Medvedev nails it: Guns of Butter

“Russian president Medvedev sees new arms race if cooperation fails

By Kathy Lally

Washington Post Foreign Service 
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; 12:00 AM

MOSCOW - In a state-of-the-nation speech Tuesday that dwelled on overcoming the persistent weaknesses sapping Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that failure to reach agreement on missile defense cooperation in Europe could set off a new arms race in the decade ahead.

Those dark remarks appeared aimed as much at his own generals as at the West. Medvedev has indicated that he wants to bend the nation's resources toward diversifying the economy rather than restoring the military-industrial complex of old, and the Kremlin has come to see arms control as in its own interests.

Medvedev did not mention the still-unratified nuclear arms agreement with the United States, but he spoke approvingly of a summit in Lisbon on Nov. 20 where he discussed the eventual goal of Russian cooperation with NATO on a European missile defense system.

"It goes without saying that was a positive development," he said. "But in this room, I would like to openly say that the choice for us in the coming decade is as follows: We will either come to terms on missile defense and form a full-fledged joint mechanism of cooperation or . . . we will plunge into a new arms race and have to think of deploying new strike means, and it's obvious that this scenario will be very hard."”