Perhaps one of the best illustrations of the saying that "Russians think better in hindsight" is the START II treaty. At one time, this international treaty was very useful for Russia, but the State Duma lower house of parliament approved it only once it had lost most of its significance.

START II was signed by the Russian and U.S. presidents seven years ago and was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996. It was already clear back in 1993 that this treaty was Russia's last chance to maintain, if not parity, at least a relative nuclear arms balance with the United States.

Under the treaty, both Russia and the United States pledged to cut their nuclear arsenals by half – down to 3,000-3,500 warheads for each side. But in the current situation, START II is essentially a treaty on unilateral disarmament by the United States. This is because Russia, regardless of any treaty, will have to take dozens of strategic missiles off duty over the coming years due to aging. Most of these missiles have already exhausted their guaranteed service lives and can't be kept in place.

Russia doesn't have the money to replace the old missiles. The Defense Ministry has made plenty of effort but hasn't been able to deploy more than 10 new Topol-M missiles a year instead of the 30-40 hoped for. Thus, Russia will have far fewer warheads in 10 years than the threshold set by START II. Optimists give a figure of around 1,500 warheads, pessimists predict less than 1,000.

Additional protocols signed in 1997, extending the treaty, mean that, as President-elect Vladimir Putin pointed out, Russia will not have to destroy a single missile that hasn't yet come to the end of its service life. Had START II been ratified earlier, it would have looked now like a skillful piece of work by Russian diplomats and wise thinking by legislators. But this didn't happen. Instead, START II languished in the Duma for seven years, becoming an instrument with which to periodically humiliate an unloved President Boris Yeltsin.

The result is that now, even when a new Duma, controlled by a new president, has ratified START II, there's no guarantee that the treaty will actually come into force. Tired of waiting for Russia to ratify START II, a year ago, the United States began seriously examining other possibilities for ensuring its nuclear security.

U.S. President Bill Clinton will probably approve this summer the decision to build a national anti-ballistic missile air defense system in direct violation of the ABM treaty signed 25 years ago, banning Russia and the United States from developing such systems.

The 1997 additional protocols binding the START II treaty to the ABM treaty remain in force. The U.S. Congress hasn't ratified these protocols. Opposition in the United States to ratifying the treaty is strong, and grew stronger the longer it took the Duma to approve the treaty. It's now quite likely that the treaty, having broken out of its Russian dead end, will now become holed up in an American dead end.

Moscow's official line today is that now that the Duma has ratified START II, the ball is in the American court, as Putin said. Putin emphasized that the United States now has greater reason to maintain the ABM treaty. At the same time, Moscow is threatening that if the United States develops a national air defense system, Russia will withdraw from all existing agreements and make a purely military response.

Russian generals hint that Moscow could deploy missiles carrying warheads that split into separate charges and can get through any air defense system. Another possibility is deployment of medium-range missiles, which had seemed a thing of the past.

If this is the "attacking position" described by Putin at a recent Security Council meeting, then Russia can expect fresh confrontation on the way. But Russia doesn't have the money to enter a new arms race. Moscow understands this. Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov said quite frankly that, in his opinion, the ratification of START II won't have any influence on Clinton's decision regarding a national air defense system.

Top Russian officials and experts point out that the U.S. air defense system, though it violates the ABM treaty, wouldn't be in place for eight to 10 years, and even then wouldn't be able to intercept more than a dozen ballistic missiles. It's not even certain that the United States will be successful in developing its system – its most recent anti-ballistic missile test was a failure.

All that's needed, then, is time for the Americans to see that their idea won't work. That time is provided by the 1997 protocol to the START II treaty, which allows the development of non-strategic anti-ballistic missile air defense systems. The protocol also sets out exactly what kinds of weapons can be developed and tested. Anti-ballistic missiles, developed according to the criteria set out in the protocol, won't be able to cover a country's entire territory.

The United States does not want to leave the ABM treaty. It says that it wants to build a national system not to upset the existing balance, but to protect itself from "pariah states" such as North Korea, which have missiles. The system, U.S. officials say, would be limited in nature.

Russia made a first step in the Americans' direction last year in Cologne, when it agreed in principle to hold negotiations on adapting the ABM treaty to modern conditions. A hint on what this "adaptation" could imply was given by Sergei Ivanov during a recent visit to the United States. Ivanov emphasized the importance of maintaining the ABM treaty but said that the "geographical factor" could be the subject of negotiations.

The treaty allows each side to deploy anti-ballistic missiles in one limited region of the country. But back in the 1970s, the United States dismantled the air defense system it had set up in North Dakota – the region it chose under the ABM treaty. Now the United States wants to deploy a new system, but in Alaska this time. This would take several years, and if negotiations decide that the United States can have Alaska instead of North Dakota as its chosen region, then the ABM treaty would not be violated. Thus, if the two sides wish, they can keep the spirit of the ABM treaty, without altering the letter too much.