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August 27, 2018
Tom Z. Collina

P5 to Meet in Paris on Nuclear Transparency

Tom Z. Collina

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States plan to meet in Paris to discuss nuclear transparency issues and ways to verify additional arms reductions, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller said Feb. 16 at a nuclear policy conference in Arlington, Va. Gottemoeller’s comments added some detail to an earlier announcement by France that it would host “the first follow-up meeting of the 2010 NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] Review Conference with the 5 nuclear powers recognized by the NPT.” The five nuclear-weapon states also are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, known as the P5.

The agenda for the meeting, which could take place in June, is currently under negotiation, but would be similar to that of a previous meeting, held Sept. 3-4, 2009, in London, called the “P5 Conference on Confidence Building Measures Towards Nuclear Disarmament,” Gottemoeller said. According to a P5 statement issued after the September event, the group discussed issues relating to “confidence-building, verification and compliance challenges.” Gottemoeller said French officials are interested in having a nongovernmental event alongside the Paris meeting, providing an opportunity for a “public-private dialogue to take place.

 

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States plan to meet in Paris to discuss nuclear transparency issues and ways to verify additional arms reductions, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller said Feb. 16 at a nuclear policy conference in Arlington, Va. Gottemoeller’s comments added some detail to an earlier announcement by France that it would host “the first follow-up meeting of the 2010 NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] Review Conference with the 5 nuclear powers recognized by the NPT.” The five nuclear-weapon states also are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, known as the P5.

Senate Approves New START

Tom Z. Collina

Capping an eight-month-long process and eight days of often intense floor debate, the U.S. Senate voted 71-26 on Dec. 22 to provide its advice and consent to ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). All 56 Democratic senators, the Senate’s two independents, and 13 Republicans voted to support the treaty, exceeding the two-thirds majority required.

The vote paves the way for Russian ratification and the treaty’s entry into force. The lower chamber of Russia’s parliament voted 350-58 in support of New START Dec. 24, but final approval is not expected until January or later. On-site inspections under the treaty could begin two months after that.

President Barack Obama, who fought a high-profile battle with Senate Republican leaders to hold a vote in the postelection session rather than wait until 2011, told reporters after the vote that the treaty will reduce superpower nuclear arsenals and “advance our relationship with Russia, which is essential to making progress on a host of challenges, from enforcing strong sanctions on Iran to preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists.” Obama also said the treaty will enhance U.S. leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and seek a world without them.

New START would lower treaty limits on both sides’ deployed strategic warheads by about 30 percent and resume verification that lapsed when the original 1991 START expired in December 2009. The new treaty would supersede the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which is still in force and mandates reductions of deployed strategic warheads to no more than 2,200 by 2012, but provides no verification mechanism. New START caps each country’s deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 and deployed nuclear-capable delivery systems at 700 over the next decade. Under the treaty, both sides will have to take hundreds of nuclear warheads out of deployment within seven years of its entry into force.

Like previous bilateral arms control agreements, New START received broad support. Backers included U.S. military leaders and national security officials from preceding Republican administrations, including former President George H.W. Bush and six former secretaries of state: Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Lawrence Eagleburger, James A. Baker, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice.

New START was approved despite the active opposition of the Senate’s two top Republicans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.). In addition, many potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, including former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and Sen. John Thune (S.D.), came out against it.

The opposition was based on process as well as substance. As McConnell explained on the Senate floor Dec. 21, “[A] decision of this magnitude should not be decided under the pressure of a deadline.” Some Republican senators said the treaty should not be debated in a postelection session at all, and others wanted the Democrats to shelve plans for votes on more partisan issues such as the DREAM Act, which deals with immigration policy, and repeal of the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay and lesbian service members. On substance, McConnell said the treaty “does nothing to significantly reduce the Russian Federation’s stockpile of strategic arms, ignores the thousands of tactical weapons in the Russian arsenal, and contains an important concession linking missile defense to the strategic arms.” Opponents also said the treaty was unverifiable, questioned the administration’s commitment to modernization of the nuclear stockpile, and expressed concern that New START would be the first step on the road to the elimination of nuclear weapons.

As a result, the treaty did not pass by as wide a margin as previous agreements, such as President George W. Bush’s SORT, which was approved 95-0.

Predicting that the heightened partisanship in the Senate would not allow a large margin of victory for New START, Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) told reporters Dec. 21, “70 votes is yesterday’s 95.” He made the comment after a procedural vote that indicated the likely level of support.

Courting Kyl

The Dec. 22 ratification vote ended a high-stakes political battle pitting the Obama administration and its Senate allies against Senate Republican leaders. After months of debate, including more than 20 Senate hearings and briefings, the outcome was in doubt until just days before the vote.

The treaty, which Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed on April 8 in Prague, was formally submitted to the Senate May 13. The administration’s Senate strategy, led by Vice President Joe Biden, initially sought to avoid a partisan fight by courting the Republican leadership’s support for the treaty. Biden and his staff had numerous discussions with Kyl on the issue of funding for modernizing the nuclear weapons production complex. According to a Nov. 17 White House timeline, administration officials met or talked with Kyl or his staff about the treaty at least 30 times since August 2009.

Kyl made it clear early on that his position on New START would hinge on the administration’s ability to convince him that the budget for the nuclear weapons complex was adequate.

In a clear attempt to satisfy Kyl, the administration pledged in May to increase funding for the weapons complex by $10 billion over 10 years, leading many to expect that Kyl would ultimately support the treaty or at least not actively oppose it.

Before November, according to administration officials, it was unclear whether Kyl’s support for the treaty was a real possibility or if he actually was seeking to block ratification or delay a vote until 2011. Kyl led the successful campaign to block ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1999. But in the Nov. 2 elections, Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and picked up six seats in the Senate.

Kyl announced on Nov. 16 that he “did not think” the treaty could be completed in the postelection session given the “complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization.” (See ACT, December 2010.) The announcement came just after senior administration officials had flown to Arizona Nov. 12 to meet with Kyl and his staff to pledge an additional $4.1 billion for weapons complex modernization. Based on that meeting, senior officials said they thought they had a deal to bring the treaty up for a vote.

Kyl’s Nov. 16 statement marked a critical turning point and showed that after the elections, “the price for New START just went up,” a Senate staffer told Arms Control Today. The Kyl announcement “was one of the lowest moments of our time in government,” a senior administration official told The Washington Post Dec 23.

“A Gutsy Choice”

The next 24 hours were pivotal to the ratification effort. Obama had to choose between waging a high-profile, uncertain campaign to win the treaty without Kyl’s support or delay the vote until the next Congress. The administration and its Senate allies said that delaying the vote could put off ratification of the treaty by six to 12 months or more.

In addition to facing more, potentially hostile Republican votes, the treaty would have had to be reapproved by the Foreign Relations Committee, whose new members could have requested new hearings. “Endless hearings, markup, back to trying to get some time on the floor…[i]t will be some time before the treaty is ever heard from again,” Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee’s ranking member, told The Cable Nov. 17.

On the other hand, given Kyl’s presumed authority within his caucus, for the White House to win a ratification vote without Kyl’s support was seen at the time by observers inside and outside of the administration as a daunting and uncertain prospect. Treaty supporters needed at least nine Republican votes, in addition to the 56 Democrats and two independents, to reach the 67 required for Senate approval. The day after Kyl’s announcement, the administration decided to double down on its campaign to secure the votes it needed without Kyl’s help. “This is not a matter that can be delayed,” Obama told reporters Nov. 18 while flanked by a group of Republican former national security officials, including Baker, Kissinger, and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft. “Every month that goes by without a treaty means that we are not able to verify what’s going on on the ground in Russia,” he said.

“The president made a gutsy choice,” Kerry told The Washington Post Dec. 23. “He decided he was prepared to lose the treaty, but he thought it was important to fight for,” Kerry said.

Floor Debate Begins

When it resumed work Nov. 29 after its Thanksgiving break, the Senate spent the next two weeks debating tax policy and other issues and did not begin debate on New START until mid-December. At that point, the only Republican senators who had announced support for the treaty were Lugar, Olympia Snowe (Maine), and Susan Collins (Maine).

With a key procedural vote expected the next day, Kyl tried to delay debate on New START by arguing that it would force the Senate to work through Christmas. “It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out ... without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff,” he told reporters Dec. 14.

An exasperated Biden took issue with Kyl’s reluctance to work through Christmas. “Don’t tell me about Christmas. I understand Christmas. I was a senator for a long time, and I’ve been there many years where we go right up to Christmas,” Biden told MSNBC Dec. 15. “There’s 10 days between now and Christmas. I hope I don’t get in the way of your Christmas shopping, but this is the nation’s business. This is the national security at stake. Act.”

Other commentators said that if the U.S. military could work through the holidays, with troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, senators could spend more time in Washington.

To begin floor debate on New START, the Senate had to pass a “motion to proceed” by majority vote. This was the first real test of Republican support for the treaty, as well as the first test of how far opponents would go to block a vote. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told Fox News Dec. 15 that, to delay the process, he would demand that the entire treaty text be read aloud. “If they bring this up, they’re going to read it. And it’ll take them a day and a half or two to read this. Again, we’re trying to run out the clock,” DeMint said.

