Senate Approval of New START Moves Nuclear Arms Control Forward » FAS Strategic Security Blog. By Hans M. Kristensen The Federation of American Scientists today applauded the Senate’s ratification of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the United States and Russia. The Senate voted 71 to 26 in favor of ratification of the treaty. The approval of the treaty is a victory for common sense and an impressive achievement for the Obama administration in overcoming stubborn opposition from Cold Warriors to modest nuclear arms reductions. New START does not require destruction of a single nuclear warhead, but it reduces the limit for how many of them can be deployed on long-range ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. The United States and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and will continue to do so when the treaty limit is reached seven years from now. This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund.
START debate: 3 things nuclear arms treaty would do, 3 things it won't - DOES further reduce strategic nuclear arsenals of both counties. New START Treaty Has New Counting » FAS Strategic Security Blog. By Hans M. Kristensen The White House has announced that it has reached agreement with Russia on the New START Treaty. Although some of the documents still have to be finished, a White House fact sheet describes that the treaty limits the number of warheads on deployed ballistic missiles and long-range bombers on both sides to 1,550 and the number of missiles and bombers capable of launching those warheads to no more than 700.
The long-awaited treaty is a vital symbol of progress in U.S. Yet while the treaty reduces the legal limit for deployed strategic warheads, it doesn’t actually reduce the number of warheads. The major provisions of the New START Treaty are: These limits don’t have to be met until 2017, and will remain in effect for three years until the treaty expires in 2020 (assuming ratification occurs this year). Verification Extended The most important part of the new treaty is that it extends a verification regime at least a decade into the future. . Force Structure Changes. Key Facts about the New START Treaty. New START and Missile Defense » FAS Strategic Security Blog. I have not written here on the New START treaty, in part because everything that can be said has been said, well, almost everything…see below.
The treaty is in no way revolutionary. I don’t think Reagan would bat an eyelash at it. Yet, while there is widespread bipartisan support for the treaty, including almost all the leading defense specialists from former Republican administrations, there is also some opposition to the treaty, with the Heritage Foundation having taken it on as a cause. Some of the critiques are truly bizarre, such as the treaty does not address Russian tactical nuclear weapons or North Korea. The one issue that opponents consistently latch onto is the supposed limits on missile defense. In the treaty proper, there is language that prohibits putting defensive missiles in offensive missile launchers. What I have not seen is an explanation of how, if the restriction is something we don’t care about, it got into the treaty in the first place. New START Ratification: Seeing the Bigger Picture » FAS Strategic Security Blog. By Hans M.
Kristensen Kevin Kallmyer at CSIS has an interesting recap of a recent debate between Paula DeSutter and Mort Halperin about the New START Treaty. Ratification of the treaty is held up in Congress by a handful of Senators who (mis)use questions about, among other issues, verification to extort billions of dollars to pet nuclear modernization projects at the expense of greater U.S. interests. During the CSIS debate, Mort Halperin provided an enlightening anecdote about how to judge whether ratification of the treaty is in the U.S. interest.
It cuts to the heart of what is important and deserves a repost here: How do you decide whether a Treaty is in the American interest in relation to verification? Check out the full debate at the CSIS web site. This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund. The high stakes of New START.