Last Friday President Obama heralded the new strategic arms treaty to be signed April 8 in Prague. It contains dangers the President appears not to grasp, that argue for rejection by the Senate....
Begin with the White House key facts online posting as to details of the new proposed arms treaty, destined, one suspects, to become known as the Prague Treaty when signed there. (N.B., this treaty covers only strategic--i.e., long-range--systems, not tactical--i.e., short- & medium-range--systems.)
Highlights cited by the WH:
(1) deployed nuclear warheads (carried by land-based ICBMs, sea-based SLBMs--i.e., submarine-launched ballistic missiles & heavy bombers) reduced from 2,200 to 1,550;
(2) a combined limit of 800 total nuclear-capable launchers (the above-mentioned triad of ICBMs, SLBMs & heavy bombers), deployed & undeployed;
(3) a sub-limit of 700 deployed launchers;
(4) verification & transparency provisions regarding inspection, notifications of certain moves, accessibility of monitoring data & data exchanges;
(5) duration of 10 years, with a single 5-year extension, and with each party entitled to withdraw (criteria not specified);
(6) no legal constraints on current or planned US missile defense or conventional long-range strike forces.
Here are the President's remarks. Here is the transcript of the press conference on the treaty, featuring SecState Clinton, SecDef Gates & Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen.
SecState Hillary Clinton made much of three prior major arms pacts winning ratification in the Senate with more than 90 votes: the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT, 2002, ratified 95-0 in 2003--a/k/a the Moscow Treaty); the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I, 1991, ratified 93-6 in 1992), and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987 INF Treaty, ratified 93-5 in 1988).
Clinton noted that Team Obama "continues to engage" with Russia on missile defense. Asked about Europe, she answered that Team Obama had "consistently conveyed" to "friends and allies" the US commitment to support them. She cited the President's realism in recognizing that "nuclear zero" is a goal that may not be achieved within his lifetime, and added: "But I don't think anybody expects us to come close to zero nuclear weapons anytime soon." SecDef Gates noted that verification would be easier because the "throw-weight"--payload capacity--of Russian missiles is not an issue verification will be easier with this treaty than some earlier ones.
She answered one question re impact of the treaty as to ending the Cold War stance in which the two superpowers had massive nuclear arsenals--"we can begin to cut that." Her ignorance of arms reduction history and her foolish embrace of "setting an example" can cost America dearly.
Assessment of the Prague Arms Treaty of 2010. Begin with a history lesson for Hillary: Our SecState apparently does not know that the US arsenal peaked at 32,040 nuclear weapons in 1966, and that Russia's peaked at an estimated 45,000 warheads in 1986. (Different sources compile slightly different totals; here I use a source cited recently in a major Washington Post article: Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006, compiled for the ardently pro-disarmament Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.) LFTC READERS: NOTE THAT "WEAPONS" INCLUDE THOSE ACTUALLY DEPLOYED PLUS THOSE IN STOCKPILE, EITHER HELD AS RESERVE OR AWAITING DISMANTLEMENT.
BY WAY OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, HERE ARE WEAPONS TOTALS FOR THE US (actual) & SOVIET UNION (USSR--POST-1991, RUSSIA) (estimated) AT THE START OF EACH NEW US PRESIDENTIAL TENURE, USING YEAR-END FIGURES FOR THE PRIOR YEAR (end-1952 for Ike, etc., except for Ford, who took office in Aug. 1974):
1953 (EISENHOWER) = 1,005 US v. 50 USSR
1961 (KENNEDY) = 20,434 US v. 1,605 USSR
1964 (JOHNSON) = 29,459 US v. 4,2381 USSR
1969 (NIXON) = 29,224 US v. 9,399 USSR
1974 (FORD) = 28,965 v, 17,385 USSR
1977 (CARTER) = 25,579 US v. 21,205 USSR
1981 (REAGAN) = 24,304 US v. 30,062 USSR
1989 (BUSH SR.) = 23,586 US v. 41,000 USSR
1993 (CLINTON) = 14,747 v. 33,000 RUS
2001 (BUSH JR.) = 10,577 US v. 21,000 RUS
Key Trend Points (1953 - 2006). Supplementing from other points in the full NRDC chart: (1) US weapons--by far in the early years tactical rather than strategic--peaked in 1967 at 32,040, a total Russia's then-7,089 was nearly 25,000 behind. (2) Russia passed the US in 1978, when both arsenals were in the 24,000 range. (3) When Russia's arsenal peaked in 1986 at 45,000, the US arsenal, at 24,401, was roughly the same as it had been in 1978. (4) The past two decades saw both superpowers sharply, steadily reduce their arsenals.
Arms Under President Obama. What is new about President Obama's strategic nuclear arms policy is that his reductions are being made from totals already down about 70 percent from peak level for both the US & Russia. When Team Obama took office the US strategic & tactical warhead total was 9,400, of which 4,200 were already slated for dismantling, 2,700 (includes 500 tactical) were deployed & 2,500 held in stockpile. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimates that as of end-2009 Russian nuclear forces totaled 12,000 strategic & tactical warheads; Moscow had some 4,600 deployed strategic & tactical warheads when Obama took office.
National security maven Jamie Fly notes that for budgetary reasons Moscow has already cut its arsenal to the new levels. Russia maven David Satter sees "self-congratulation & self-delusion" in the West, as to this treaty's likely impact. The Gray Lady reports that the three nuclear laboratory chiefs wrote a letter to Congress warning that the continued reliability of the nation's existing nuclear stockpile cannot be guaranteed over the long term (decades); arms control advocates dismissed the warning as self-interested pleading by the directors.
