member of the Special Consultative Commission that is provided for in the ABM Treaty but also as a strategic partner, we have wanted to be very transparent so that Ukraine can understand our thinking on this question. For example, in early September I briefed [former] Secretary Horbulin and Foreign Minister Tarasiuk on American thinking on missile defense. At the end of October we brought a team from the Pentagon and the State Department to brief Ukrainian officials from the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the National Security and Defense Council. And then we talked about it also at the Foreign Policy Committee meeting on November 22, plus we’ve also had discussions in Geneva at the session of the Special Consultative Commission.

“As to the Ukrainian position it is better to check with the Ukrainian side, but let me tell you the Ukrainian position as I understand it. The Ukrainian government has not yet said that it agrees with our plan; they have not said they oppose it. The Ukrainian government wants to understand our plan, wants to understand, for example, its impact on arms control. And from our perspective that’s a perfectly legitimate position at this point. Obviously, if it came time and if we were going to seek changes to the ABM Treaty, we would hope to gain Ukraine’s agreement to those changes as well as Russia’s agreement. There has been one particular question that we’ve talked to Ukraine and many other countries about, which is the Russian proposal that was put forward in the UN First Committee and that will be put forward in the UN General Assembly on the ABM Treaty. Our view is that issues regarding the ABM Treaty should be discussed between the US and Russia and then discussed in the Special Consultative Commission between the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. We did not think it was an issue for the UN General Assembly.

“So we asked the Ukrainian Government as well as a lot of other countries either to oppose the Russian resolution or to abstain on it. And when this came up to a vote in the UN First Committee, Ukraine abstained, which we appreciated. And obviously we hope that Ukraine will abstain again when it comes up to a vote in the full General Assembly.”

“As of now, the US and Russian approaches to the future ABM Treaty are different, if not absolutely opposed. Each side has a number of complaints about the other’s positions. So would it not be more productive, against this background, to offer a certain joint project, e.g., a global anti- missile defense, which could unite the interests of all sides and turn all the minuses of the arguments and counter-arguments into one common plus?”

“I’m not sure that the United States and Russia are as far apart as sometimes seems. For example, the Russians do believe in missile defense systems. The only operating anti-ballistic missile system in the world now is the one located around Moscow. So, we think that we can in the process of negotiationscome up with a solution that addresses the Russians’ concerns. The notion of a common approach is interesting, and I think we’ve actually already begun talking with the Russians about that, because if we look at some of the rogue states, some of them could pose a threat including Russia as well as the United States. Iran, for example, will have a missile capability that can reach Russia probably several years before it will have the capability to reach the United States. A first step to a common approach would be to talk about working with the Russians to share information on ballistic missile launch warnings. And the idea would be to find a mechanism whereby we could share the information that we get on our early warning radars and also some of our observation satellites with the information that the Russians collect, so that there would be a very good expanded capability on both sides to understand that there had been a missile launched.”

“I wonder, in this context, if the following things are true: in exchange for Russia’s consent to amending the ABM Treaty, the US is ready to finance the final stage of construction of a missile early warning radar system near Irkutsk, to help Russia put in orbit eight military satellites to watch American missile silos, and, finally, to share with Russia the know-how utilized in the development of the American anti-missile defense?”

“I have seen reports about the first two items in the press. I’m not totally sure exactly where we are in the negotiating process, what the US position is on this topic. On the question of sharing missile technology, I suspect that that’s probably a bit down the road. What we have tried to do is talk to the Russians, and we’re hoping to understand their concerns: are there ways we can address their concerns? But it’s also proceeding from a starting point, which is that the changes that we want to happen here in deploying defenses would not be directed against Russia. It would be directed against rogue states that could pose a threat to the United States and to Russia.”

“But wouldn’t it be cheaper to invest money making these politically unstable countries unable to get nuclear weapons, rather than spend staggering amounts on building installations to protect yourself from their missiles?”

“I think that kind of negotiation would be hard because there’s always a factor about the unpredictability of some of those countries. I think North Korean behavior, for example, for the last several years has been fairly unpredictable. For example, despite the fact that North Korea because of its very dire economic situation is looking for Western assistance, including food assistance, the North Koreans still seem to continue to pursue a ballistic missile capability that they know is of great concern to us and their neighbors like South Korea and Japan. I’m not sure that anybody thinks that kind of approach — of basically trying to buy them off from deploying the systems — would work.”

“Should America fail to strike a deal with Russia on anti-missile defense, what kind of choice will it make?”

“I think we’d face a hard choice. There is an option to abandon the ABM Treaty, and the treaty in fact provides for it. But Washington has been very clear that it does not want to abandon the ABM Treaty. We think that the treaty is very important for security relations building. We’d like to adapt it to meet this new security challenge, and we think that can be done without threatening the relationship between the United States and Russia. You can’t say what the decision will be now. It will be a decision that the President himself will have to take in light of his judgment regarding the threat from the rogue states, their impact on arms control regimes. Ultimately he has to decide: do our American security interests advance by this program? And very much we would like to do this as a result of a negotiated and cooperative outcome with Russia.