In response, the White House issued a press statement Dec. 15 that said, “It is the height of hypocrisy to complain that there is not enough time to consider this Treaty, while wasting so much time reading aloud a document that was submitted to the Senate months ago.”

In a victory for treaty proponents, the Senate voted 66-32 to begin debate on New START, with nine Republicans in support. Although the measure required only a simple majority to pass, the tally was important because it suggested that the treaty had the two-thirds majority needed for approval. Moreover, the Republican leadership decided not to ask for the treaty to be read aloud. Momentum was growing, but how senators voted on a procedural issue was not a guarantee of how they would vote on the treaty itself.

Debate on the treaty continued for two days before the first amendments to the treaty were filed. The Senate spent the next few days debating a series of Republican amendments dealing with missile defense, verification, and tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons. All of them were rejected, as treaty supporters successfully made the case that they were unnecessary and that any changes to the treaty text itself would kill the agreement because such changes would have to be approved by Russia.

The first amendment, offered by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), would have removed a paragraph from the treaty’s preamble that recognized “the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms,” which some senators were concerned could limit U.S. missile defense options. The amendment was defeated 59-37 Dec. 18. Other amendments followed, from Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) on including tactical nuclear weapons in the treaty, from Thune on increasing the allowed number of delivery vehicles from 700 to 720, from James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on increasing the number of on-site inspections, and from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) defining rail-mobile missiles. All failed by margins similar to the one on McCain’s. There was never a real chance these amendments would pass, as only a simple majority was needed to defeat them.

The battle lines were drawn the week of the vote, when McConnell and Kyl declared their opposition to the treaty. Asked on Fox News Dec. 19 if he would oppose the treaty, Kyl said “Absolutely, yes. This treaty needs to be fixed. And we are not going to have the time to do that in the bifurcated way or trifurcated way that we’re dealing with it here, with other issues being parachuted in all the time.” McConnell said on the Senate floor Dec. 20, “Our top concern should be the safety and security of our nation, not some politician’s desire to declare a political victory and host a press conference before the first of the year.”

Just two days before the vote, the outcome was still uncertain, with only a handful of Republican senators, now including Scott Brown (Mass.), openly supporting the treaty.

On Dec. 20, Kerry released a letter from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen stating that New START is “vital to U.S. national security” and that “the sooner it is ratified, the better.” Supporters of the treaty highlighted the letter to make the point that, for Republicans to oppose New START, they would have to oppose the U.S. military as well.

The same day, Scowcroft told ABC News, “I just don’t understand the opposition” and that “to play politics with what is in the fundamental national interest is pretty scary stuff.”

“A Dismaying Rout”

After six days of debate on the treaty and with Christmas on the horizon, the tide began to shift Dec. 21. That morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates released a statement saying, “I strongly support the Senate voting to give its advice and consent to ratification of the New START Treaty this week.” Then, additional support began to emerge after Republican Conference Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) announced he would vote for the treaty. Alexander, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said New START “leaves our country with enough nuclear warheads to blow any attacker to Kingdom Come.”

Alexander’s endorsement was followed quickly by Republican Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), George Voinovich (Ohio), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), and Robert Bennett (Utah), providing more than enough Republican support to pass the treaty.

Corker, a key Republican swing vote, said on the Senate floor, “I firmly believe that…ratifying this treaty, and that all the things we have done over the course of time as a result of this treaty are in our country’s national interest, and I am here today to state my full support for this treaty.”

By late morning, the National Review, a conservative journal, declared that “Republican opposition to New START is collapsing” and predicted that the vote for ratification could go as high as 75. The Review said, “At least Jon Kyl was able to get more money for modernization and that letter from President Obama making assurances on missile defense. Otherwise, this is a dismaying rout.”

The article was referring to a Dec. 18 letter from Obama to McConnell in response to Republican concerns that, out of deference to Russia, Obama might not deploy all four phases of U.S. missile defense plans for NATO. Obama assured McConnell that the administration would deploy all four phases of the Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense in Europe. “I will take every action available to me to support the deployment of all four phases,” wrote Obama.

In a key step to ratification and a reflection of the growing bipartisan support, late on Dec. 21 the Senate voted 67-28, with the support of 11 Republicans, to invoke cloture, leading to the end of debate and a final vote on New START the next day. The cloture vote made it clear that New START would pass; the only real remaining question was how many Republicans would vote for it.

Nevertheless, Kyl continued to question the outcome. “I honestly don’t know what all of my colleagues are going to do,” Kyl said at a Dec. 21 press conference after the cloture vote. “We believe this process has not enabled us to consider this treaty in the serious way it should have been considered. I hope a lot of our colleagues would agree with that.”

Appearing with Kyl, DeMint, who opposed the treaty in the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “It’s clear with this treaty that [the administration is] trying to cram something down the throats of the American people under the cover of Christmas…. They’re not looking at politics right now, they’re celebrating their holy Christmas holiday, and the fact that we’re doing this under the cover of Christmas … is something to be outraged about.”

Final Vote

After the Dec. 21 cloture vote, the Senate had a maximum of 30 hours to consider any remaining amendments.

Unable to alter the treaty text, Republicans began to offer amendments to the resolution of advice and consent, which had passed the Foreign Relations Committee Sept. 16. (See ACT, October 2010.) Changes to the resolution would not alter the treaty itself and thus had a chance to pass. Four such amendments were ultimately accepted by voice vote, after being modified.

Two amendments by Kyl sought to accelerate funding for modernizing the weapons complex and ensure modernization of nuclear delivery systems. Another amendment, by Sens. McCain, Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Corker sought assurances that Obama would deploy all four phases of the phased approach to missile defense in Europe. An amendment by Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fla.) stated that prior to the entry into force of New START, the president must certify that he will seek negotiations with Russia within one year of entry into force “to secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” The LeMieux amendment may prove particularly significant as it represents a Republican endorsement of tactical arms reduction talks with Russia.

There was speculation that if his amendment were accepted, McCain would vote for the treaty and bring another three or four Republican votes with him. Although his amendment was approved, McCain voted “no” on final passage. The treaty ultimately won the support of 56 Democrats, 13 Republicans, and the two independents.

Biden, in his role as president of the Senate, took the rare step of presiding personally over the vote, reflecting the treaty’s symbolic importance for Obama’s presidency. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton—like Biden, a former senator—was on the Senate floor as well.

After the vote, Kerry, who led the floor fight for the treaty, said the vote will reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe. “The winners are not defined by party or ideology,” he said. “The winners are the American people, who are safer with fewer Russian missiles aimed at them.”

Kyl denounced the Senate’s refusal to amend the treaty, even though it accepted some of his changes to the resolution. “The precedent here that we’re establishing is that the Senate really is a rubber stamp,” he said. “Whatever a president negotiates with the Russians or somebody else we dare not change because otherwise it will have to be renegotiated to some great detriment to humanity.”

But in the end, Kyl could convince only 26 of the 39 Republicans who voted on the treaty to vote with him. Corker told The New York Times Dec. 22, “There’s no question in my mind that this [treaty] is in our country’s national security interest.” The vote on New START “is not one of those votes where you wonder,” he said. “This is not even a close call.”

In addition to Corker, the Republican senators voting for the treaty Dec. 22 were Alexander, Bennett, Brown, Thad Cochran (Miss.), Collins, Judd Gregg (N.H.), Isakson, Mike Johanns (Neb.), Lugar, Murkowski, Snowe, and Voinovich.

Next Steps

Once the United States and Russia exchange instruments of ratification and the treaty formally enters into force, the two sides have 60 days to prepare for the first on-site inspections under New START. Within 45 days of entry into force, the two sides are to exchange data on the current status and deployment locations of strategic nuclear forces, consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. Inspections could begin by April.

Referring to the LeMieux amendment on tactical weapons, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller said in a conference call with reporters after the vote, “The Russians have a larger number than we do of these systems, and there has been some particular, I would say strong, urging from Capital Hill that we move out” and seek an agreement with Russia to reduce these forces. Gottemoeller noted that Obama has said that the next step after New START would be a treaty that would address tactical nuclear weapons, as well as strategic and nondeployed weapons.

The Obama administration intends to “carry out the requirements of the [U.S. ratification] resolution by seeking to initiate negotiations with Russia on tactical nukes within one year of New START’s entry into force,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said following the Senate’s vote.

In a Dec. 21 interview in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gary Samore, White House coordinator for arms control and nonproliferation, said that multilateral negotiations to ban fissile material production for weapons and Senate ratification of the CTBT are on his agenda. The United States is “trying to reinstate negotiations [on the fissile material treaty] at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and will launch an initiative next year,” he said. On the CTBT, Samore said, “We will present our arguments next year, but we do not know if they will have the desired effect.”

 

Eight months after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed, the Senate debated it and approved it by a vote of 71-26, paving the way for approval by the Russian State Duma and entry into force early this year.

U.S. Military Leaders and Bipartisan National Security Officials Overwhelmingly Support New START

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Volume 1, Number 44, December 16, 2010

On Dec. 16, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright said "all the Joint Chiefs are very much behind this treaty...we need START and we need it badly."  The Joint Chiefs' support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is broadly shared by senior U.S. military leaders and former national security officials from both sides of the aisle, including President George H.W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, sectrateary of state to President George W. Bush.

Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed New START in April. Since then, there has been an extensive public debate on the merits of the treaty. Senate committees have held 18 public hearings and four briefings on New START, and the administration has answered 1,000 questions regarding the treaty.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty on Sept. 16, with a bipartisan vote of 14-4, and the full Senate voted 66-32 on Dec. 15 to begin debate on the treaty, with nine Republican senators in support.

Throughout this eight-month process, one fact has become unmistakably clear: military opinion overwhelmingly supports prompt U.S. ratification of New START. The current U.S. military leadership strongly favors the treaty. Seven former commanders of the U.S. Strategic Command support it as well. Indeed, a Secretary of Defense or State from every administration since Richard Nixon's is on record in support of New START.

Below is a sample of the most notable statements of support for New START:

Current U.S. Military Leaders

Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense; Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2010:

  • "The New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America's military leadership--to include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the service chiefs, and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, the organization responsible for our strategic nuclear deterrent. For nearly 40 years, treaties to limit or reduce nuclear weapons have been approved by the U.S. Senate by strong bipartisan majorities. This treaty deserves a similar reception and result--on account of the dangerous weapons it reduces, the critical defense capabilities it preserves, the strategic stability it maintains, and, above all, the security it provides to the American people."

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Senate Armed Services Committee, June 17, 2010:

  • "I am pleased to add my voice in support of ratification of the New START treaty and to do so as soon as possible. We are in our seventh month without a treaty with Russia. This treaty has the full support of your uniformed military . . . the conclusion and implementation of the New START Treaty is the right thing for us to do - and we took the time to do it right."

General Kevin Chilton, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 16, 2010:

  • "If we don't get the treaty, [the Russians] are not constrained in their development of force structure and... we have no insight into what they're doing. So it's the worst of both possible worlds."

Lt. General Patrick O'Reilly, Missile Defense Agency Director; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 16, 2010:

  • "Throughout the treaty negotiations, I frequently consulted the New START team on all potential impacts to missile defense. The New START Treaty does not constrain our plans to execute the U.S. Missile Defense program."

General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, September 2, 2010:

  • "I believe the treaty limitation of 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles imposed by New START provides a sound framework for maintaining stability and allows us to maintain a strong and credible deterrent that ensures our national security while moving to lower levels of strategic nuclear forces."

Lt. General Frank G. Klotz, Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command; Defense Writers Group breakfast, November 9, 2010:

  • "My sense is that the START Treaty ought to be ratified and ought to be ratified as soon as possible."
  • "I think [the recent missile incident at Warren Air Force Base] has absolutely no link at all to the START Treaty."

Former U.S. Military Leaders

General Larry Welch, General John Chain, General Lee Butler, Admiral Henry Chiles, General Eugene Habiger, Admiral James Ellis, and General Bennie Davis, former commanders of Strategic Air Command and U.S. Strategic Command; letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, July 14, 2010:

  • "We will understand Russian strategic forces much better with the treaty than would be the case without it. For example, the treaty permits on-site inspections that will allow us to observe and confirm the number of warheads on individual Russian missiles; we cannot do that with just national technical means of verification."
  • "The New START Treaty will contribute to a more stable U.S.-Russian relationship. We strongly endorse its early ratification and entry into force."

James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense and former Director of Central Intelligence, Nixon and Ford administrations; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 29, 2010:

  • "I think that it is obligatory for the United States to ratify [New START]...[F]or the United States at this juncture to fail to ratify the treaty in the due course of the Senate's deliberation would have a detrimental effect on our ability to influence others with regard to particularly the nonproliferation issue."

William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense, Clinton administration; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 29, 2010:

  • "[T]he New START Treaty is a positive step in U.S.-Russia arms negotiations. This treaty establishes a ceiling on strategic arms while allowing the United States to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. This treaty does not limit America's ability to structure its offensive arsenal to meet current or future threats, nor does it prevent the future modernization of the American nuclear arsenal. Additionally, the treaty puts no meaningful limits our Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense program, and in fact it reduces restrictions that existed under the previous START treaty. I recommend ratification."

Former U.S. Senior Government Officials

Colin L. Powell, former Secretary of State, George W. Bush administration; Howard Baker, former Senator (R-TN); Harold Brown, former Secretary of Defense, Carter administration; Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense, Reagan administration; John C. Danforth, former Senator (R-MO); Kenneth M. Duberstein, former White House Chief of Staff, Reagan administration; Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, former Senator (R-KS); Thomas Kean, former Governor and 9/11 Commission Chair (R-NJ); Warren Rudman, former Senator (R-NH); and Alan Simpson, former Senator (R-WY); joint statement, June 24, 2010:

  • "Now is the time for a thorough and balanced national discussion about nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. But we must remember that a world without a binding U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons agreement is a much more dangerous world. We, the undersigned Republicans and Democrats, support the new START treaty..."

Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, Clinton administration; Samuel Berger, former National Security Advisor, Clinton administration; Ambassador Richard Burt, U.S. chief negotiator of START I; Chuck Hagel, former Senator(R-NE); Admiral William Owens, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and George Shultz, former Secretary of State, Reagan administration; joint statement, September 28, 2010:

  • "Currently, we have no verification regime to account for Russia's strategic nuclear weapons. Two hundred and ninety seven (297) days have elapsed since American teams have been allowed to inspect Russian nuclear forces, and we are concerned that further inaction will bring unacceptable lapses in U.S. intelligence about Russia's strategic arsenal.  Without New START, we believe that the United States is less secure.

    As part of the vast consensus of national security professionals who have endorsed New START, we respectfully call on the Senate to ratify the New START Treaty in 2010."

James Baker, former Secretary of State, George H.W. Bush administration; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 19, 2010:

  • "[New START] appears to take our country in a direction that can enhance our national security while at the same time reducing the number of nuclear warheads on the planet."

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Nixon and Ford administrations; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, May 25, 2010:

  • "The current agreement is a modest step forward stabilizing American and Russian arsenals at a slightly reduced level. It provides a measure of transparency; it reintroduces many verification measures that lapsed with the expiration of the last START agreement; it encourages what the Obama administration has described as the reset of political relations with Russia; it may provide potential benefits in dealing with the issue of proliferation."

Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor, Ford and George H.W. Bush administrations; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 10, 2010:

  • "[T]he principal result of non-ratification would be to throw the whole nuclear negotiating situation into a state of chaos, and the reason this treaty is important is over the decades we have built up all these counting rules, all these verification procedures and so on, so that each side feels, 'Yes, we can take these steps.' If you wipe those out, you're back to zero again..."

Linton F. Brooks, former START I negotiator and former Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Bush administration; Arms Control Association briefing, April 7, 2010:

  • "[Y]ou'll hear concerns by some that the treaty may or may not be a good idea but you can't possibly accept it because the U.S. nuclear weapons program is in disarray. And I think the administration's answer to that is the fiscal 2011 budget with a very substantial increase for my former home, the National Nuclear Security Administration. And I will say flatly, I ran that place for five years and I'd have killed for that budget and that much high-level attention in the administration and I just - nobody in government ever said 'my program has too much money' and I doubt that my successor is busy saying that. But he is very happy with his program and I think it does put us on a very firm, firm basis."
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Volume 1, Number 44

On Dec. 16, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright said "all the Joint Chiefs are very much behind this treaty...we need START and we need it badly."  The Joint Chiefs' support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is broadly shared by senior U.S. military leaders and former national security officials from both sides of the aisle, including President George H.W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, sectrateary of state to President George W. Bush.

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New START By The Numbers

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Volume 1, Number 42, December 15, 2010

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) has been thoroughly vetted. The Senate can and should vote to approve this treaty, which has the overwhelming support of the U.S. military and Republican and Democratic national security leaders.

Postponing or rejecting New START would further delay the re-establishment of an effective U.S.-Russian inspection and monitoring system, undermine U.S. nonproliferation leadership, and jeopardize U.S.-Russian cooperation, including joint efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program.

The facts and numbers surrounding New START speak volumes.

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2     Former Presidents who support New START[i]

0        Former Presidents who oppose New START

16     Former Secretaries of Defense, State and National Security Advisors, support[ii]

1        Former Secretaries of Defense, State and National Security Advisors, oppose[iii]

7        Former U.S. Strategic Commanders, support[iv]

0        Former U.S. Strategic Commanders, oppose

5        Days of Senate 1992 floor debate on START I (passed 93-6)

2        Days of Senate 1996 floor debate on START II (passed 87-4)

2        Days of Senate 2003 floor debate on Moscow Treaty (passed 95-0)

85     Billion dollars: Obama Administration budget for National Nuclear Security

            Administration weapons complex upgrades, over ten years

10     Billion dollars: Administration budget for Ballistic Missile Defense, one year

650  Verified reduction in Russian deployed nuclear warheads with New START[v]

0        Verified reduction in Russian deployed nuclear warheads without New START

18     Annual on-site inspections in Russia with New START

0        Annual on-site inspections without New START

390   Days without on-site inspections, as of Dec.31, 2010


[i] George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton

[ii] Secretaries of Defense:  James R. Schlesinger, William J. Perry, Harold Brown, Frank Carlucci, William Cohen.  Secretaries of State: Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger, Henry Kissinger.  National Security Advisors:  Samuel Berger, Brent Scowcroft, Stephen Hadley.

