A list of arms control agreements that Russia is currently breaking

The debate about ballistic missile defense is mainly between those who place their faith in arms control agreements with Russia, and those who place their faith in U.S.-controlled defensive systems to knock out ballistic missiles fired at the United States or its allies.

The Russian parliament will demand that the U.S. comply "unconditionally" with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty if Russia is to ratify START II-i.e., no ballistic missile defense. However, Moscow is systematically breaking current commitments and the U.S. is not demanding "unconditional" compliance. The following list drawn from open sources shows Russia's track record.

* Biological Weapons Convention. Russia maintains a substantial covert biological weapons program in violation of the 1972 convention, according to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency's (ACDA) recent annual report to Congress. Russian defectors and public officials, as well as the CIA, confirm the report.

* Chemical weapons agreements. Russia is reported not to be complying with a 1989 bilateral chemical weapons accord with the U.S., and with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Although the Convention has not been ratified by the U.S. or Russia, both sides have come to an understanding that they will abide by it and allow mutual inspections. As of 1995, Russia continued to conceal chemical weapons facilities form U.S. inspectors.

* Missile Technology Control Regime. Russia violated the 1990 Missile Technology Control Regime by seeking to sell SS-25 ICBM technology to Libya, and by successfully selling SS-25 technology to Brazil. The administration declined to impose sanctions because Russia "promised to stop."

* START I. Moscow conducted a mock nuclear attack on the United States in 1993, failing to give the U.S. advance notification as required by the treaty. Russia conducted a mock SS-25 ICBM, air-launched cruise missile, and submarine-launched ballistic missile attack on the United States on June 22, 1994, but ACDA will neither confirm nor deny whether Russia gave the required advance notice. In 1995, Russia used SS-25s as space launchers without properly notifying the U.S. in advance.

* START II. Moscow is violating the terms of START II by using SS-25s as space launchers. Questions remain about encryption of SS-19 ICBM flight tests, whose telemetry should be decipherable so the U.S. can determine the warhead load. The new ACDA annual report states that Moscow intentionally tried to conceal technical characteristics of the SS-N-20 SLBM in tests in 1991 and 1995. The administration failed to pursue the violation.

* Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Moscow has stated its intention to violate the CFE treaty not only by maintaining disallowed troop and armor concentrations in the northern Caucasus, but by creating a new 58th Army to be based in Chechnya.

* Agreements on transparency of fissile material storage and weapons dismantling. The July 1995 ACDA report finds that Russia is not making good on its agreements with the U.S. to make all fissile material storage facilities and weapons dismantling processes transparent to U.S. inspectors.

-J. Michael Waller