26
With Courage and Persistence
existing and negotiated strategic and conventional arms
reduction treaties. Baker traveled throughout the region,
meeting with the presidents of the four nuclear states
and explaining to them the prospect of U.S. financial and
direct assistance for the safe and secure dismantlement
of nuclear weapons and forces.
9
In his January 1992 State
of the Union address, President Bush announced that the
United States would cancel its advanced strategic missile
programs, stop production of W-88 nuclear warheads and
MX2 test missiles, terminate the B-2 strategic bomber
program at 20 aircraft and end production of new warheads
for advanced sea-launched cruise missiles.
10
Within a week,
President Yeltsin spoke before the Russian Duma outlining
further weapons reductions, production cancellations and
operational cessations in Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.
He declared that Russia would meet its required weapon
eliminations under the START Treaty, within three years
instead of the seven years permitted by the treaty. Further,
he signaled his government’s interest in reducing strategic
nuclear warheads from 6,000 to 2,500 in a new treaty.
11
By mid-February 1992, the Bush Administration’s
nonproliferation policy was clear. First, they declared that
Russia would be the Soviet Union’s successor state for the
START I Treaty. Second, they decided the Russian president
should take the lead in persuading the leaders of the three
new states - Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, to sign, ratify
and implement the START I Treaty. Next, they decided to
continue the diplomatic momentum toward lower and
lower levels of nuclear arms by instituting negotiations
on achieving agreement on new, lower strategic warhead
numbers with Russia in a new bilateral START II Treaty.
Fourth, they would use military and economic assistance
to aid the new nations in safe and secure dismantlement
of their excess weapons. And finally, they committed the
administration, and subsequent ones, to carrying out all
the president’s announced eliminations, cancellations and
cessations of tactical and strategic weapons systems.
12
Secretary Baker was extremely active in carrying out
this policy, initiating an array of policies and programs that
engaged the new states. On January 10, Baker and Western
European leaders hosted the foreign ministers of the new
CIS nations at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. There, U.S.,
Canadian, and Western European leaders welcomed them
as member-states into the North Atlantic Cooperation
Council, a new multinational council set up in the fall
1991. They invited them to become signatory states to
the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, a
1990 arms control treaty designed to reduce conventional
weapons and forces stationed in 22 European nations,
including the Soviet Union.
At that meeting, Russian representative, Ambassador
Vladimir Petrovskiy, rose and asserted that Russia would
ratify the CFE Treaty for all the other nations as it alone
was the successor state to the Soviet Union. Immediately,
the ministers of the other nations rejected this Russian
interpretation, insisting that as sovereign states they would
decide to join the treaty or not. U.S., Canadian, and Western
European foreign ministers endorsed their stand. Then, all
the ministers adopted a resolution that if any of the new
states chose to sign and ratify the CFE Treaty, they would
become original parties to the treaty. Further, they decided
the treaty obligations of the former Soviet Union should be
wholly accounted for by the newly independent states and
should be apportioned among them in a manner acceptable
to all parties. This was a significant decision since it meant
that the Soviet Union’s 3.7-million man conventional land,
sea and air forces would be partitioned among the 15 new
nations and subject to the treaty. It also meant there would
be no supranational military command, like the CIS Armed
Forces, for the new state’s conventional military forces.
13
President George H.W. Bush
George Bush Presidential Library