SecDef Gates asserted that missile defense is "not constrained" by the treaty, but the preamble (text not yet published) mentions the different views held by the two sides on deployment. Moscow will, naturally, threaten to break the arms treaty if the US tries to proceed with any missile defense deployment that meets with disapproval in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of a "legal acknowledgment in the treaty" among defensive & offensive systems. Arms control advocates can be expected, as happened with earlier arms agreements, to ferociously fight any American act that elicits a threat from Moscow to abrogate the treaty. For such advocates, process trumps violations, real or alleged, lest acting on them ends the process and thus, hopes for a negotiated peace (as it does with the Mideast "peace process").
The offensive reductions themselves are unnecessary, made in the mistaken belief that these will induce other nuclear nations to disarm. China, Iran & North Korea will regard reductions indeed as an opportunity--to INCREASE their nuclear arsenals. The fewer American missiles deployed, the more valuable missiles become to the world's power-seeking nations. Our latest reductions come on top of huge prior arms reductions, which all failed to induce rogue states, or rivals like China, to cut their arsenals.
To the contrary, China has a powerful incentive to, and thus likely will seek to increase its arsenal, so that within a decade it may well have more missiles deployed than does the US. it can then move to reincorporate Taiwan, secure that US retaliation will not come. Team Obama sees no geopolitical value in a larger nuclear arsenal. Nothing justifies projecting a mirror-image perception upon China's leaders, who take a 19th century power politics geostrategic view. They will use the perception of their increased power to gain regional position at the expense of America, displacing America as Asia's foremost power.
(The NRDC data shows China's arsenal roughly halved from its 435 peak, but it seems unlikely that outsiders can estimate China's stockpile as accurately as the Russian one, as US-compiled data from nuclear arms verification is far greater re Russia than for China.)
An emboldened nuclear Iran will displace America as the foremost regional power in the Mideast. North Korea will happily proliferate unless its regime collapses. The Gray Lady reports that Western intelligence agencies anticipate Iran building more nuclear facilities. US intelligence reportedly sees a 1 to 4 year timeline for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. The NYT also published an article on one scenario for an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Here is a link to the full Feb. 2010 Brookings Institution Saban Center "Osiraq Redux" (a titular reference to Israel's 1981 strike at Iraq's nuclear reactor) war game summary cited in the NYT article. Bill Kristol's Sunday Washington Post op-ed concludes that SecState Clinton's minimal mention of Iran last week, omission of possible use of force or pushing regime change as options, plus the White House pressuring Israel not to take action against Iran means that Team Obama is in fact acquiescing in a nuclear Iran. Sadly, he almost surely is right.
Nor can the appalling symbolism of signing the treaty in Prague be discounted. In 1968 Soviet troops marched into Prague to protect Moscow's influence over Eastern Europe. Signing an accord that narrows America's real-world practical missile defense options while rogue nations proliferate, emboldens its enemies, and makes defense of Eastern Europe subject to Moscow's de facto veto will give Moscow more influence in Eastern Europe than it has had since the Miracle Year of 1989.
In a WSJ op-ed national security maven Jack David warns against nuclear zero fantasies:
Nuclear weapons are frequently sought and used to intimidate. In 2008, Russia threatened Poland and the Czech Republic with nuclear attack if they participated in a then-planned U.S. missile defense system. In 1996, a Chinese official threatened the obliteration of Los Angeles if the U.S. met certain defense obligations to Taiwan. Unlike the U.S., Russia's military doctrine prescribes occasions for first use of nuclear weapons. Does anyone believe the Iranian nuclear program is not motivated by the intention to threaten?
A country's desire for nuclear weapons also becomes pressing when distrust and enmity are high. The distrust between India and Pakistan is so profound that each has felt the need for a nuclear capability.
Countries depend on nuclear weapons for defense as well. This is the case for the 31 countries under the U.S. nuclear umbrella—where the U.S. commits to maintain a nuclear capability and use it to defend the others. Most of the countries under the umbrella have forsaken developing their own nuclear weapons so long as the U.S. deterrent remains available and credible.
David notes that UN Security Council Resolution 1504 (2004) on nonproliferation has been ineffective. An Israeli national security expert offers several scenarios as to how the next war could break out in the Mideast, all involving aggression against Israel by Iran proxies.
Historical Arms Treaty Ratification Note. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in the 1970s produced SALT I (1972, ratified 88-2), the ABM Treaty (1972, ratified 88-2) & SALT II (1979, not ratified). Also: START II (1993, ratified 87-4 in 1996) & START III (proposed by Bill Clinton in 1997, not ratified). Arms deals involving America date back nearly two centuries, to the Rush-Bagot Agreement, under which the US & the UK (negotiating for Canada, which did not win independence until much later) agreed to limits armaments deployed on the Great Lakes (Wiki has more detail on R-B).
Bottom Line. The Prague Treaty of 2010 sharply reduces nuclear arsenals, without keeping sacrosanct any missile defense system Moscow disapproves of, and without setting an example that will impress the most dangerous enemies of America & its allies, who regard such examples as opportunities to exploit. Utopianism--a desire to instantly march towards a nuclear-free world--has apparently triumphed over realism--muddling through while preserving missile defense and keeping the Russian Bear out of Eastern European affairs. It remains for the Senate to prevent potential future disaster, by declining to ratify the proposed treaty in its present form. If ratification is in the cards, the Senate should do so so with a binding express reservation that the administration must never use a Russian objection to missile defense plans as cause to abandon such plans, but rather as cause to withdraw from the treaty. In the event the treaty is stopped, America's enemies will use the Senate's failure to ratify or any later withdrawal to their propaganda advantage. But either is better than a strategic arms trap.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Terrorism, Homeland Security, Nuclear Proliferation, Arms Control, WMD, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics
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