[iii] Former National Security Advisor William P. Clark

[iv] General Larry Welch, General John Chain, General Lee Butler, Admiral Henry Chiles, General Eugene Habiger, Admiral James Ellis, General Bennie Davis.

[v] New START lowers treaty limits on accountable strategic nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550.

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Volume 1, Number 42

New START has been thoroughly vetted. The Senate can and should vote on this treaty, which has the overwhelming support of the U.S. military and national security leaders. The facts and numbers surrounding New START speak volumes.

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Subject Resources:

Obama Pushes for Vote on New START

Tom Z. Collina

Months of quiet negotiations between the White House and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) broke down in November after Kyl announced he did not think there would be time to vote on the treaty in the current postelection session of Congress.

President Barack Obama responded by upping the ante and calling for a Senate vote on New START, with or without Kyl’s support. “It is a national security imperative that the United States ratify the New START treaty this year,” Obama told White House reporters Nov. 18. “I’m confident that we should be able to get the votes,” he said. Administration talks with the Republican leadership are continuing.

Alluding to the postelection political environment in Washington, Obama told reporters Nov. 20 in Lisbon that “there’s no other reason not to [ratify New START] than the fact that Washington has become a very partisan place.” He added, “My expectation is that my Republican friends in the Senate will ultimately conclude that it makes sense for us to do this.”

The apparent failure in talks with Kyl, who represents the Senate Republican leadership, means that the White House cannot count on him to deliver Republican votes for New START. Instead the Obama administration may need to find Republican senators who would be willing to split from their party and vote for the treaty. Signed by the United States and Russia in April, the pact currently needs nine Republican votes to pass the full Senate, but will need 14 next year after new senators take office in January. Under the Constitution, the Senate must approve treaties with a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, before they can be ratified by the president.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the only Republican to openly support a New START vote this year, told reporters Nov. 17 that the treaty should be brought up for a floor vote even if there is no deal with Kyl. “I think when it finally comes down to it, we have [a] sufficient number of senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it,” he said.

Aiming for a Deal

The Obama administration had been maneuvering to avoid a partisan showdown over New START by working out a deal with Senate Republican leaders in advance. According to a Nov. 17 White House timeline, administration officials have met or talked with Kyl or his staff about the treaty at least 30 times since August 2009, including direct contact by Vice President Joe Biden. These discussions dealt mainly with Kyl’s concern that the nuclear weapons budget for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was not funded adequately, administration officials said.

In February, the administration requested an increase of 10 percent over fiscal year 2010 in the fiscal year 2011 budget. The administration successfully pressed Congress to include the increase in the continuing resolution for fiscal year 2011 that Congress passed in late September. Continuing resolutions, which provide funding to the government when Congress has not passed appropriations bills, generally keep spending at the previous year’s level for most agencies. In May, the White House announced it would spend $80 billion on the NNSA over the next decade, an increase of $10 billion, or 14 percent, over the baseline budget, along with $100 billion for the Pentagon to fund upgrades to strategic delivery systems.

Kyl, however, continued to argue that the $80 billion over 10 years for the NNSA was not enough and that he wanted to see the increases reflected in the fiscal year 2012 budget. Administration budgets normally are not released until February of the preceding fiscal year, so the fiscal year 2012 budget would not be released until next February. Kyl told Reuters Aug. 4 that because it would be difficult to finalize these numbers before the November election, the Senate might need to wait until a postelection session to vote on New START this year.

On Nov. 12, Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy James Miller, U.S. Strategic Command head Gen. Kevin Chilton, and NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Neile Miller flew to Arizona to meet in person with Kyl and his staff to brief Kyl on the administration’s new estimates for the NNSA weapons activities budget. According to administration officials, during the three-hour meeting they told Kyl that the fiscal year 2012 budget request had been increased by $600 million to $7.6 billion, that funding would increase by $4.1 billion over the next five years, and that the 10-year total was now $85 billion, or $15 billion (21 percent) above the baseline. It is highly unusual to have finalized 2012 budget numbers this early in the process, White House officials said.

White House officials apparently thought they had a deal. Gary Samore, the National Security Council coordinator for arms control and nonproliferation, said Nov. 18 at a roundtable discussion with journalists that after the Nov. 12 meeting, the two sides had “reached basic agreement on what that funding level should be,” according to Global Security Newswire. Kyl said, “We’ve probably got all we’re going to get out of them in terms of dollar commitments,” The New York Times reported Nov. 25.

Those comments came after Kyl’s surprise announcement Nov. 16 that he “did not think” the treaty could be completed in the postelection session given the “complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization.” In a statement issued by his office, Kyl said he appreciated “the recent effort by the Administration to address some of the issues that we have raised” and that he looked forward to continuing to work with administration officials.

White House officials and their Senate allies expressed frustration. At a Nov. 17 press conference, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which approved the treaty Sept. 16 with a bipartisan 14-4 vote, said that, after months of talks, Kyl had no right now to say there was not enough time to vote. Kerry said he had delayed a committee vote over the summer, at Republicans’ request, to give them more time. (See ACT, October 2010.) “As of now, there is no substantive disagreement on this treaty,” said Kerry.

“It was Senator Kyl himself who suggested that the lame duck [postelection session] would be an appropriate time to look at the [New] START treaty,” a senior administration official told The Cable Nov. 19. “It’s ready for a vote and we had some expectation, although not a guarantee, that the lame duck was a possibility.” Kyl’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lugar explained his Republican colleagues’ behavior to The Cable by saying, “Sometimes when you prefer not to vote, you attempt to find reasons not to vote.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who controls the Senate schedule, said in a Nov. 17 statement, “I assure Senator Kyl and others concerned about the fate of this treaty that the Senate will be in session after Thanksgiving and will have time to consider and ratify it.” The Senate returned Nov. 29.

Obama’s Full-Court Press

After Kyl’s Nov. 16 statement, the White House quickly stepped up its efforts to court moderate Republicans to vote for New START. On Nov. 18, Obama hosted a White House meeting of a bipartisan group of former national security officials, including three former secretaries of state, James A. Baker, Henry Kissinger, and Madeleine Albright; former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft; and former Secretary of Defense William Perry. Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Marine Gen. James Cartwright also attended the meeting.

Obama stressed that a treaty vote could not be postponed until 2011 and that the consequences of failure to ratify would be significant. “This is not a matter that can be delayed,” Obama told reporters after the session. “Every month that goes by without a treaty means that we are not able to verify what’s going on on the ground in Russia. And if we delay indefinitely, American leadership on nonproliferation and America’s national security will be weakened,” he said. U.S. on-site monitoring of Russian strategic weapons ended Dec. 5, 2009, when the original START expired.

In his Nov. 20 radio address, Obama said that “Russia has been indispensable to our efforts to enforce strong sanctions on Iran, to secure loose nuclear material from terrorists, and to equip our troops in Afghanistan. All of this will be put to risk if the Senate does not pass the New START treaty.”

At Washington’s request, Russia also canceled its planned sale of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Tehran.

Obama took his message to the Nov. 19-20 NATO summit in Lisbon, where U.S. allies overwhelmingly spoke in support of New START. “[T]the message that I’ve received since I’ve arrived from my fellow leaders here at NATO could not be clearer—New START will strengthen our alliance, and it will strengthen European security,” Obama told reporters Nov. 19.

“We see this treaty as a prologue, as an entrance to start talks about substrategic weaponry,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis said Nov. 20, appearing with the foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, and Norway, who all called for New START ratification. “We who are living in eastern Europe especially, know this,” he said. New START, which would reduce U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals by about 30 percent from current treaty levels, does not cover short-range weapons deployed by the United States and Russia in Europe. Obama has said that once New START is in force, he intends to initiate a new round of talks with Russia on tactical, or substrategic, nuclear weapons.

Administration officials also point out that, without ratification, congressional support for increases to the NNSA budget to modernize the nuclear weapons production complex may falter. “Support for the treaty also brings support for modernization of the U.S. nuclear enterprise,” Gates said Nov. 20 in Santiago, Chile. “I think the failure to ratify the treaty puts that at high risk.”

At a Nov. 17 press conference with Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lugar was blunt: “[W]e are at a point where we’re unlikely to have either the treaty or modernization unless we get real.”

Kyl told NBC’s Meet the Press Nov. 28 that he saw little chance that New START could be completed this year, unless Reid allowed “a couple of weeks for full debate and amendment.” Kyl and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) sent a Nov. 24 memo to Republican colleagues saying that the administration’s revised NNSA budget plan addressed some but not all of their concerns. In particular, Kyl and Corker wrote, the administration should seek “responsible advance funding mechanisms” for the NNSA, such as “three-year rolling funding” or a commitment to seek advance funding in fiscal year 2013.

Appearing on the same show with Kyl, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip, responded that there was time to debate the issues and hold a vote “in a responsible way before we break for Christmas.”

Some formerly skeptical Republican senators appear to be leaning Durbin’s way.  For example, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading Republican voice on defense issues who has been highly critical of the treaty, told ABC’s Good Morning America Nov. 30, “I believe we can move forward” with the treaty by the end of the year. Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) has suggested in comments to the media that he also is leaning toward its ratification this year.

