START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-VI):

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SUBJECT: START FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS, GENEVA (SFO-GVA-VI):
(U) AD HOC WORKING GROUP MEETING, OCTOBER 21, 2009

Classified By: A/S Rose E. Gottemoeller, United States
START Negotiator. Reasons: 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (U) This is SFO-GVA-VI-009.


2. (U) Meeting Date: October 21, 2009
Time: 10:00 A.M. - 12:20 P.M.
Place: U.S. Mission, Geneva

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


3. (S) At the first Ad Hoc Group meeting chaired by
Secretary of Defense Representative Dr. Warner and Russian
Deputy Head of Delegation Colonel Ilin, the majority of the
meeting was dedicated to the discussion of counting rules
related to the Russian-proposed limit on deployed and
non-deployed ICBM and SLBM launchers. The Russian Delegation
stated the limit was necessary to demonstrate the resolve of
the Parties in negotiating a treaty with meaningful
reductions. The Russian side believed the limit provided a
means to control the other Party's upload potential.


4. (S) The sides also had a short exchange on counting rules
related to heavy bomber nuclear armaments. The U.S. side
stated that declaration and verification of deployed heavy
bomber nuclear armaments was required to give any credibility
to reductions proposed in the new treaty. In the Russian
view, declaration and verification of these weapons was not
necessary since it was the upload potential of the bomber
that was important.


5. (U) SUBJECT SUMMARY: New Meeting Format of the Ad Hoc
Group to Promote Discussion and Solution Identification;
Separate Limit on Non-deployed ICBM and SLBM Launchers;
Non-deployed Systems of Concern are not the Caretaker MMIII
and PK Silos; Dropping Third Limit; Did Strategic Plans
Drive Arms Control or Arms Control Drive Strategic Plans;
Force Structure is not a Military Decision Alone; NPR
Process Education; Upload Potential as Related to Russian
Method of Counting HB Warheads; Can't Forget the Effect of
BMD on the SDV Limit; and, Re-Direct to Counting LRNA.

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NEW MEETING FORMAT OF
THE AD HOC GROUP TO
PROMOTE DISCUSSION AND
SOLUTION IDENTIFICATION
--------------


6. (S) Dr. Warner began the meeting stating that A/S
Gottemoeller and Ambassador Antonov agreed that a meeting in
this format was a means for delegation members to discuss the
more difficult issues that faced the Parties. Meetings of
this type would help identify key problems and possible
solutions and gain a better insight into the thinking of the
sides. Colonel Ilin agreed that the forum provided a means
for productive discussion of issues of a delicate nature. He
clarified that any agreements reached during these meetings
would have to go to the Heads of Delegation for approval.

--------------
SEPARATE LIMIT ON NON-DEPLOYED

ICBM AND SLBM LAUNCHERS
--------------


7. (S) In an attempt to demonstrate that the
Russian-proposed limit on both deployed and non-deployed
launchers would actually have an opposite effect on what was
intended, Warner walked the Russian side through an example
in which this limit was raised to a higher number. Using a
hypothetical aggregate limit of 900 SDVs and an aggregate
ceiling of 1000 deployed and non-deployed ICBM and SLBM
launchers, Warner demonstrated that, for the United States
and to a greater extent for the Russian Federation, combined
limits of 900 and a 1000 in the manner proposed by the
Russian side resulted in a situation where both sides would
have "headroom" to deploy hundreds of non-deployed ICBM and
SLBM launchers. These numbers would be so high that such a
"third limit" would have no effect in constraining either
side.


8. (S) Ilin stated Warner's analysis was correct but that,
nevertheless, it demonstrated the need for meaningful limits
on non-deployed missiles. Such a limit was needed to place a
limit on non-deployed ICBM and SLBM launchers because these
launchers could be mated with non-deployed missiles located
at storage facilities. When one considered that warheads
were also stored relatively close to these non-deployed
launchers and missiles, a potential upload scenario was
created. This upload potential could raise the level of that
Party's deployed SDVs.


