A lackluster START

Last week, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev finally reached an agreement on the terms of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

START was first signed in 1991 and has been renewed by Russia and the United States with increasingly stringent limitations on several occasions since.

The new agreement, scheduled to be signed in Prague next week, modestly increases limitations but makes no significant difference in the conventional and nuclear capabilities of either country.

The START treaty talks have been hailed as a trust-building mechanism that can serve as a stepping stone to more impactful results at the nuclear negotiating table. However, an effective trust-building measure should not be so challenging for each country.

Medvedev’s and Obama’s administrations have struggled to reach an agreement and originally had hoped to sign a new treaty before the last START expired in December 2009. Five months after that expiration, they will sign a treaty that reduces arms by only half as much as the 2002 Treaty of Moscow signed by former President George W. Bush and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Obama has promised a new era of extending an open hand in the international arena, and President Medvedev is widely perceived to have a slightly less clenched fist than his predecessor Putin.

The inability of these two more progressive leaders to make any real progress is a disheartening measure of the continued strain in Russo-American relations.

While the newest START treaty will do little to build international security on its own, the true test of Obama and Medvedev will emerge as Nuclear Nonproliferation talks begin later this month.

If the long START process indicates that Medvedev and Obama have been working through critical issues in the relationship, they might be able to take great strides forward now that some understanding has been reached.

If it indicates recalcitrance and hesitation on both sides (and a failure to move away from attitudes and policies of the past), these new leaders will be a disappointment to their respective countries and the international community.