When asked Nov. 30 if New START would be voted on this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated he was not opposed and said,  “[I]t will be up to the majority leader, Senator Reid, to decide.”

 

Months of quiet negotiations between the White House and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) broke down in November after Kyl announced he did not think there would be time to vote on the treaty in the current postelection session of Congress.

NATO Set to Back Expanded Missile Defense

Tom Z. Collina

Ahead of next year’s planned deployment of a U.S. medium-range missile interceptor system in Europe, NATO member states appear poised to endorse an expanded missile defense mission at their Nov. 19-20 summit in Lisbon and to invite Russia to play a role. The U.S. system would include a mobile radar in Turkey, which Ankara has yet to approve.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after NATO’s Oct. 14 foreign and defense ministers meeting in Brussels, “I believe we are nearing a consensus at the Lisbon summit for NATO to have a capability to defend all of NATO-Europe against the threat of a missile attack,” adding that he hopes “that soon we can add territorial missile defense cooperation to the list” of issues on the NATO-Russia agenda.

NATO members have engaged in discussions for years on the role of missile defense in alliance policy, most recently in 2007 when the Bush administration proposed to site 10 ground-based strategic missile interceptors in Poland and an X-band radar in the CzechRepublic to counter a potential Iranian long-range missile threat. Following a policy review, in September 2009 the Obama administration changed direction in favor of a larger number of shorter-range, sea-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors around Europe and land-based SM-3 batteries in Romania and Poland, collectively known as the Phased Adaptive Approach. The SM-3 interceptors, the Obama administration argued, are more reliable and could be deployed more quickly to address Iran’s existing short- and medium-range ballistic missile force. (See ACT, March 2010.)

“The studies have been done, the data are well known, and the affordability is clear,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said after the Brussels meeting. “It is time for a decision.”

Although none of NATO’s 28 members has announced opposition to the plan, its approval is not automatic. The missile defense language will be part of the broader revised NATO Strategic Concept, which covers all alliance military and nuclear policies, and must be passed by consensus.

Some alliance members suggested at the Brussels meeting that NATO policy on missile defense should be linked to changes in NATO’s approach to nuclear weapons reductions, particularly to the fate of forward-deployed U.S. tactical nuclear bombs stored in five European member states. “We think missile defense is basically a good idea, but we also believe that matters like arms control should be and will be an important component” of NATO defense policy, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the Associated Press Oct. 14. The German government has been advocating a shift in alliance policy that would open the way for the removal of U.S. tactical weapons, arguing that the U.S. missile interceptors in Europe would mean that tactical bombs are no longer needed to assure some central European NATO members of the United States’ ongoing commitment to alliance defense.

French Defense Minister Hervé Morin indicated that the concept of expanded missile defenses would be endorsed in Lisbon, but he compared it to the Maginot Line of fixed defenses that failed to prevent Germany’s invasion of France during World War II. “The best way to guard against an apocalypse is to be in a position to gain respect from having credible military capabilities,” he told reporters. French officials have been arguing against reducing the role of nuclear weapons in NATO policy, in part to deflect political pressure on Paris to reduce its own nuclear arsenal.

Missile Defense Radar in Turkey?

In addition to new U.S. SM-3 interceptors in Romania and Poland, the last remaining land-based piece of the Obama administration’s plan is a mobile X-band radar to be deployed in southeastern Europe by next year. The radar is critical to the overall system, U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly told an Atlantic Council-sponsored forum Oct. 12. The X-band radar would be part of a test next summer “to validate that all of these capabilities work together in order to have your initial substantiation of capability for the Phased Adaptive Approach,” he said.

Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and neighbor of Iran, is the United States’ first choice to host the radar, but Ankara has yet to commit. Turkey is worried about appearing to sign a bilateral pact with Washington that is designed to counter Middle Eastern nations. “We told the U.S. officials that Iran and Syria should not be cited as ‘threats’ for NATO’ s planned missile shield,” an unnamed Turkish Foreign Ministry official told Turkish Weekly Oct. 15.

Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Turkish officials on the sidelines of the Brussels meeting to discuss whether Turkey would host the radar on its territory. “I would say that we are not putting pressure on the Turks,” Gates told reporters Oct. 14, “but we are having continuing conversations with them as one of our allies.” Bulgaria is another siting option for the radar.

The United States does not need official NATO approval to move ahead with its plan to deploy SM-3 interceptors and radars to support them, but U.S. officials recognize that leaders of some states, such as Turkey, might be more comfortable participating in the U.S. system once it has been integrated into NATO.

“We are not asking for [NATO] to buy additional systems that they already are not planning on procuring,” O’Reilly said at the Atlantic Council event. “We want there to be political buy-in by our NATO allies on this issue,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Space and Defense Policy Frank Rose said at the same forum. The phased approach “will then become the U.S. contribution to a NATO effort,” Rose said, adding that the radar host nation would not be announced until after the Lisbon summit.

Cost Concerns

Although it has yet to endorse the concept of an expanded U.S. missile interceptor system for all NATO member states, the alliance has already approved a joint, short-range (less than 1,000 kilometers) missile defense system to protect troops. Under the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) plan, NATO will oversee command and control of member state-based missile defense assets, such as short-range interceptors (mainly U.S.-origin Patriot interceptors) in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. However, future additions to this system are still on the drawing board. For example, a joint, $16.5 billion U.S.-German-Italian program to develop a European short-range interceptor to replace the Patriot, called the Medium Extended Air Defense System, is not scheduled for deployment until late in the decade and reportedly may get cut due to heavy budget pressures in Europe and the United States.

In response to European concerns about the cost of expanding NATO’s missile defense mission, Rasmussen wrote in an Oct. 12 op-ed in the International Herald Tribune that “missile defense won’t be cheap, but neither will it break the bank.” He said the current ALTBMD program costs NATO $1.1 billion over 14 years and that, for less than $280 million more over 10 years, this program could be integrated with the U.S. system and thus would be able to augment the current mission of protecting NATO troops by defending European populations and territory as well.

“With a relatively small investment, all the allies could plug into the multi-billion-dollar United States system, share the benefits of increased security, and demonstrate a shared commitment to our mutual defense. That is an attractive return on investment,” Rasmussen said.

By comparison, the MDA is spending about $10 billion per year on all missile defense programs, with much of that geared toward European-based systems. Initial phases of the phased approach would provide a layer of defense against medium-range missiles (1,000-5,500 kilometers) on top of U.S. and NATO short-range defenses. According to the MDA, by 2011 the United States plans to deploy 23 Aegis ships with over 100 SM-3 IA missile interceptors  and an AN/TPY-2 X-band radar in southeastern Europe. The first land-based SM-3 site would be added in Romania by 2015 and the second in Poland by 2018. Between 2015 and 2020, the United States would deploy Theater High Altitude Area Defense mobile interceptors in Europe as well.

In the fourth phase, the SM-3 IIB interceptor would be deployed beginning in 2020 on land with enhanced capabilities, giving it “a very good opportunity to intercept ICBMs too,” O’Reilly Oct. 12 said at the Atlantic Council event, referring to intercontinental (long-range) ballistic missiles. “I have been to Moscow to show capability of the [Phased Adaptive Approach] all the way through phase four so [the Russians] clearly understand its limits. It’s a very good capability against a threat within a couple of thousand kilometers.… [I]t’s not a very good capability if you’re trying to defeat a threat that is deep inside Russia,” he said. The United States also deploys 30 long-range interceptors in Alaska and California, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, to counter a limited, unsophisticated ICBM attack.

Obama administration and European officials are sensitive to the fact that the United States is essentially footing the bill for missile defense in Europe. To address congressional concerns about burden sharing, U.S. officials stress that, in addition to countering missile threats to Europe, the phased approach provides defensive capabilities for the continental United States. “Deploying the AN/TPY-2 radar in the first phase of the approach will augment the ability of our existing Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to intercept any future long-range missiles launched from the Middle East,” Rose told the Atlantic Council audience. “By 2020 we will supplement that capability when we deploy the SM-3 Block IIB missile in Europe,” he said.

Japan and the United States on Oct. 28 conducted a joint test of the SM-3 BlockIA missile, which successfully intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile target off the coast of Hawaii, according to the MDA.  Japan, which is primarily concerned about North Korean missile capability, is also cooperating with the United States on developing the larger and more capable SM-3 Block IIA, for possible deployment in 2018.

The View From Moscow

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, invited weeks ago to attend the Lisbon summit, told reporters Oct. 19 that he would attend the Nov. 20 NATO-Russia Council meeting but that he had concerns about missile defense cooperation. “We are now evaluating the idea of this proposal, but I think that NATO itself needs to understand in what form it sees Russia joining this system, what it will bring, in what manner an agreement can be reached, and how to proceed further,” he told reporters after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France. “Only based on the evaluation of this proposal can we give an answer on how we will proceed with regard to the idea of European missile defense,” Medvedev said.

Further clarifying Moscow’s concerns, Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Itar-Tass news agency Oct. 15, “We need to understand what this means in principle—the parameters of the missile defense system, who it will be aimed against, who will press the button.” The question of which country or countries have ultimate authority to launch interceptors under a “joint” missile defense system has been a long-standing issue for Russia. “You have one button and 28 fingers. I even know which finger will press the button,” Rogozin said. “This is a U.S. system on the European soil,” he said.

