home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- THE WEEK, Page 24NATIONUp to the Presidents
-
-
- Just how deeply will the U.S. and Russia cut their arsenals?
-
-
- Arms-control talks between Russian President Boris Yeltsin
- and President Bush this week serve as a reminder that both
- countries still have thousands of warheads in their nuclear
- stockpiles. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the
- Senate will debate later this month, cuts warheads 30% for both
- sides. Bush has already proposed further reductions to 4,700
- warheads, and Yeltsin trumped this by suggesting 2,500 on each
- side.
-
- The stumbling block is U.S. insistence that the Russians
- scrap their entire post-START arsenal of 154 land-based SS-18
- missiles, each of which carries 10 warheads. Yeltsin demands as
- a quid pro quo that the U.S. dismantle its fleet of
- multiple-warhead Trident submarine-based missiles. After a final
- meeting with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, Russian
- Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev reported "good progress" but
- added that "the rest will depend on our Presidents."
-
-
-
-
-
-