1993 - The Clinton Administration
The administration of William J. Clinton, which took office in January 1993, advocated more concerted United States efforts to aid Russian and NIS transitions to democracy and market economies. The justification of that policy was that these transitions served United States security and human rights interests and would provide markets for United States products. The April 1993 Vancouver summit, the first formal meeting between Yeltsin and Clinton, furthered United States-Russian cooperation on many bilateral issues. The resulting Vancouver Declaration pledged the two sides to uphold "a dynamic and effective United States-Russian partnership." The joint communiqué noted Yeltsin's pledge to continue reform efforts such as privatization.
Beginning in 1993, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued statements critical of United States actions and policies. Some United States observers interpreted them as part of a more assertive Russian foreign policy that insisted on protecting nebulous Russian vital interests. Other observers saw such statements primarily as rhetoric designed to mollify hard-line critics of Russian foreign policy in the parliament and elsewhere. Events corroborating the former interpretation included Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Central European and Baltic states, Russian military moves in Georgia that raised questions of its intentions in the near abroad, and Russia's insistence on selling nuclear reactor technology to Iran, as well as doubts about Russia's adherence to chemical and biological weapons bans, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE Treaty), and other arms control pacts. Another blow to United States-Russian relations came in 1994 with the United States arrest of Aldrich Ames, a longtime Soviet and Russian spy.
These events led some in the United States to question Russia's commitment to bilateral cooperation and the soundness of continued United States aid for Russia. Nevertheless, many elements of bilateral cooperation, including most United States aid programs, continued in 1995. From its high point in September 1993, when the United States Congress approved US$2.5 billion in aid to Russia and the NIS, the amount had declined to less than US$600 million for 1996. Only about one-third of the 1996 NIS appropriation was earmarked for Russia. In 1995 Congress placed several conditions on providing aid to Russia, such as requiring that Russia reduce assistance to Cuba. The United States also censured Russian behavior such as nuclear energy agreements with Iran.
The Supreme Soviet, which was less supportive than the Gorbachev government had been of international actions against Iraq, condemned United States air strikes in 1993. The Supreme Soviet approved START I in November 1992 with some conditions and after some delay, but then successive parliaments conducted hearings and debates on START II, without ratifying the treaty, from 1993 through mid-1996. In September 1993, Russia acceded to the Missile Technology Control Regime, reaffirming an earlier decision not to transfer sensitive missile technology to India.
The conflict in Bosnia remained an issue of contention. Yeltsin refused to support a UN Security Council resolution lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia's Muslim-led government. The United States also voiced concern about Russian peacekeeping activities in former Soviet republics, although Russia insisted that its actions respected the sovereignty of the new states. Russian recalcitrance on arms sales to Iran, classified by the West as a terrorist state, also was a source of conflict. While agreeing that no new arms contracts would be signed with Iran, Yeltsin insisted that existing commitments would be upheld.
Under the leadership of Vice President Gore and the Russian Prime Minister, the U.S. and Russia are working to advance bilateral cooperation through nine working committees and several working groups known collectively as the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. Committees address issues in the fields of science and technology, business development, space, energy policy, environmental protection, health, defense conversion, capital markets, and agriculture. In addition, the commission provides a forum for high-level discussions of priority security and economic issues. The commission held its 10th session in Washington in March 1998 and an executive session in Washington in July 1999.
The U.S. and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation in September 1993 that institutionalized and expanded relations between defense ministries, including establishing a broad range of military-to-military and scientist to scientist contacts. The U.S. and Russia carried out a joint peacekeeping training exercise in Totskoye, Russia, in September 1994. Based on the January 14, 1994, agreement between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin, the two nations stopped targeting their strategic nuclear missiles at each other as of May 30, 1994. U.S. and Russian security cooperation emphasizes strategic stability, nuclear safety, dismantling nuclear weapons, preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, and enhancing military-to-military contacts. The START I Treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991. Five months later, the Soviet Union dissolved, and in May 1992, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol to the START I Treaty, making them Parties to the START I Treaty.
The START II Treaty was signed by the United States and Russia on January 3, 1993. START II builds on the START I Treaty, requiring reductions in two phases to 3,000-3,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads on each side, a two-thirds reduction from Cold War levels. At the September 1994 summit, the two nations agreed to begin removing nuclear warheads due to be scrapped under START II immediately, once START I took effect and the START II Treaty was ratified by both countries, instead of taking the 9 years allowed.
At their May 1995 summit, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed on a set of principles that would guide further discussion in the field of demarcation between anti-ballistic missile systems and theater missile defenses. They also agreed on steps to increase the transparency and irreversibility of nuclear arms reduction and committed not to use newly produced fissile materials or to reuse the fissile materials removed from nuclear weapons being eliminated and excess to national security requirements in nuclear weapons.
As agreed at Cologne, the United States and Russia began discussions on both START III and ABM issues during the summer of 1999. Since then extensive discussions have been held on these matters at senior levels of both governments. On July 23, 1999, the President signed into law H.R. 4, the National Missile Defense (NMD) Act of 1999.
Following ratification by Russia and the other NIS, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty entered into force on November 9, 1992. This treaty establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of military equipment--tanks, artillery, armored combat vehicles, combat aircraft, and combat helicopters--and provides for the destruction of weaponry in excess of these limits. An adapted CFE Treaty was adopted at the November 1999 Istanbul Summit. The adapted Treaty took account of the changes in Europe since CFE was signed.
Often called Nunn-Lugar assistance, Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) assistance was provided to Russia (as well as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) to aid in the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction and to prevent the proliferation of such weapons. More than $730 million has been allocated for assistance to Russia during fiscal years 1997 and 1998 under this program, and 13 implementing agreements have been signed. Key projects have included assistance in the elimination of strategic offensive arms ($184 million), design and construction of a fissile material storage facility ($127 million), provision of fissile material containers ($45 million), material control and accounting and physical protection of nuclear materials ($51 million), and development of a chemical weapons destruction facility and provision of equipment for a pilot laboratory for the safe and secure destruction of chemical weapons ($106 million).
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