Russian leaders also have expressed concern that later phases of U.S. missile defense plans would be capable of intercepting Russian ICBMs. U.S. and NATO leaders say the system is not aimed at Russia, but at Iran. Russia, however, has “problems with our NATO colleagues already having branded Iran ‘a bad guy,’” Rogozin said.

Russia, which is not a NATO member, does not have an official say in whether the alliance expands its missile defense mission, nor is Moscow expected to agree in Lisbon to cooperate on a specific missile defense proposal. But Moscow may agree to start a process for greater NATO-Russia missile defense cooperation.

Joint Missile Threat Assessment

To help reassure Moscow about future U.S. missile interceptor deployments, the United States has renewed discussions with Russian officials on possible ways to cooperate on missile defense and “hope[s] to expand that cooperation both bilaterally and through the NATO-Russia Council,” Rose said at the Atlantic Council meeting. The United States and Russia announced efforts in June to share early-warning data on missile launches (see ACT, July/August 2010), and they have been working on a joint threat assessment of global missile programs to establish a baseline for further cooperation.

“The purpose of the joint assessment is to increase our mutual understanding of the ballistic missile threat,” Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Washington Times Oct. 19. “There is nothing in these discussions that contemplates limits on missile defense, but rather cooperation between the U.S. and Russia,” he said.

“The reality is Iranian missiles with nuclear warheads are…actually a bigger danger, to Russia than they are to the United States because [Iran does not] have intercontinental ballistic missiles yet,” Gates told Interfax Sept. 14. Russia disagrees. “For now it is enough to hold consultations and analyze missile challenges rather than panic and build something immediately,” Rogozin said Oct. 15. The joint threat assessment will be released late this year or in early 2011, Rose said.

The administration is still open to collaborating with Moscow on use of a radar facility in Azerbaijan, Gates told Interfax. “We have been very interested in the Gabala radar. We’ve had conversations about it. I think we’ve sent technical experts there to examine the radar. We’ve talked about a data center, a data exchange center in Moscow where all of this information on missile launches could be shared,” he said.

 

Ahead of next year’s planned deployment of a U.S. medium-range missile interceptor system in Europe, NATO member states appear poised to endorse an expanded missile defense mission at their Nov. 19-20 summit in Lisbon and to invite Russia to play a role. The U.S. system would include a mobile radar in Turkey, which Ankara has yet to approve.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after NATO’s Oct. 14 foreign and defense ministers meeting in Brussels, “I believe we are nearing a consensus at the Lisbon summit for NATO to have a capability to defend all of NATO-Europe against the threat of a missile attack,” adding that he hopes “that soon we can add territorial missile defense cooperation to the list” of issues on the NATO-Russia agenda.

 

Missile Incident Has Zero Impact on New START

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Volume 1, Number 27, October 28, 2010

Misinformed sources, such as Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), are claiming that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is somehow in trouble as a result of a recent missile communications incident in Wyoming.  These claims are simply false, and the Senate should not let this incident get in the way of ratifying New START when it returns to Washington after the elections.

The significance of the Wyoming incident has been overblown, and its link to New START is non-existant.  "Based on our understanding of the situation right now, as the Air Force has described it, it was not a significant disruption; it was a technical problem," Defense Department spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told the Associated Press.

The missiles in question could have still been launched if needed, and even assuming they could not, the United States had 1,900 other nuclear weapons ready to go at the time.  And if improvements to the U.S. nuclear command and control system are needed, New START would not prevent them.

The facts are clear:

  1. The 50 missiles in question could have been launched if needed.
    On Oct. 23, according to reports, a communications failure occurred involving 50 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), based at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and loaded with nuclear warheads.  This incident, which lasted less than one hour, could have prevented officers at the base from launching the missiles.  This is troubling, but not catastrophic; the missiles could have been launched from air-born command and control systems.  An administration official, speaking about the president's ability to control nuclear forces, told The Atlantic: "At no time did the president's ability decrease."
  2. 1,900 other nuclear weapons were deployed at the time.
    The United States deploys a total of 450 Minuteman III ICBMs on constant alert along with 336 Trident II Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) based on invulnerable submarines at sea and 94 Strategic Bombers that can be loaded and launched on short order.  Thus, even without the 50 ICBMs in question, the United States at the time still had over 800 strategic missiles and bombers with 1,900 nuclear warheads in its active force.  Moreover, even if this incident had happened after New START had been fully implemented, the United States would still have had over 600 missiles and bombers with 1,500 nuclear warheads ready to go.
  3. New START does not prevent improvements to command and control systems.
    The Oct. 23 incident at Warren should be investigated and, if needed, command and control systems should be improved.  However, New START would not in any way prevent such improvements.  In fact, the U.S. military is planning to invest $80 billion in its nuclear weapons and production complex and $100 billion in its nuclear delivery systems over the next decade, while New START would be in force.
  4. New START would reduce the nuclear threat from Russia and resume on-site inspections.
    If Senators are worried about nuclear threats to the United States, they should support New START.  The treaty would reduce hundreds of Russian nuclear weapons that would otherwise be aimed at the United States.  It also would resume on-site inspections in Russia that stopped when the 1991 START treaty expired last December.

Sen. Barrasso Over-Reaches

In response to the Oct. 23 incident, New START opponents predictably drew their cynical swords.  "The recent failure reinforces the need for the United States to maintain 450 ICBMs to ensure a strong nuclear defense," said Sen. Barrasso. "Before ratifying this treaty, the Senate must ensure we modernize our own nuclear weapons and strengthen our national security."

It should be noted that Sen. Barrasso’s state is host to Warren Air Force Base and its 150 ICBMs, and that New START could reduce that force.  Sen. Barrasso voted against New START on Sept. 16 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved the treaty with a 14-4 bipartisan vote.  Sen. Barrasso offered an amendment in committee to require the United States to maintain all 450 Minuteman III’s, rather than reduce them to 420 under START.  The amendment failed by voice vote.

Instead of playing politics with U.S. national security, New START opponents should listen to current and former U.S. military officers who overwhelmingly support New START.  The Senate should ignore Sen. Barrasso’s desperate arguments and approve New START as soon as possible. - TOM Z. COLLINA

For more information, please see:

U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces Under New START http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USStratNukeForceNewSTART

Twelve Reasons to Support New START http://www.armscontrol.org/issuebriefs/TwelveReasonsNewSTART

Description: 

Volume 1, Number 27

Misinformed sources, such as Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), are claiming that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is somehow in trouble as a result of a recent missile communications incident in Wyoming.  These claims are simply false, and the Senate should not let this incident get in the way of ratifying New START when it returns to Washington after the elections.

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Senate Committee Approves New START

Tom Z. Collina

Amid a highly partisan pre-election season and new allegations about Russian treaty compliance, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 16 passed a resolution of ratification for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with bipartisan support.

The 14-4 vote “sends an important signal that even in the most partisan, polarized season, ratifying this treaty is not a matter of politics, it’s a national security imperative,” committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement.

The committee’s action opens the way for a debate and vote by the full Senate, which must approve the resolution of advice and consent by a two-thirds majority for ratification.

The Senate is in recess this month and will not vote on New START until after the Nov. 2 elections. Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Sept. 30 they were both looking forward to a full Senate vote on New START in the postelection congressional session, slated to begin Nov. 15. Prospects for a Senate vote are uncertain but improved after Congress passed a “continuing resolution” to fund the federal government to Dec. 3 that includes a 10% increase for nuclear weapons maintenance and weapons complex modernization, which undecided senators have been demanding. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who are thought to be tilting in support of New START, told CQ Today Online News Sept. 30 that the new money will help. “It’s a good confidence-building step,” said Graham.

The White House released a statement the day of the committee vote in which President Barack Obama urged the full Senate to “move forward quickly with a vote to approve this Treaty.” Administration officials are pushing for a floor vote as soon as possible to re-establish inspections that ended when START, which was signed in 1991, expired last December. The loss of access for U.S. inspectors has been one of the administration’s major arguments for New START.

Committee member Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) made a similar point in a Sept. 20 written statement. “When START I expired we lost our ability to know what is happening with Russia’s nuclear arsenal and if New START is ratified we will once again have those assurances,” he said.

Corker joined fellow committee Republicans Sens. Richard Lugar (Ind.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.), as well as the 11 Democrats on the panel, in voting to approve the resolution. Republican Sens. Jim Risch (Idaho), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roger Wicker (Miss.), and James Inhofe (Okla.) voted no. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) did not vote on final passage.

Given the Democrats’ 11-8 committee advantage, it was no surprise that the treaty won majority support. However, it was not known how many Republican senators would ultimately vote to send the treaty to the Senate floor. Although Lugar, the ranking member, had endorsed the treaty early on, Corker announced his intention to vote in favor only two days before the vote; five other Republicans were officially undecided. Inhofe had previously announced his opposition.

New START, which was signed April 8 by Russia and the United States, would replace the 1991 START. New START would mandate reductions of both sides’ deployed strategic nuclear warheads by about 30 percent and associated delivery systems by about 50 percent below previous treaty limits, and it would re-establish a system of inspections and data exchanges to ensure compliance. (See ACT, May 2010.)