9. (S) Mr. Elliott asked Ilin what systems he envisioned
would pose the greatest threat for potential upload. The
practices of both sides resulted in there being a small
number of SSBNs in port for extended maintenance overhaul at
all times. While technically these submarines could be
uploaded with missiles and sent back to sea, both sides
understood it was necessary to have a small number of
submarines in such overhaul with their SLBMs removed to
support an operational submarine fleet. Both sides also
understood that each side had accumulated empty ICBM silos
that, due to the permissive SNDV limit under START, were
emptied of missiles, but then maintained in that condition
rather than being eliminated. To Elliott it seemed that
creating a large limit on non-deployed silo launchers under
START Follow-on (SFO) would encourage continuation of this
situation.

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NON-DEPLOYED SYSTEMS OF
CONCERN ARE NOT THE CARE-
TAKER MMIII AND PK SILOS
--------------


10. (S) Ilin stated that the empty, non-operational U.S.
Peacekeeper and Minutemen III (MMIII) silos were not the
launchers of concern. The D-5 missiles in the 24 SLBM
launchers on the 12 operational U.S. Trident SSBNs posed the
greatest possibility of potential upload. The SLBMs in these
launchers could be loaded with over 2000 warheads. The Duma
was well aware of this fact and believed that the two SSBNs
in port for extended overhaul were also available for rapid
upload. Ilin cited a famous Russian short story which says,
"if a loaded rifle is on the wall, sooner or later it will be
fired." The Duma believes that sooner or later an SSBN in

port will be reloaded with missiles. Ilin reiterated that
non-deployed missiles in storage plus warheads in storage
equaled upload potential.


11. (S) General Orlov asked whether the choice to maintain
empty silos rather than eliminate them was due to cost
considerations or operational reasons. Elliott replied that
avoiding unneeded costs was the key factor and, with a higher
SDV limit and a higher associated ICBM and SLBM launcher
limit, it would be easier and cheaper to maintain the empty
silos rather than to eliminate them. Given a lower limit it
would be better to spend the money to eliminate such empty
silos. Warner clarified that the U.S. ICBM silos in question
were the silos that had been empty for several years, with
critical components removed, and they were already in a
degraded condition and, thus, not capable of launching an
ICBM.


12. (S) Mr. Koshelev asked whether the United States had any
operational silo launchers that were currently empty, but in
which the United States had plans to re-install ICBMs.
Warner responded in the negative.

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DROPPING THIRD LIMIT
--------------


13. (S) Mr. Trout said that the United States understood the
Russian concern that the 50 empty Peacekeeper and 50 empty
MMIII silos would be considered to be in non-deployed status
according to the Russian approach. He offered that with the
proposed simplified elimination procedures, the United States
planned to eliminate these silos within the seven-year time
period required to reach the SDV limit under the new SFO
Treaty. If the sides could look to the time when these
Peacekeeper and MMIII silos were eliminated, then the U.S.
phrase "deployed ICBMs and their associated launchers" would
provide more incentive to eliminate such launchers than the
Russian use of the terms "deployed launchers" and
"non-deployed launchers." If the Russian terms were
accepted, a Party could simply declare non-operational silos
as non-deployed launchers and not eliminate them. Trout
asked if the Parties could resolve the issue of these
non-operational silos, would Russia consider dropping the
need for its third limit on deployed
and non-deployed ICBM and SLBM launchers.


14. (S) Ilin responded that Russia had added the third limit
not only to capture these silo launchers, but to count and
include all launchers in a non-deployed status to include
test and training ICBM silo launchers, SSBNs in extended
overhaul, and newly-launched SSBNs that had not yet been
loaded with SLBMs.

--------------
DID STRATEGIC PLANS DRIVE
ARMS CONTROL OR ARMS CONTROL
DRIVE STRATEGIC PLANS
--------------


15. (S) Colonel Ryzhkov posed a question from the
perspective of a U.S. staff officer serving in the Pentagon.
He asked whether the United States planned to adapt its
national policy on strategic nuclear forces to the SFO Treaty

or adapt its arms control stance to the demands of its
national strategic policy. Warner said it was a little of
both. The goal of the on-going Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)
was to link force structure to future national security needs
and in the context of the anticipated international political
and military setting. In addition, President Obama had made
clear he wanted reduced reliance on nuclear weapons in the
U.S. national security policy. The President had also
instructed his national security team to negotiate with
Russia to reduce SDVs and weapons within the SFO Treaty and
to develop an appropriate force structure that would meet
both objectives. The SFO Treaty with Russia was to be a key
factor in shaping this force structure.


