New START

The nearly 2,000 nuclear warheads on Russian ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles constitute the sole near-term existential threat to the United States. The U.S. response to this threat has been to maintain the nuclear war-fighting posture adopted during the Cold War. Yet, this posture does not lead toward an improvement in U.S. security; it merely reinforces Russia’s incentive to persist in its own anachronistic security calculus. The New START and a transformational post-Cold War Nuclear Posture Review would clear the path for major U.S. and Russian arms reductions, laying the foundation for a rejuvenated effort to halt nuclear nonproliferation and for engaging other nuclear-weapon states in arms control.

Responding to criticism that the START follow-on treaty, or New START, should wait until the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is completed early next year, the Pentagon announced in August that the U.S. negotiating positions for New START had been cleared by the NPR interagency process. (Continue)

This week in Moscow, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev made history agreeing to series of concrete steps that help “reset” U.S.-Russian relations after years of decline. Most important, the two presidents agreed to a framework for a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which will expire in less than five months. Modest as it may be, the START follow-on agreement would also help maintain rough parity in U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear forces in the years ahead and set the stage for deeper reductions in all types of nuclear forces. (Continue)

From July 6-8, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev will meet in Moscow to evaluate and advance progress toward a new strategic nuclear arms reduction treaty that would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which is due to expire at the end of this year. (Continue)