The New START Treaty with Russia signed today

Posted by Jesse Lee on February 2, 2011 at 2:26 PM EST

President Barack Obama signs the instrument of ratification of the New START Treaty in the Oval Office, Feb. 2, 2011.

Participants include, from left: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen; Energy Secretary Steven Chu; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; and Vice President Joe Biden. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Today the President ratified a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia, New START.

As the President said during the end of the last Congress, the treaty is "a national security imperative" as well as "a cornerstone of our relations with Russia" as we continue to work with them on everything from Iran to Afghanistan.  With the Senate having approved the treaty with a strong bipartisan vote late last year, today's signing marks a final step in the process.

That process began when President Obama and President Medvedev initially signed the agreement in Prague last April, a fitting location given that one year before that President Obama had been there for a major speech commiting to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

The last arms reduction treaty the US approved was the  SORT (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty) AKA Moscow Treaty in 2002. 

You can read the Treaty (pdf) and Protocol (pdf) themselves, but here's a quick overview from the White House fact sheet. 

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RT: Russia excited about new START treaty

Published: 23 December, 2010, 19:26 Edited: 23 December, 2010, 23:30

With the US approval process completed it is Russia’s turn to ratify the New START treaty. On Thursday, Moscow received Washington's documents and Russian parliamentarians say the pact could be signed by the end of this week.

Earlier on Thursday, Dmitry Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said the Russian president welcomed the ratification "with satisfaction" and "expressed hope that the State Duma and the Federation Council are ready to examine this question and ratify the document."

Even though there is some opposition to the agreement in Russia’s State Duma representatives of the United Russia party, they are ready to approve this most significant arms control agreement.

The ratification procedure in Russia involves three steps: approvals from the lower and the upper houses of parliament and then the signing of the ratification document by the president.

The New START Treaty was approved by the US Senate on Wednesday after long and hard partisan discussions.

Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed the agreement in April in Prague, but it has since been bogged down by delays across the Atlantic.

Speaking about the role New START plays for both allies, Yury Rogulov from the political history department at Moscow State University said that the treaty is crucial for improving relations between Russia and the US.

“Without ratification of this treaty we could not hope for the improvement, serious improvement of relations between the two countries. And right now the situation is quite favorable for cooperation between the two countries on many international issues – from the anti-missile system in Europe to Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It makes us hopeful speaking about the nearest future for our countries.”

­Tom Collina, research director at the Arms Control Association, said the ratification could usher in further cooperation in reducing nuclear stockpiles.

“It is a great boon for Russia-US relations and hopefully will lead to further negotiations on deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals, addressing tactical short-range nuclear weapons as well,” Collina said. “I think this is just the beginning of a much more fruitful relationship between both sides.”

General Colin Powell Pushes for a New START

Few military men carry more weight on both sides of the aisle than General Colin Powell. After the President's meeting with him on national security issues and General Powell's other passion of education, many were eager to hear what he had to say.

The President called him "a great statesman and a great public servant" as well as "a great friend and a great counselor" and reiterated his own case for ratification of the New START nuclear treaty with Russia before General Powell said a few words:

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RIA Novosti: Russian military denies missile deployment near NATO borders

20:20 30/11/2010

Iskander M tactical misssiles

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) The chief of Russia's Armed Forces General Staff on Tuesday denied media rumors that Russia had deployed short-range nuclear missiles near borders with NATO allies.

The Wall Street Journal said in an article published on Tuesday that the United States believes Russia had moved "short-range tactical nuclear warheads to facilities near NATO allies in . . . spring."

"We have not deployed any missiles in the Kaliningrad region," Gen. Nikolai Makarov said.

Moscow has long opposed the deployment of NATO missile-defense facilities near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat and destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.

The United States scrapped earlier plans last September for an antimissile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Moscow welcomed the move, and President Dmitry Medvedev said later that Russia would drop plans to deploy Iskander-M tactical missiles in its Kaliningrad Region, which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

The Iskander-M system (NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone) is equipped with two solid-propellant single-stage 9M723K1 guided missiles with "quasi-ballistic" capability. The missiles have a range of 400 km (250 miles) and can reportedly carry conventional and nuclear warheads.

However, Washington has not given up on its European missile shield initiative. In May, the United States opened a temporary military base in northern Poland, just 80 km (50 miles) from the border of Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, in accordance with an agreement negotiated under former President George Bush in 2008 - a move which rekindled criticism from Russia.

The Wall Street Journal article coincides with the ongoing battle in the U.S. Congress over the ratification of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. It could fuel Republican Party opposition to the new START treaty and hamper President Barack Obama's efforts to get the document ratified.

According to the piece, "Republican critics in the Senate say it was a mistake for President Barack Obama to agree to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) treaty with Russia...without dealing with outstanding questions about Moscow's tactical nuclear weapons," which the treaty does not address.

Rightardia believes the GOP position is bogus. The START treaty was first proposed by president Ronald Reagan and only addressed strategic systems. The US can save billions by reducing its nuclear arsenal by one third.