16. (S) Ryzhkov said he interpreted this as the United
States wanting more flexibility with regard to its strategic
nuclear forces. Warner explained that, due to the historical
evolution of its strategic forces, the United States had a
sense for the minimum number of SSBNs and associated SLBM
launchers it required and the size of its silo-based ICBM
force which, by the way, was to be entirely de-MIRVed. The
United States also planned to maintain a small number of B-2s
and some number of B-52Hs with a nuclear mission.
Re-focusing the discussion back to its original topic, Warner
said it was this sense of the appropriate minimum number of
ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers the United States believed
must be included in its future strategic force that made it
impossible for the United States to consider a 500 SDV limit
or anywhere close to a 500 SDV limit.

--------------
FORCE STRUCTURE IS NOT A
MILITARY DECISION ALONE
--------------


17. (S) Elliott said there was as well the proverbial
"elephant in the room" regarding the size and shape of U.S.
strategic forces. The U.S. Congress would have a strong
voice in the decisions made as the Obama Administration
developed a future force structure that balanced both the
demands of the national security policy and the limits
negotiated in an SFO Treaty. While it seemed easy for the
Department of Defense to decide to reduce the ICBM force,
politically, one had to consider the economic effect this
reduction would have in the States where the reduction would
take place. Any such reduction would be a significant step
since these MMIII ICBMs had not come to the end of their
service life. If the United States were to build a force
structure to match a level of 1500 warheads, it could build
it with far fewer ICBM silo launchers than presently exists.
However, the congressional politics associated with cutting
back U.S. ICBM launchers would help shape the size of that
component of the U.S. triad.

--------------
NPR PROCESS EDUCATION
--------------


18. (S) Keeping with this same line of questioning, Mr.
Venevtsev asked whether the U.S. actually had a force
structure in mind, since the NPR process drove force
structure and it was not scheduled to be completed until
early next year. Venevtsev also asked if the analysis within
the NPR would be classified. Warner noted that the NPR

review process had not yet been completed, but was to be
completed in December and presented to Congress in February.
The main issue that remained relevant to the SFO Treaty
negotiations was the matter of conventionally-armed ICBMs and
SLBMs and that decision was coming soon. NPR analysis
completed in the late spring had provided the basis for the
U.S. proposals in SFO to set the deployed strategic nuclear
warhead limit at 1500 and the limit on strategic nuclear
delivery vehicles at 1100. As for classification of the NPR
work, Warner stated that the analysis done in support of the
NPR was classified, but there was a commitment to publish a
substantial unclassified NPR report. The Russian side seemed
satisfied with this explanation.

--------------
UPLOAD POTENTIAL AS
RELATED TO RUSSIAN METHOD
OF COUNTING HB WARHEADS
--------------


19. (S) Trout stated the United States understood that
Russia proposed to only count nuclear warheads actually
loaded on its heavy bombers. Since it was not the practice
of each Party to keep nuclear warheads loaded on heavy
bombers on a day-to-day basis, the heavy bomber nuclear
warheads declared by each Party would consequently be zero.
Assuming the treaty was submitted for ratification, Trout
asked how the Russian Government would explain to the Duma
the fact that it had an arms control treaty that did not
limit heavy bomber nuclear warheads. Ilin answered with a
reference back to upload potential. For Russia, there was no
critical importance placed on the number of heavy bomber
warheads either Party declared. What was important was
potential upload capability. As was stated earlier, the
process and principle of upload potential was the same for
all types of strategic offensive arms (SOAs). The location
of the warheads to be uploaded was not important, nor was the
speed of the process, just the fact of the upload potential
was of critical significance. Tying his answer back to the
crisis scenarios that had been presented earlier by Warner,
Ilin said what was of primary importance to Russia was the
potential for the United States to openly upload its
strategic forces over what might be an extended period and
then to possibly create a crisis situation.

--------------
CAN'T FORGET THE EFFECT
OF BMD ON THE SDV LIMIT
--------------


20. (S) Orlov asked what effect the U.S. ballistic missile
defense (BMD) capabilities would have on the size of its
strategic nuclear forces within the SDV limit. He also
questioned the need for a higher SDV limit when a Party
possessed a successful BMD system. He understood from
comments by MDA's LTG O'Reilly, in his presentation to the
Russians the previous week in Moscow, that the United States
was developing a substantial BMD system.


