SUMMIT YIELDS NUCLEAR ARMS CUTS, BUT NO MISSILE DEFENSE DEAL

The much-anticipated summit between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin has ended with major arms reduction commitments on both sides, but without a deal on missile defense. Speaking publicly following meetings with President Putin at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President Bush unveiled an informal commitment to reduce the size of the American nuclear arsenal by two-thirds, the Washington Times reported on November 13th. President Putin responded in kind, indicating his readiness to reduce the Russian nuclear arsenal by the same amount, to the "minimum level necessary." Despite this breakthrough, however, the two leaders did not reach a compromise agreement on missile defense that would preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty while allowing Washington to forge ahead with its missile defense initiative, as had been widely expected.

U.S. REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO NMD, EYES ABM TREATY

In the wake of the Bush-Putin summit, the White House has publicly reiterated its commitment to missile defense, the Associated Press (November 16) reports. Speaking from the President's Crawford, Texas ranch following the summit, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice revealed that "[t]he timeline has not really changed. The president continues to believe that he has got to move forward with the testing program in a robust way, so that we can really begin to evaluate the potential for missile defenses." In the wake of the summit, the United States has also begun to seriously consider scrapping the 1972 ABM Treaty, Rice has warned. The "time is coming where our testing programs will start to bump up against the constraints of the treaty," and the U.S. will have to "move beyond" the Cold War agreement, the National Security Advisor told NBC's Meet the Press on November 18th.

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY RUFFLED BY PROPOSED NUCLEAR CUTS

The verbal commitments to nuclear arsenal reductions made by Presidents Bush and Putin in Crawford have raised worries in the Kremlin. Vice-Admiral Valentin Kuznetzov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, criticized Washington's proposal for a swift non-formalized reduction in nuclear stockpiles as lacking adequate verification and oversight, the Interfax news agency (November 14) reports. In a similar vein, Colonel General Igor Valynkin, head of the Defense Ministry's 12th Main Directorate, (responsible for the military's nuclear arsenal), minimized the commitments articulated at Crawford, declaring verbal promises to be largely non-binding, the November 15th Obschaya Gazeta reports. Guarantees - manifested by international agreements and concrete verification procedures - are needed, the paper's interview with Valynkin and other experts concluded.

U.S., ISRAEL EXPAND STRATEGIC DIALOGUE...

American and Israeli strategists have held a two day summit to discuss Israel's contribution to U.S. missile defense efforts, the November 16th Jerusalem Post reports. The talks, held in Israel as part of the biannual Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) meetings on strategic cooperation between the two countries, were headed by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Lincoln Bloomfield and Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. The dialogue, which included high-ranking Pentagon officials and officers from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), was intended to lay the groundwork for an expanded Israeli role in the Bush Administration's plans for a layered international system to protect America and its allies from ballistic missile attack.

...WHILE WASHINGTON, SEOUL DRAW CLOSER ON NMD...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has publicly expressed growing concern over North Korea's ballistic missile arsenal. The Defense Secretary cited Pyongyang's missile development and quest for weapons of mass destruction as a "very real" threat to American security during a joint press conference with South Korean defense minister Kim Dong-Shin, the Associated Press (November 15) reports. Rumsfeld's comments were made amid rumors that the White House plans to use South Korea as a radar site for its international missile defense system. Seoul's Yonyap news agency reported on November 16th that the Pentagon has chosen South Korea as one of nine regions where U.S.X-Band Radars will be deployed between the years 2010 and 2015. South Korea, however, has so far distanced itself from these reports: "The Seoul government has received no formal request from Washington to build a new radar base here," an anonymous South Korean defense ministry official told the agency.

...AND GULF STATES RULE OUT COOPERATION WITH THE U.S.

Repeated American efforts to rally countries in the region around a missile defense umbrella for the Persian Gulf appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has decisively rejected the idea of missile defense cooperation with the United States, the November 16th Middle East Newsline reports. According to Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Defense Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the six member-nations of the Council - Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - "have no intention to take part in the U.S. Stars Wars project at present."

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