Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev

Editorial (New York Times)

By the time President George W. Bush left office, Russian-American relations had deteriorated alarmingly. Russia bore a good part of the blame, harassing opponents, stifling a free press and bullying its neighbors. But Mr. Bush both enabled former President Vladimir Putin’s worst impulses and ignored his occasionally legitimate complaints.

With President Obama scheduled to meet President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia in Moscow on Monday, both sides say they are eager to “reset” the relationship. One welcome sign: Officials said on Friday that Russia had agreed to let American planes fly over Russian territory to re-supply forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

There are certainly a lot of other difficult issues that need their joint attention.

We are especially eager to see them make progress on reducing their nuclear arsenals — Mr. Bush disdained arms-control negotiations and treaties. Two decades after the fall of Communism, the two countries — astonishingly and frighteningly — still have more than 20,000 nuclear weapons.

In five months, the 1991 Start I treaty — which contains the basic rules for verifying the size and location of each others’ nuclear forces — expires. It must be extended. We, along with the rest of the world, are also eager to see the two leaders commit to further reductions in the number of deployed weapons.

Under the 2002 Moscow treaty — Mr. Bush’s only arms-reduction treaty — the two sides agreed to go down to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed warheads. There is talk that they are now looking to reduce that ceiling to 1,500 warheads.

We think 1,000 would send an even clearer message to Iran and North Korea — and others who have been far too tolerant of their nuclear misbehaviors — that the world’s two main nuclear powers are placing a lot less value on their nuclear weapons.

Instead of waiting for a treaty, both sides could demonstrate their good will right now, and make the world a lot safer, by jointly committing to taking their entire arsenals off hair-trigger alert. And they should pledge to quickly destroy all of their short-range weapons. The United States has 200 to 300; Russia has at least 3,000. These weapons are not covered by any treaty, and they are too vulnerable to theft.

The two leaders should not let their disagreements over American plans (left over from Mr. Bush) to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic stand in the way of an agreement.

We are skeptical that the technology is anywhere near ready for prime time. We are also certain that the system, which Mr. Obama says is intended to stop Iranian missiles, poses no threat to Russian security. A healthy dialogue is clearly in order.

Russia was pivotal in winning recent approval of tougher United Nations Security Council sanctions on North Korea. But it has been less helpful with Iran. Moscow has strong economic ties with Tehran. But Mr. Obama must do all he can to persuade Mr. Medvedev that he is playing with fire.

The biggest challenge for Mr. Obama will be finding a balance between enlisting Russia’s support on international issues without appearing to endorse its anti-democratic behavior at home or its ongoing threats to neighbors, most notably Georgia. Mr. Bush never managed that. Mr. Obama needs to do better.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/opinion/04sat1.html?ref=opinion