A day later, foreign ministers from the 19 NATO countries meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, reached agreement on the creation of a NATO-Russia Council that would give Moscow a voice in setting joint policy on issues such as counterterrorism; proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; and missile defense. The NATO ministers denied Moscow any veto power over any military actions they decide to undertake.

Both of these decisions are to take effect just days before the June 1 deadline for Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed with Russia. Over the past year and a half, Bush has accelerated the effort started under former president William Clinton to build and test an antiballistic missile system that Washington hopes can one day be used to shoot down missiles launched toward the United States or its military forces.

During his election campaign Bush said he intended to drastically cut the number of warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal--currently at nearly 7,300. This restructuring has bipartisan support and has met little dissension in the U.S. ruling class. The nuclear weapons cut reflects the weakening of Russian military power, will make more efficient use of Washington's vast nuclear arsenal, and allow the Pentagon to reduce costly maintenance on warheads and upkeep of delivery systems, in particular long-range bombers.

According to the Arms Control Association, Washington currently deploys 600 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launchers with 2,151 warheads; 448 Sea-Launched Ballistic missile systems with 3,616 warheads, and 295 strategic bombers with 1,528 warheads.

The Russian government of Vladimir Putin reciprocated the announcement by the White House by stating its intention to also cut the Russian arsenal to between 1,500 and 2,200 warheads. Currently trying to maintain nearly 6,100 nuclear warheads, Moscow is eager to implement the reductions to slash the mounting expenses involved in maintaining and upgrading the aging weapons in their arsenal.

The three-page accord on nuclear weapons, the signing of which is to be the centerpiece of Bush's first trip to Russia from May 23-26, gives the Pentagon "enormous flexibility," noted the New York Times. No reductions have to take place before 2012, the year the treaty is to expire unless both sides agree to extend it. In addition, the agreement can be terminated by either party with just three months' notice. The treaty sets no pace for dismantling the weapons, stating only that the total number of strategic weapons must not exceed 2,200 in 2012.

Washington insisted on its right to store rather than destroy those warheads it does dismantle, a point that is incorporated in the treaty despite disagreement from Russian government officials on this point. Moscow also lost its argument that the treaty should incorporate wording stating that any missile defense system deployed by Washington would not weaken the nuclear deterrent posed by Russia's offensive weapons. The Bush administration offered only verbal assurances to Russia along these lines when it announced in December that it was withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

The Bush administration at first argued that there was no need for a written agreement, but conceded to Moscow's request that it take the form of a treaty. "Although the administration met Russia's request," noted a Washington Post article, "the president did not agree to anything he had not pledged to do unilaterally."

"This treaty will liquidate the legacy of the cold war," claimed Bush. Added Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman, "Both countries have enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other and most of the rest of the world, even after this agreement." Russian president Putin pronounced himself "satisfied" with the agreement, while his foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, described the accord as not an "overly ambitious document."

The agreement to form the NATO-Russia Council was a modest step taken by U.S. imperialism to appease the opposition of the pro-capitalist ruling layer in Russia, sections of which have voiced unease over the eastward expansion of NATO and Washington's drive to deploy a modest antimissile system.

Bush and other administration officials have both told their Russian counterparts that Washington will move ahead despite their objections, while at the same time offering some military and economic incentives to go along with the plan.  
 
'Integrating' Russia into Europe
In a speech last June in Warsaw, Poland, Bush said Europe's "great institutions--NATO and the European Union (EU)--can and should build partnerships with Russia and all countries that have emerged from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union." He also called upon the EU countries to cover the cost of this effort.

The Russian government under President Putin has taken consistent steps to converge with Washington along these lines, and to cede Moscow's earlier pretensions of dominating the republics that made up the former Soviet Union. Instead, economic integration into the world capitalist market has become the goal of the ruling layers in ascendency in Russia today.

On a military level, Moscow over the past few months has backed Washington's assault against Afghanistan and gave a nod of approval to steps undertaken by U.S. imperialism to gain access to military bases in the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Most recently, Putin gave Washington the green light for deployment of some 200 U.S. special forces to the Republic of Georgia.

Under the agreement with NATO, which President Putin and heads of government from the 19-member NATO nations will formally sign outside Rome on May 28, Moscow will for the first time be called an "equal partner" in discussions and actions of NATO on a variety of issues.

The arrangement, however, "amounts to considerably less than full membership," noted the New York Times. NATO members will maintain full control over "core military decisions" and "can vote to restrict discussion of any topic they choose." Nonetheless, this is a change from the previous arrangement under a Permanent Joint Council, which simply solicited Moscow's views on issues being discussed by NATO.

While the capitalist media reports no public pronouncements within Russia of opposition to these agreements, an article in the Financial Times quoting an unnamed NATO official who notes that "Putin has to get his own defence ministry, still suspicious of NATO, to recognise such cooperation with NATO would not be seen as a threat."  
 
Expanding NATO membership
The perspective of the U.S. rulers is to expand NATO membership to include many of the former Soviet republics. Nine nations in Eastern Europe have already requested to join, with Croatia recently adding its name to the list. In 1999, NATO admitted Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, extending the imperialist military alliance to the borders of Russia. At a meeting scheduled for this fall in Prague, several of the new applicants are expected to be taken into membership.

One of the big issues in dispute between Washington and the European-member nations of NATO is the growing gap between the power and reach of the U.S. military and the capabilities of the forces fielded by other European imperialist rulers. This was most recently seen in Afghanistan where U.S. forces ran the military campaign in the air and on the ground, with troops from Germany, France, Britain, and other nations being assigned follow-up housecleaning operations.

In recent remarks Powell warned about the "creation of a two-speed NATO," stated a New York Times article, "in which the United States takes care of an immediate crisis with overwhelming high-tech military power while other nations are largely reduced to being bystanders."

In early May, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee approved a $393 billion defense bill for next year--an increase of $50 billion, or 15 percent over this year. This will boost U.S. military spending even further above the 3 percent of the gross national product that it has been at in recent years. Nine NATO members now spend less than 2 percent of their GNP on the military. Spokespeople for several governments, including the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, have made clear that it will not be so easy to convince working people in their respective countries to support increased military spending, as Washington is strongly urging must be done.

Despite these moves toward closer military cooperation, trade tensions between Washington and Moscow, as well as with and among the European Union member states, point to future conflicts. The Russian government has joined the EU in opposing Washington's recent imposition of 30 percent tariffs on steel imports, for example. The Russian foreign ministry issued a statement saying that these tariffs "could have a serious impact on the atmosphere of Russian-American relations." At around the same time Moscow banned all U.S. poultry sales to Russia from March 10 to April 10.  
 
 
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