21. (S) Warner said there was no connection between U.S. BMD
efforts and the plans for the size and character of U.S.
strategic nuclear forces. The combination of the BMD system
planned for phased deployment in Europe and the few tens of
BMD interceptors deployed in Alaska and California were

designed to protect against the emerging ICBM threat from
North Korea and Iran. BMD considerations had no connection
to the U.S.-proposed SDV limit. Again attempting to drag the
discussion into the interrelationship between strategic
offensive and defensive arms, Orlov asked how the U.S. Navy's
future BMD capabilities would affect SDV levels. Warner
explained that, to date, the Navy's systems were for theater
missile defense and that would remain the case for many
years. Ilin asked whether the United States had plans to
expand this into a strategic BMD capability, to which Warner
responded that this was a theoretical possibility, however,
there were no plans to do so.

--------------
RE-DIRECT TO COUNTING LRNA
--------------


22. (s) Elliott said he wanted to leave the Russian side
with something to consider regarding the U.S. proposal for
counting heavy bomber nuclear armaments. He stated that the
United States had given much thought to this issue and had
developed verification procedures that were in no way an
insignificant concession on the part of the U.S. military.
The approach required a balance of transparency with the
natural desire of the military to maintain the security of
its nuclear weapons. In the end, senior military leaders
were convinced of the value of transparency on the part of
both Parties. The U.S. military leadership had agreed to
open the doors to its most closely-protected weapons. As
such, the United States asked Russia to consider a reciprocal
approach in the hope of continuing to implement the needed
transparency between the two countries.


23. (S) Ilin said that Elliott was correct in stating that a
Party must balance transparency with the concerns of the
military for the nation's security. He understood that we
had convinced our military leadership that transparency would
get them something in return. He asked what our military
leadership expected to get in return for transparency on
Russian heavy bomber bases. Since both Parties proposed
heavy bomber inspection procedures and both Parties agreed
there were no nuclear weapons uploaded on their bombers, he
questioned the need to have access to nuclear armament
weapons storage areas on the heavy bomber bases to count such
weapons.


24. (S) Elliott stated, as he had done previously, that both
Parties would have no credibility if they did not declare the
armaments readily available to arm their heavy bombers. He
noted he understood that Russia and the United States used
different methods to store their long-range nuclear ALCMs
(LRNA) and, in the U.S. case, its nuclear bombs. Whereas the
United States stored its ALCMs with their nuclear warheads
inserted within them in the weapons storage area on the
bomber base, Russia stored its warheads in a special storage
area at a location that was separate from the storage area
where its ALCM bodies were stored. The United States was
willing to count Russian ALCM bodies as the means to confirm
Russia's declared numbers of nuclear armaments for heavy
bombers. The United States understood that a warhead could
not get to a target without the ALCM body and was willing to
consider this relationship when verifying Russian heavy
bomber nuclear warhead numbers.


25. (S) Ryzhkov responded that the transparency regarding
heavy bomber weapons offered by the United States gave
nothing to Russia. The number of heavy bomber warheads was
irrelevant because these warheads could be easily transported
to a base for upload. Elliott countered saying that, under
U.S. procedures, excess cruise missiles would be stored at a
great distance from the heavy bomber base, would be stored in
containers rather than on pylons and rotary launchers, and
cruise missile warheads would be stored separately at storage
facilities hundreds of miles away. Return time would be
counted in months rather than in weeks. In contrast, were
the United States to follow the Russian proposal for heavy
bomber nuclear armaments, U.S. heavy bomber weapons would be
retained in the weapons storage areas at the bomber bases in
unlimited numbers and could be uploaded in a matter of hours,
or at most a day or so.


26. (S) Both Warner and Ilin agreed that this had been a
productive format in which to discuss issues. Both agreed to
keep the agenda to one issue for up-coming meetings of the Ad
Hoc Group.


27. (U) Documents exchanged. None.


28. (U) Participants:

U.S.

Dr. Warner
Mr. Elliott
Mr. Hanchett
Amb Ries
Mr. Siemon
Mr. Trout
Dr. Hopkins (Int)

RUSSIA

Col Ilin
Mr. Koshelev
Gen Orlov
Mr. Poznihir
Col Ryzhkov
Mr. Venevtsev
Mr. Gayduk (Int)


29. (U) Gottemoeller sends.
GRIFFITHS