U.S.-Russia `from Honeymoon to Confrontation`

Against The `Axis of Evil` Utterance -

Russian member of lower house Andrei Nicholayev said on January 31st,"The three nations including North Korea, which the U.S. president Bush remarked as `constituents of axis of evil`, are important for Russia’s interests, and Russia should improve relationship with them." He also criticized, "America’s point of view is for its own benefit, not for the benefit of the international society."

President Vladimir Putin also targeted U.S.`s solitary power system and said that "International relations do not have hope when ruled by one nation." This was the first time President Putin expressed an uncomfortable feeling against the U.S. Despite domestic criticism, he avoided making strong statements against the U.S. for the sake of maintaining good relations.

Negotiations For Strategic Weapon Reduction –

Russia and the U.S. hold severely different views on the strategic weapon reduction. Russia is requesting documentation of ballistic missile reduction agreement, and for the weapons to be destroyed completely. However, the U.S. opposes, saying that an oral agreement is enough for the details, and ballistic missiles should be dismantled and stored.

Russia is positive about weapons reduction because it is not able to maintain large-scale ballistic missiles, but the U.S. is quite passive in the agreement since it wants to maintain its military superiority. Russia insists that present 6,000 warheads should be reduced to 1,500, but the U.S. insists on 1,700 to 2,000 warheads.

The U.S. announced its establishment of the Missile Defense (MD) System last May, and held negotiations with opposing Russia. Eventually, the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty last December. Russia is worrying that the U.S. might follow the same procedures in the negotiation for strategic weapon reduction.

kimkihy@donga.com