Risch Seeks Delay

Soon after Kerry gaveled the Sept. 16 meeting to order, Risch tried to hold up the proceedings on the basis of late-breaking intelligence information that he said should prevent the committee from voting on New START. “Yesterday the intelligence community brought to us some very serious information that directly affects what we’re doing here, not only the actual details of this but actually whether or not we should debate going forward with this,” he told the committee. Risch told The Cable after the meeting that the information was about Russian cheating on arms control agreements.

At the meeting, Kerry replied to Risch that he had held a briefing on the issue for committee members and staff the previous day and consulted Vice President Joe Biden before deciding that the ratification process should move ahead. “The conclusion of the intelligence community is that it in no way alters their judgment, already submitted to this committee, with respect to the START treaty and the impact of the START treaty,” Kerry told the committee. “It has no impact, in their judgment,” he said.

“We would not have proceeded today if this information had any effect on this vote or the substance of this treaty,” Kerry said. “Before we go to the floor, this issue will further be vetted by the intelligence community and everybody else,” he said.

In July, a National Intelligence Estimate on New START prepared by the intelligence community and a separate report on the treaty’s verifiability from the Department of State were circulated to members of the foreign relations panel and other key committees. These reports apparently did not trigger any public concerns; one Republican senator on the Foreign Relations Committee described the findings as “reassuring.” On Sept. 29, the administration sent new Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. to brief the Senate on the new intelligence. Corker told CQ Sept. 30 that Clapper did not provide additional information beyond what had already been provided. “I’d already heard everything,” he said.

Ratification resolutions generally do not modify the treaty in question, but serve to clarify administration policy on issues relating to the treaty and the Senate’s interpretation of the treaty provisions.

Lugar’s Substitute

Kerry’s staff circulated a draft resolution to committee members Sept. 3, saying they expected the draft to be amended. Lugar subsequently circulated his own version, which became the focus of behind-the-scenes negotiations with Kerry, committee Republicans, and the White House. After numerous rounds of drafting, Corker announced in a Sept. 14 written statement that he would cosponsor the Lugar resolution and, if it was not weakened by amendments, would vote for it. Lugar, introducing his resolution at the committee meeting, said it was intended to “incorporate suggestions expressed by witnesses, Members of this Committee, and other Senators, as well as to address the major substantive concerns that emerged in our deliberations.”

For instance, the Lugar resolution states that New START “does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missile defenses” other than the treaty’s ban on converting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers for use by missile defense interceptors. It also clarifies that the Russian unilateral statement on missile defense, issued in conjunction with the treaty, “does not impose a legal obligation on the United States” and that any further limitations would require treaty amendment subject to the Senate’s advice and consent. The resolution reaffirms language in the 1999 Missile Defense Act that it is U.S. policy to “deploy as soon as is technologically possible an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack (whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate)” and states that nothing in the treaty limits future planned enhancements to the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system and to all phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach. (See ACT, March 2010.)

On verification, the Lugar resolution conditions ratification of New START on presidential certification, prior to the treaty’s entry into force, of the U.S. ability to monitor Russian compliance and on immediate consultations with the committee should there be a Russian breakout from the treaty.

The resolution states that nothing in New START prohibits the research, development, testing, evaluation, or deployment of Prompt Global Strike systems, in which conventional warheads could be placed on ICBMs or other strategic systems. Another understanding reaffirms administration testimony that if Russia should develop any rail-mobile ICBM system, the system would count under the provisions of New START. Some critics of New START have said that if Moscow were to build rail-mobile ICBMs, such as the now-retired Russian SS-24, those missiles might not count under treaty limits because they are not specifically mentioned in the text. (See ACT, July/August 2010.)

The Lugar resolution states a commitment to “proceeding with a robust stockpile stewardship program, and to maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons production capabilities and capacities, that will ensure the safety, reliability, and performance of the United States nuclear arsenal.” It includes a requirement for the president to submit to Congress a plan for overcoming any future resource shortfall associated with the Obama administration’s 10-year modernization plan on the nuclear weapons stockpile. That blueprint is known as the Section 1251 plan, for the provision of the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization law that established the requirement for the report.

Lugar’s resolution urges the president to pursue an “agreement” with Russia to “secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” It requires prompt presidential consultation with the committee concerning substantive activities of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) in order to ensure that substantive changes to the treaty are made only with the Senate’s advice and consent. Treaty critics have claimed that the BCC could make substantive changes to the treaty—for example, on missile defense—without Senate approval.

The resolution calls on “other nuclear weapon states to give careful and early consideration to corresponding reductions of their own nuclear arsenals.”

At the committee meeting, Kerry announced that he would support the Lugar resolution, which Corker had cosponsored; Isakson also said he would support it. After Risch failed to delay the vote, a motion to substitute the Lugar resolution for the original Kerry resolution passed by voice vote. Risch and DeMint were opposed.

The committee then considered nine amendments to the Lugar resolution. Kerry first addressed an amendment submitted by Barrasso, which was the only one that would have resulted in altering the treaty itself. Barrasso wanted to strike all language in the preamble of the treaty that related to missile defense. Kerry told the committee that preambles are not amendable because they are nonbinding and the Senate only has jurisdiction over binding treaty language. The amendment failed 13-6.

Risch then offered three amendments: one expressing a U.S. commitment to “accomplishing the modernization and replacement of its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles,” which was accepted by voice vote, and two others on missile defense and tactical nuclear weapons, which failed 12-7 in separate votes.

Sparring on Missile Defense

DeMint then offered the most controversial amendment to the resolution, which expressed a U.S. commitment to a layered missile defense system and said mutual assured destruction (MAD) does not serve U.S. interests. “This START agreement does not defend the people of the United States,” DeMint said. “We are agreeing, with the START treaty, to continue the policy of mutually assured destruction, which doesn’t protect the American people.” MAD is the decades-old strategic policy of depending on the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation to deter nuclear attack by Russia or other states. Stating his preference for missile defense over MAD, DeMint said, “If we can shoot down their missiles, they won’t build nuclear weapons.”

Kerry and other committee Democrats appeared frustrated with DeMint, but reluctant to cast a vote that DeMint and others could portray as supporting MAD and opposing missile defense. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said to DeMint, “Are you suggesting that if we vote against your amendment, that we in some way are not defending this country and don’t believe that we should defend this country against our enemies? Because if that’s what you’re suggesting, Senator, then I personally resent that.”

“It’s not my intent to offend anyone,” DeMint responded, “but to try to make sure that there is an understanding that this START agreement does not defend the people of the United States.”

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), in the sole instance of Democratic party disunity, then surprised observers by speaking in favor of the DeMint amendment, raising the possibility that it might pass. Webb reminded the committee that he had once been a Reagan administration defense official who supported building a missile defense system. Facing uncertain prospects, Kerry took advantage of a committee break to continue the conversation behind closed doors. Kerry and DeMint reached a compromise during the break, and the committee agreed to the revised language by voice vote.

The revised DeMint language states that “the United States and the Russian Federation share a common interest in moving cooperatively as soon as possible away from a strategic relationship based on mutual assured destruction” and that “the United States is and will remain free to reduce the vulnerability to attack by constructing a layered missile defense system capable of countering missiles of all ranges.” It also says that the United States “stands ready to cooperate with the Russian Federation on strategic defensive capabilities, as long as such cooperation is aimed at fostering and in no way constrains the defensive capabilities of both sides.”

After the meeting, Kerry told reporters the revised DeMint amendment was acceptable because it had “some key language changes that we think better frames the transformation that we’re all looking for, away from mutual assured destruction, towards something that doesn’t rely on the destruction of our population to protect us,” he said. The new language “commits us to continue to develop the ability to be able to protect our people and to have a robust missile defense system,” Kerry said.

Inhofe offered three amendments: one on delivery vehicle modernization, which failed 14-5; one on missile defense, which failed 14-5; and one on re-entry vehicle covers, which was set aside.

Barrasso, whose state of Wyoming is home to F.E. Warren Air Force Base and its ICBMs, offered an amendment saying that, under New START, the United States would have to deploy 450 ICBMs, instead of the 420 planned. It failed by voice vote.

After all amendments had been offered, Kerry called a vote on final passage of the Lugar resolution, as amended. DeMint did not return to vote after the committee break, nor did he leave his proxy vote in writing, as required, with Lugar. “Anybody have any idea where Senator DeMint is?” Kerry asked before calling the roll. Committee Republicans assured Kerry that the vote could proceed without DeMint, whose office did not return phone inquiries about his absence.

Inhofe and Risch said that they would reserve the right to offer minority views to the resolution of ratification before it was sent to the full Senate. Once the floor debate begins, senators will have another chance to offer amendments to the resolution. A senator’s vote in committee does not guarantee the same vote on the floor.

Corker said in his Sept. 20 written statement that even though he had received a “preliminary written commitment from the Vice President that the Administration intends to update estimates and fully fund modernization, I will not vote for this treaty in the full Senate until I have seen the changes that the Administration intends to submit as an amendment to the modernization plan for the nuclear weapons complex.” Corker has been calling for increases to the administration’s budget for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex. Part of the modernization plan is the construction of a major new facility in Tennessee.

