Russia launches drive to upgrade its strategic nuclear weapons

TEL AVIV -- Russia has changed its benign policy and is directing scarce funding toward improving its strategic nuclear weapons arsenal, a leading defense expert says.

Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's Defense Committee, said that after several years of neglect the Kremlin is focusing its energy on rebuilding and improving its strategic nuclear arsenal. He said this includes billions of dollars into research for new weaponry.

Arbatov said the trigger for the new Russian policy was the U.S.-led NATO offensive against Yugoslavia in 1999. He said Moscow now regards NATO as an opponent if not an enemy.

"Now, everything has changed," Arbatov told a Tel Aviv University conference. "After the war in the Balkans, there was no more talk of detargetting [the United States]. The Duma [Russian parliament] and the executive branch drafted a law for long-term allocations for the strategic forces."

The result, he said, has been a 26 billion ruble increase for such programs as anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense. He said the goal is to increase nuclear deterrence and enhance conventional defense against NATO.

But Arbatov acknowledged that Moscow cannot afford to confront both NATO and fight the current war in Chechnya. He said NATO has a five-fold superiority in conventional forces and weapons.

Russia now spends 2.8 percent of its gross national product on defense. To meet Russia's military needs, Arbatov said, Moscow would have to increase the defense budget to at least 3.5 percent of the GDP. "The would mean instituting price and wage controls and we would stop being a market economy," he said.

In Washington, U.S. deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott acknowledged concern over Russia's new arms policy. "Mr. Putin has also said he wants to re-establish Russian strength," Talbott told the Senate Appropriations Committee. "How will he define strength? Will it be in anachronistic terms of brute strength and the capacity to intimidate neighbors? Or will, it be in modern terms, relevant to the demands and opportunities of an era of globalization? Those are questions that virtually all of Russia's neighbors are asking themselves today."