Obama and Medvedev: arms reduction

This week President Obama visited Moscow with his family. The visit was neither smooth nor successful. It was productive. It was the first step to a potential progress in the US-Russia arms control talks. Finally, American and Russian presidents started to talk, to negotiate and share their views. Conversation is everything in reaching any sort of agreement and maintaining peace.

However, I'd like to share some of my "outside the box" thoughts:

The major newspaper of the Russian Government, "Rossijskaya Gazeta", published an article entitled "Barak Obama assessed negotiations with Russian President as productive". It is almost impossible to find in the major Russian news portal a couple of tiny details, which shed a completely different light on the Obama's visit in Russia. Since we are talking about high-level diplomacy, those tiny details are crucial.

1. Obama and Medvedev signed a political accord about future strategic arms reduction, and agreed to come up with a political document to replace START. Well, political document does not equal a legally-binding agreement. While the two presidents made some progress and showed a good example to the entire international community with regards to deadly nukes, their agreement has a big window of adjustments and jiggle-wiggle space. This result of the U.S.-Russia negotiations indicates to me that the countries are nowhere near the level both of them were when Gorbachev announced the USSR unilateral nuclear weapons reduction.

We can praise both presidents for sitting at the same table, talking and negotiating, but the outcome of these negotiations is nowhere near it should be.

2. Obama and his diplomatic/foreign policy experience. I respect President Obama, he seems to be a wonderful man, he is an outstanding achiever and a skillful leader. Obama's flow is that he is in the box called "I am a DEMOCRATE and that's it!" and he had little foreign policy experience. Sara Palin may have seen Russia from her window, but unfortunately President Obama with his great advisors only sees Russia only form the perspective of his own "box". What do I mean by this?

Well, no doubt, the Obama-Medvedev meeting was historical. It was the first "warm up" step towards improving relations between the two countries...and what does Obama do??? Our wonderful leader goes to a meeting with Russian "systemic democratic opposition" and political radicals to talk about democracy-building in Russia! Yey, US was not so successful in Iraq with building a democratic society, but maybe Obama will try to do it with civil society in Russia? Without Russian President of course. HUGE DIPLOMATIC MISTAKE. Just at the point when US and Russia need to do everything to negotiation nuclear stockpiles reduction, Obama attends a meeting of Russian political opposition to show Medvedev that the U.S. president always does what he wants.

I respect President Obama dearly, I appreciate the work of his advisors, but why does he again follow the old path of typical US diplomatic mistakes? Why not to learn how to be strategic, why not to take it slow?

Unfortunately, people in the United States do not understand that Russian people, the entire political system, is not a democratic system and works differently.

Obama's meeting with the opposition was hardly covered in Russian media, President Medvedev and Russian political elite was very disappointed about this gesture of Obama, and unfortunately the new U.S. Administration repeats mistakes of the previous group in power.

I strongly believe that the top U.S. decision-makers today need to learn how to think "outside the box". And, by the way, I know one person who sometimes does it - Hillary Clinton (I hope she recovers from her arm injury soon).

Off for two months

Dear Friends,
I apologize for not updating the blog. I have been working on a project, but I continue monitoring of global security issues and new updated posts and information is coming up!

Best wishes

shifting values

Today all eyes are on statement exchanges between Obama and Medvedev administrations. The two leaders of the two countries with the largest nuclear arsenals met at the G20 summit and surprised the international community with their statements on the prospects of disarmament negotiations between the two nations. Not only Obama and Medvedev committed to work on a new treaty to reduce strategic arsenals, but Obama confirmed his intentions to ratify CTBT.

Sudden and unbelievable progress in the U.S. thinking and commitment to a new system of values, including progress towards nuclear weapon free world - is something to be excited about!

In his speech in Prague, Obama confirmed "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." Such a commitment may seem unrealistic, but the higher the goals in disarmament the better the progress!

U.S. - Russia cooperation in disarmament and arms reduction is crucial for making progress in other related areas, including nuclear status of North Korea and tensions in the Middle East.

There are some people in the United States who still think in terms of "Cold War". Moreover, and this thinking is based on the belief that nuclear weapons can help protect the country from another 9/11. Some high level U.S. officials sincerely believe that giving up nuclear weapons means giving up U.S. power and leadership.
For example, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized Obama's foreign policy for his "unrealistic" nuclear weapons policies. UPI.com reports that Gingrich referred to Obama's policies as fantasy policies and said: "And one morning, just like 9/11, there's going to be a disaster, and people are going to look around and say, 'Gosh, why didn't anyone think of that?' Well, I'm telling you the time to think about it's before the disaster, not afterward."


I think there is a great need in changing the U.S. thinking and values system regarding nuclear weapons.

Good News: US started to make good moves towards Russia

Despite that President Obama is not planning to visit Russia yet, even though he is silent about his vision of the U.S. - Russia relations (especially in the field of disarmament), even if Obama is not talking to Medvedev - there is a number of outstanding leading leaders in the United States who work their way to warm up Russian heart and launch a spring time between the U.S. and Russia.

New York Times reports: According to the latest news, three former American secretaries of state and a former secretary of defense were in Moscow on for informal meetings with top Russian officials in an attempt to pull relations between the United States and Russia out of a tailspin before the countries’ presidents meet for the first time next month. A month ago, the Obama administration sent a letter proposing a dialogue on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions that could diminish American needs for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Separately, James A. Baker III was in Moscow for a conference and called the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons laudable but said Russian-American relations could be more immediately revived with the measure of resuming talks on prolonging the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start I, which expires in December. No replacement has been negotiated for Start I, and Russia’s support for Iran’s civilian nuclear industry is thwarting Western efforts to dissuade that country from enriching uranium that could also be used in a bomb. Along with Mr. Kissinger, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry and Sam Nunn were scheduled to meet the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, on Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/world/europe/20russia.html?_r=1&sq=veterans&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=5&adxnnlx=1237557667-KqGD/FzH/+BWtMl8NA7QUw

Bad News: Syrian Nukes...

According to YNET News Syria has nuclear weapon plans. CIA and Israeli officials are surprised and...astonished? Media is quite and we continue to worry about economy more than about a nuclear terrorist attack or other nuclear catastrophe...

A top-ranked Iranian defector told the United States that Iran was financing North Korean moves to make Syria into a nuclear weapons power. The daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung published an article, which went into detail about an Iranian connection and talked about Israel's Sept. 6, 2007, raid that knocked out Syria's nearly completed Al Kabir reactor in the country's eastern desert. The February 2007 defection to the United States of Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and a former deputy defense minister, provided considerable information on Iran's own nuclear program, said the article, written by Hans Ruehle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry.
For more info: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3689320,00.html