The US spends billions every year for missile men to sit in solos 'waiting for Godot," while plots fly B52 local missions around their air force bases and submariners tool around in billion dollar nuclear subs waiting for Armageddon. 


The most apt description of a nuclear exchange is Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Putting a person such as Sarah Palin in command of the US nuclear TRIAD is a very scary proposition, indeed!


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I

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Russian-US START Treaty: Timing is Everything

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Walter Pincus Wednesday, November 17, 2010

One of President Obama's top foreign-policy goals suffered a potentially ruinous setback when the Senate's second-ranking Republican said the U.S. nuclear treaty with Russia should not be considered until next year.

Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) stunned the White House and Democrats, who scrambled to save the pact. It came just days after Obama declared that ratifying the treaty was his top foreign-policy priority for the lame-duck session of Congress.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) needs 67 votes to pass. Because of Democratic losses in the midterm elections, it would be harder to approve next year, requiring at least 14 Republican votes rather than nine now.

The administration will make a last-ditch effort Wednesday to appeal to Kyl, the Republicans' main negotiator, in a meeting including Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, several officials said.

Kyl's decision came despite an administration offer Friday to pour an extra $4.1 billion into modernization of the nation's nuclear complex. Because the treaty would reduce both sides' stockpiles of nuclear weapons, Republicans have insisted that the administration spend more money to ensure that existing U.S. weapons are well maintained.

Kyl's decision reflects a more assertive Republican stance following the midterm elections.

"The price [for getting the treaty] went up after the elections. Everyone should have known that," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

source:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111606881.html

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Obama and Medvedev sign new nuclear treaty

Obama certainly deserves the Nobel Peace prize. US forces will be withdrawn from Iraq this year and  the new START treaty signed today will reduce nuclear tensions between the US and Russia.

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Sean Hannity calls Obama “Worst President” Ever

Rightrdia suspected conservatives would have a fit when Obama announced changes to the arachaic US strategic nuclear policy.

Sean Hannity declared Barack Obama the “worst president ever” for his commitment to nuclear disarmament, only to sputter out a series of introspective questions mercifully interrupted by Newt Gingrich. “Our enemies must be rejoicing,” Hannity boldly declared as he discussed the details of Obama’s new nuclear disarmament policies that would stop the building of nuclear weapons and prohibit their use against non-nuclear powers.

Many years ago the US developed a policy called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The Major, our international affairs writer liked the acronymn 'MAD' because any nation considering the use of nuclear weapons would have to be unbalanced. Nobody wins in a nuclear exchange.
 
Nuclear weapons were only been used twice at the end of Wordl War 2. After the war ended, the US spent 47 per cent of its defense budget on nuclear weapons until out policy makers realized the utility of these weapons is limited. Once a adversary has a nuclear capability, the use of nuclear weapons becomes unthinkable.

Of course, this is the reason Israel, which may have up to 200 tactical nukes, doesn't want Iran to develop a similar capability. Once the Iranians have nukes, it will blunt the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

RT: Russia-US: there must be a compromise on nuclear weapons

Published 05 December, 2009, 15:30


There is a possibility that there will be no legal agreement on disarmament to replace the outdated START treaty, but rather a political declaration instead, considers political analyst Victoria Panova.

“That would be a bad signal to all those countries that either have nuclear potential or are striving to achieve it to go further with that and escalate the arms race – that could be a danger,” believes Panova.

She continued, saying that “If they [Russia and the US], possessing 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenals, fail to agree on making less nuclear stocks then the other countries would not be considering them being serious in keeping their promises.”

source: http://rt.com/Politics/2009-12-05/russia-us-nuclear-disarmament.html#

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Russian nuclear leftovers total 3,906 warheads

04 August, 2009, 11:20

The Defense Ministry has revealed that Russian armed forces have 3,906 nuclear warheads and 811 delivery systems at the moment.

The numbers were voiced by the deputy head of the National Center for Nuclear Threat Reduction, a structure in the Defense Ministry responsible for the reduction of strategic arms in accordance with international treaties.

Colonel Sergey Ryzhkov told Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper that since July 31, 1991, when the START agreement was signed by the US and the then Soviet Union, the Russian nuclear stockpile dropped more than twofold from 8,757 warheads. The number of missiles capable of nuclear warhead delivery was reduced almost threefold from 2,288 in 1991 to 811 today.

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The American military had 10,563 warheads and 2,246 missiles in 1991, and now they have 5,573 warheads and 1,195 missiles, the colonel added.

Since the 1991 START agreement, Russian military specialists have made 464 inspections of US nuclear sites, while Americans have made 559 inspections on Russian territory. Ryzhkov said both sides worked in accordance with the spirit of START and the progress they made in nuclear reduction helped build stability in the world and brought a sense of predictability in bilateral relations.

Earlier on July 6, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama signed a protocol on the principles of further nuclear weapons reduction as a basis of a new treaty to replace START when it expires later this year. The goal is for both sides to have 500 to 1100 strategic delivery systems and 1500 to 1675 warheads in seven years after the new treaty is ratified.

source: http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-08-04/russian-nuclear-leftovers-total.html

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