An End to False STARTs?
After over a year of rollercoaster US-Russia talks on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), it appears the two sides have finally reached a deal. Securing a new US-Russia nuclear agreement has been central to the Administration’s broader nuclear nonproliferation and arms control agenda from day one, and has, over the past year, become a key litmus test of Obama’s ability to deliver on big promises, especially the US-Russia “reset” policy, and its implications for forging a united front against Iranian nuclear proliferation.
For nuclear weapons watchers, the months since December 5, 2009, when the original START treaty expired but no new agreement was in sight, were especially tense. Yet it appears the deal has come in just under the wire before three (at least rhetorically) important 2010 milestones: First, the anniversary of Obama’s April 5, 2009 speech on nuclear disarmament in Prague; second, the April 12-13 nuclear materials security summit to be hosted by President Obama in Washington, DC; and third, the May 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which will convene 189 nations in New York. Each of these events presents a major opportunity for the Administration to make political hay in the glow of the new agreement, and potentially to add momentum to its broader nuclear policy agenda.
So is the new treaty a triumph for the Administration? Not yet.
The end of negotiations opens up at least three major challenges for Team Obama even before any of the benefits of a new treaty can be applied to the above-mentioned opportunities. First, the treaty itself represents relatively modest reductions in the US and Russian arsenals, and thus limited progress toward the ultimate goal enunciated by both Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of totally eliminating nuclear weapons. According to most reports, the new treaty will match a framework agreement signed by the two presidents last summer, requiring reductions from 2,200 to 1,600 deployed strategic nuclear weapons, and 1,600 to 800 delivery vehicles, but will say nothing about tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons or the two sides’ vast stockpiles of non-deployed warheads. A generous count of all US and Russian nuclear forces puts the total number of nuclear weapons well over 10,000, even after the new treaty takes effect. Critics will call the new deal a drop in the bucket for nuclear disarmament, especially with the end of the Cold War arms race now two decades past.
At the May NPT Review Conference, other nuclear armed states, non-nuclear powers, and nuclear aspirants will be looking to the US and Russia to deliver on our NPT Article VI commitment to “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” This new START agreement just doesn’t get anywhere close to meeting international expectations, and given the difficulty of getting to this point, a new round of cuts is unlikely to be achievable before Obama faces reelection in 2012.
Nor is it certain that the Russian side will remain committed to the new nuclear deal, despite painstaking work by negotiators on their side to fold in language about missile defense and other top Russian priorities. If the forthcoming US nuclear posture review—the core document on US nuclear policy, which has been subject to internecine wrangling for the past year—gives another boost to US missile defense plans, or otherwise suggests a challenge to Russia’s “strategic parity” with the US, expect the Russians to threaten a walk-out on the new START treaty before it’s even come into force. The leader of Russia’s parliament, the Duma, may have had exactly this in mind when he threatened to torpedo ratification of the new agreement based on US plans to site missile defense bases in former Warsaw Pact countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Of course, the biggest challenge Obama must overcome before enjoying much political bounce from the new START treaty is a potentially bitter fight over ratification in the US Senate. Few Senators are likely to oppose the agreement’s core provisions outright—after all, the basic outlines of the deal are modest and have been known for months—but several have already signaled their intent to link ratification to other goals, like increased funding for missile defense, development of new nuclear and conventional strategic weapons, or blocking future approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected in 1999, and which Obama has promised to bring back for ratification soon. So while “new START” itself may be ratified this year, if Administration allies and foreign leaders believe Obama secured the necessary votes by abandoning important elements of his long term nuclear disarmament vision, it will have been a pyrrhic victory at best.
None of this is meant to denigrate the two sides’ historic achievement in Geneva. Just bringing the US and Russia back into a deep and substantive bilateral dialogue on any issue—let alone the greatest challenge to international peace and security in the modern era—is hugely important. However, given the obstacles Obama must overcome between signing the new treaty in Prague next month and delivering on the broader vision of his original Prague speech, it would be premature to uncork the champagne now and celebrate.
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