start 2

The thorny issue of the missile defence shield is still live, and deployments of US patriot missile systems in former Soviet states close to the Russian border are starting to rankle with the Kremlin. Moscow will, of course, be aware of the policy of “encirclement” that it pursued during the Cold War, and the unsettling effect that it had on the west. Indeed, the policy brought the world to the brink of nuclear war when Russian missiles were deployed in Cuba in 1962.

The meeting summed up the results of the Defence Ministry’s work in 2009 and clarified its objectives for 2010.
 

In Moscow's strongest public statement yet on the issue, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that an agreement would be reached soon on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States."The remaining questions, I hope, will be resolved rather promptly when the negotiations resume, and they will resume before the beginning of February, I think," Lavrov has told reporters. His words suggest that an agreement is imminent between the two powers on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I).
 

The United States is absolutely right to reject Vladimir Putin's criticism of the proposed missile defence shield. Talk of "maintaining the balance" is misleading: Putin simply does not want his country to lose the one playable card it holds.
 

 
Start I, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush Senior in the final days of the Soviet Union, expired on December 5th.
 
Unspecified problems have led to a delay in signing a successor treaty - START 2 - and so both side have continued to observe the old treaty by mutual agreement.