Putin Responds to Obama Concessions with an Arms Buildup

The UK Telegraph is reporting that despite unilateral concessions on a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, Russia's Vladimir Putin is vowing to build new offensive weapons systems before even considering a renewal of the START treaty,

President Obama abandoned Bush era plans to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic earlier this year, citing the project as an impediment to getting an agreement from Russia. The Telegraph reports, "But the olive branch has yielded little if anything in return. Instead, Moscow has used Mr Obama's intention to instead build a "smarter, stronger and swifter" system involving both sea-based and land-based mobile interceptors as a justification for continued tensions."

The missile defense system Obama contemplates is aimed at rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. That does not seem to matter to Vladimir Putin, who seems intent on rebuilding Russia as a super power rival to the United States.

Putin's reaction may have come as a surprise to the Obama administration, but not to anyone who has studied the history of appeasement of dictators. Unilateral concessions have a tendency to have the opposite of the intended effect, emboldening men like Putin by showing weakness, rather than inspiring concessions in turn.

President Ronald Reagan faced the same problem during a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland when then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev demanded that the United States abandon plans for strategic missile defense in return for an arms control agreement. Reagan walked out of the talks in a move criticized at the time. But the move made Gorbachev realize that Reagan, who was an experienced negotiator dating from his days as a union leader, was not a man to be pushed around. Eventually the Soviet Union and the United States signed the original START treaty which mandated reductions in nuclear arms.

Clearly Vladimir Putin has reached somewhat different conclusions about Barack Obama, seeing him as weak and vacillating, more of a Jimmy Carter than a Ronald Reagan. It is not too late for Obama to disabuse Putin of this notion. In response to Putin's bellicose announcement, Obama could announce a stepping up of efforts to build a missile defense system in the United States. This move would signal Putin that there are limits to Obama's patience.

Despite the economic downturn, the American economy is far more robust than that of Russia's. Putin could not build offensive nuclear missiles fast enough to overcome an American missile defense system if the United States put its mind to building one. Indeed, such a build up might prove stimulating to the American economy.

Putin knows this and if he believes that Obama is serious, he will become more forthcoming in arms negotiations, just as Gorbachev did twenty years ago.

Source: Vladimir Putin threatens Barack Obama's nuclear stockpile cuts, Toby Harnden, UK Telegraph, December 29th, 2009