Floor Vote Prospects

Immediately after the committee vote, Kerry told reporters, “I personally believe we will have the votes to ratify this” on the Senate floor. Senate Democratic leaders have said that New START is one of three top priorities for votes in the postelection session. The chance for a vote may depend on Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) “because if he’s comfortable then this can pass with more than enough votes,” Lieberman told CQ Sept. 30. “If he’s not, my guess is it doesn’t come up.”

 

Amid a highly partisan pre-election season and new allegations about Russian treaty compliance, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 16 passed a resolution of ratification for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with bipartisan support.

300 Days, No START Inspections. How Many More?
 It's time to approve New START

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Volume 1, Number 25, September 30, 2010

Friday, Oct. 1, will be the 300th day since the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) expired, ending direct, on-site inspections of thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia for the first time since the Cold War.

As former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and former Utah Republican Sen. Jake Garn wrote in The Washington Times Sept. 22: "Each side, as a result, has lost an important element of transparency into the other's strategic forces. Transparency enhances predictability; predictability enhances stability. Without transparency, distrust and suspicion grow."

The Senate is now in recess and will not vote on New START until after the Nov. 2 elections.  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Sept. 30 they were both looking forward to a full Senate vote on New START during the "lame duck" session.

It is past time to get U.S. and Russian inspectors back to work, and the U.S. Senate holds the key:  it should overcome the partisan atmosphere that surrounds so many other issues and approve New START before the end of the year.  It can be done: on October 1, 1992, on the eve of a presidential election, the Senate voted to approve START I.

Renewing Inspections

The United States took a major step toward ratification on Sept. 16, when, with bipartisan support, the Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-4 to send New START to the full Senate.  Republican Senators Richard Lugar (Ind.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), and Johnny Isakson (Ga.) joined 11 Democrats to pass the treaty out of committee.

After voting for New START, Sen. Corker said Sept. 20  that one of his motivations was to ensure the resumption of on-site inspections.  "When START I expired we lost our ability to know what is happening with Russia's nuclear arsenal and if New START is ratified we will once again have those assurances," Corker said.

On Sept. 28, a bipartisan group of forty-three retired military officers and national security experts sent a joint letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) calling for a vote on New START in 2010.  They wrote that "currently, we have no verification regime to account for Russia's strategic nuclear weapons...and we are concerned that further inaction will bring unacceptable lapses in U.S. intelligence about Russia's strategic arsenal.  Without New START, we believe that the United States is less secure."

Signed by the U.S. and Russian presidents in April, New START would reestablish intrusive, on-site inspections inside Russia and the United States as part of a modern and effective verification system to ensure compliance. It would also mandate new, lower limits on the number of deployed strategic warheads and strategic delivery vehicles.  But New START cannot enter into force without the approval of the Senate and Russian Duma.

For these and other reasons, a long list of current U.S. military leaders and former senior national security officials in both Republican and Democratic administrations have endorsed prompt ratification of New START.

Resolution of Ratification Answers Critics' Concerns

As the case to promptly ratify New START grows stronger, critics' arguments for delay get weaker.  The Foreign Relations Committee's 10-page resolution of ratification (PDF) on New START addresses all of the major concerns that have been raised by treaty critics, whose reasons to oppose or delay ratification simply no longer hold water, if they ever did.

Missile Defense:  The resolution of ratification clearly states the Senate's understanding that "the New START Treaty does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missile defenses" other than the treaty's ban on converting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers for use by missile defense interceptors--which the Pentagon has said it has no intention of doing in any case--and that any further limitations would require Senate approval.

The resolution clarifies that "the April 7, 2010, unilateral statement by the Russian Federation on missile defense does not impose a legal obligation on the United States." It also reaffirms language in the 1999 Missile Defense Act that it is the policy of the United States to deploy an effective national missile defense system "as soon as technologically possible" and that nothing in the treaty limits future planned enhancements to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system or the European Phased Adaptive Approach.

Corker said Sept. 20 that "while the New START treaty does not limit our ability to develop or field a robust missile defense system to defend the U.S., it was important to reaffirm this fact in the resolution of ratification by stating our understanding that any efforts to limit U.S. missile defense plans would be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate."

Maintaining U.S. Nuclear Forces: The resolution states that "the United States is committed to proceeding with a robust stockpile stewardship program, and to maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons production capabilities and capacities."

To achieve these goals, the resolution says that the United States is committed to providing the necessary resources, "at a minimum at the levels set forth in the President's 10-year plan provided to the Congress pursuant to section 1251 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010."  That plan calls for the United States to spend $80 billion on maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons complex and over $100 billion on strategic delivery systems over the next decade.

The resolution also states that "if at any time more resources are required than estimated in the President's 10-year plan" the President shall submit a report detailing 1) how he proposes to remedy the shortfall; 2) the proposed level of funding required; 3) the impact of the shortfall on the safety, reliability, and performance of U.S. nuclear forces; and 4) "whether and why, in the changed circumstances brought about by the resource shortfall, it remains in the national interest of the United States to remain a Party to the New START Treaty."

Scowcroft and Garn wrote in The Washington Times that New START "permits modernization by both sides. Each side is equally advantaged or disadvantaged. But we will only be disadvantaged by what we choose not to do with respect to modernization. Concerns about modernization, therefore, are not an argument against the treaty. They are an argument for building a political consensus between the administration and Congress on what needs to be funded now and what can be deferred."  They concluded that "rejecting the treaty may well break this consensus and result in no modernization of our forces."

Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) Sept. 30 that increases the FY2011 budget for weapons activities at the National Nuclear Security Administration by $624 million.  Sen. Kerry said Sept. 30 that this funding "sends a strong signal about this administration's commitment to keeping our nuclear arsenal at a viable and suitable level" under New START.  The CR runs out on Dec. 3.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Some critics have argued that New START should have covered tactical (short-range) as well as strategic (long-range) nuclear weapons.  In response, Scowcroft and Garn wrote: "No single treaty provides a 'silver bullet' to mitigate all of the threats we face, and New START is no exception. To condemn it because it fails to accomplish tasks it was not meant to address is to misunderstand the history of arms control and of international relations. And, if we fail to have New START enter into force, we will have significantly reduced our chances of obtaining in the future a treaty that regulates short-range systems."

As to future negotiations, the Senate resolution calls on the President "to pursue, following consultation with allies, an agreement with the Russian Federation that would address the disparity between the tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation and of the United States and would secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner."  President Obama has said he intends to work with Moscow to pursue further nuclear reductions in all types of nuclear warheads--including tacticals--after New START is ratified.

Verification: The resolution conditions ratification of New START on presidential certification, prior to the treaty's entry into force, of the U.S. ability to monitor Russian compliance and on immediate consultations with the Senate should there be questions about Russian compliance with the treaty.

Skeptics have noted that START I called for 28 on-site inspections a year, while the new treaty allows just 18.  "But," wrote Scowcroft and Garn, "the critics don't point out that under the original START treaty, there were 70 inspectable locations across the width and breadth of the Soviet Union, whereas today there are just 35 inspectable locations in Russia."  In short, New START actually allows for the United States to inspect a higher percentage of Russian storage locations than START I.

In Scowcroft and Garn's words, "the Departments of State and Defense and the intelligence community were correct in assessing that the 18 inspections a year, in combination with our intelligence assets, will permit the United States to have confidence that Russia is abiding by the treaty--or will provide the evidence we need that it is not."

Foreign Relations Committee member Jim Risch (R-Idaho) said Sept. 16 that the intelligence community (IC) had revealed "very serious information" that in his view should have held up committee approval of New START.  Sen. Kerry replied that the new information "in no way alters [the IC's] judgment, already submitted to this committee, with respect to the [New] START treaty and the impact of the START treaty.  It has no impact, in their judgment."

Global Strike and Rail-Mobile Missile Issues: The Senate resolution states nothing in New START prohibits the research, development, testing, evaluation or deployment of Conventional Prompt Global Strike systems, in which conventional warheads could be placed on ICBMs or other strategic delivery systems.  It also reaffirms administration testimony that if Russia should develop any rail-mobile ICBM system, it would count under the provisions of New START. This answers critics who have said that if Moscow were to build rail-mobile ICBMs, such as the now-retired Russian SS-24, those missiles might not count under treaty limits because they are not specifically mentioned in the text.

The resolution also requires prompt presidential consultation with the Foreign Relations committee regarding the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) to ensure that substantive changes to the treaty are only made with the Senate's approval. Treaty critics have claimed that the BCC could make substantive changes to the treaty, for example on missile defense, without Senate consent.

With its Sept. 16 resolution of ratification, the Foreign Relations Committee has now answered to its satisfaction the primary arguments to delay treaty ratification.  It is time for Senators on both sides of the aisle to come together to strengthen U.S. and global security by voting in favor of New START ratification when they return to Washington in November. - TOM Z. COLLINA

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Volume 1, Number 25

Friday, Oct. 1, will be the 300th day since the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) expired, ending direct, on-site inspections of thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia for the first time since the Cold War.

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Tom Collina Discusses New START on The Alyona Show

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On September 16th, Tom Collina appeared on The Alyona Show and provided his insights the ratification process for the New START treaty, including when the treaty may be ratified. To read more of ACA's work on New START, please visit our New START Subject Resource Page.

 

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On September 16th, Tom Collina appeared on The Alyona Show and provided his insights the ratification process of the New START treaty.

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