France Unmoved By Obama Nuclear Doctrine As Russia Modernises Strategic Nuclear Forces Rendering START II Moot.

Acting like a petulant child France said last Friday it had begun to reduce its own arsenal long before US President Obama called for a “world without nuclear weapons”, as a leaked memo showed Paris unimpressed by his speech. Characteristically the French do not address Russia’s aggressive plans chosing to remain behind U. S. provided nuclear and conventional shields while playing both ends against the middle.

According to the daily Le Figaro, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s foreign policy advisers were dismissive of Obama’s call for an end to the arms race, which he made to a cheering crowd of supporters in Prague on Sunday.

In a memo for Sarkosy, the team said US nuclear policy had moved on little from the era of Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush and that the speech was the “export version, designed to burnish the image of the US abroad” but little more that talk.

According to a leaked version of the text, cited by the paper, Sarkozy’s advisers noted that while France had halted nuclear testing in 1996, the US Senate has thus far held up Washington’s approval of a test ban treaty.

They also criticised delays in US strategic disarmament talks with Russia and said Obama’s ideas to reinforce non-proliferation measures — such as the creation of global nuclear fuel bank — had been kicking around for a while.

“Let’s leave the theology to one side and work seriously on disarmament,” the memo said, dismissing Obama’s rhetoric, according to Le Figaro.

Foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier would not address the leaked memo directly, but in a lengthy response to reporters made it clear France had not waited for Obama’s speech before taking disarmament seriously.

“France was the first country to sign and ratify the test ban treaty and the only officially nuclear-armed state to have dismantled its test centres,” Chevallier said, in response to questions on the French memo.

“We’re the only state to have precisely confirmed its number of warheads. We have dismantled our plants for making weapons-grade fissile material … and we’ve reduced our force posture,” he added.

France also poured cold water on the idea that disarmament measures by declared nuclear powers would aid non-proliferation work by persuading rogue states and terrorist groups to drop their own weapons programs.

“We don’t believe there’s a link between disarmament and the proliferation question,” the spokesman said in an obvious reference to Iran.

France has an estimated 300 nuclear weapons, a much smaller arsenal than Russia or the United States, but more than the other declared and presumed nuclear powers, China, Britain, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea.

Sarkozy pledged last year to cut back France’s nuclear stockpile, but remains committed to retaining an independent deterrent based on four ballistic missile submarines and several dozen jet fighter-bombers.

At the same time German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier wants the remaining US nuclear weapons in his country to be removed because they are obsolete, a magazine reported Friday.

According to the issue of Der Speigel due to go on sale Monday the weapons are “militarily obsolete” and “should be withdrawn from Germany” in the view of Steinmeier, a Social Democrat minister in the ruling coalition

“The withdrawal of this kind of weapon should be a theme at the forthcoming disarmament conference proposed by the United States,” the magazine quotes Steinmeier as saying.

His remarks follow a speech in Prague by US President Barack Obama in which he suggested that efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation should be relaunched with the aim of achieving a world “without nuclear weapons”.

Steinmeier’s remarks also coincide with the traditional Easter demonstrations in which for more than 30 years anti-nuclear protestors have shown their opposition to nuclear weapons.

The United States pulled most of their nuclear weapons out of Europe in the 1990s when the Cold War ended.

But Der Spiegel says that about 100 are still positioned in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Germany has never been a nuclear power chosing to rely on the uS and others for its defense..

In a statement Friday Steinmeier welcomed moves by Washington and Moscow in the field of disarmament.

“For the first time in years we have today the chance to find a new point of departure for international disarmament,” he said.

“We welcome and support the recent declarations by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev (of Russia) with a view to a massive reduction in their nuclear arsenals”, he added.

He called on the US Senate to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, saying that it would make possible the relaunch of multilateral disarmament negotiations.

The minister also urged the United States and Russia to resolve their dispute over an anti-missile shield to be based in central Europe.

Conversely Russia’s Putin, a master level chess player is hell bent on a plan to deploy new rockets will by 2016 accounting for at least 80 percent of the strategic missile forces in Russia as it replaces its Soviet-era arsenal with new nuclear-capable missiles. The Russian confirmed  the plan Friday is an uncharacteristically open gambit to neutralize the impact of a START II treaty so desperately sought by Obama.

“Plans for the development of the Russian strategic rocket forces through 2016 foresee a decrease in quantity and a transformation in quality at the same time,” Nikolai Solovstov, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, told reporters. “Rocket systems with an extended shelf life will account for roughly 20 percent, while new rocket systems for at least 80 percent of the forces,” said Colonel-General Solovtsov, quoted by the Russian news agencies.

In December, he announced that Russia would by 2020 replace its Soviet-era arsenal with new nuclear-capable intercontinental missiles capable of overcoming anti-missile defence measures by enemy states. The costly overhaul of the missile forces comes as Russia is locked in a bitter dispute with the US over its plans to install anti-missile defence facilities in central Europe.

Russia has urged Obama to drop anti-ballistic defense plans, which were devised by his predecessor George W. Bush but the new US president has said he would move forward with the missile defense shield. Russia is working hard to upgrade its aging missile forces and has repeatedly tested new missiles in recent months amid the controversy over the missile shield.

Solovtsov said Russia planned to conduct 14 launches of intercontinental ballistic rockets this year. Russia’s missile arsenal still contains Soviet-era war horses like the Stiletto, the Voevoda and the Topol but the military has been seeking to phase in newer weapons. Russia will discontinue the Topol-M but plans to keep the Voevoda-M, the “world’s most powerful rocket,” in service until 2019, Solovtsov said. He added it was important for Russia to continue to upgrade its strategic missiles to ensure stability in the world. “Quality enhancement of the components of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces will be required to maintain the necessary balance of forces in solving the task of nuclear containment,” he said