Last Friday, the Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC) sent a memo to Republican foreign and defense policy staff with the message that “it cannot be the case that the time is now for the Senate to vote on New START.”  The RPC’s latest stale offering is a response to the Obama administration’s drive to secure Senate approval of the treaty before the end of the year.

Kelsey Hartigan over at NSN has a nice takedown of the memo, as does Max Bergmann at the Wonk Room.  As Kelsey notes, the RPC conveniently ignores the enormous support for the treaty from our military and retired Republican officials.  Indeed, one has to wonder why the Republicans are acting so anti-military.

What’s also revealing is that the RPC concedes that the substantive case against New START is largely baseless.  For example, note the following statements from the memo:

“Although the treaty may very well preserve the ability of the United States to modernize its nuclear forces…”

“The [State Department’s] fact sheet then asserts that the treaty provides no constraints on deploying conventional prompt global strike capabilities. This does not answer the question of whether the Administration is committed to developing those capabilities.”

“[T]he [State Department’s] fact sheet asserts that the treaty provides no constraints on deploying the most effective missile defenses possible. Like other statements made in this section of the fact sheet, it may be a true statement…”

The only actual substantive concern the RPC can come up with is on the issue of verification.  The memo refers to classified objections raised by Intelligence Committee ranking member Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), some of which the Senator articulated in a recent appearance on Frank Gaffney’s “Secure Freedom Radio.”  The concerns are nothing new: New START drops START I’s requirement that both the U.S. and Russia exchange telemetry data from long-range missile tests; New START drops onsite monitoring of Russian missiles “coming out of the gate” at the Votkinsk missile production plant; Russia has a history of cheating on past arms control agreements; etc.

Of course what the RPC memo doesn’t tell you is that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified that "a key contribution of this treaty [New START] is its provision for a strong verification regime."  Gates also noted that “we don’t need telemetry to monitor compliance with this treaty.”  The same goes for Votkinsk.  The memo also fails to mention that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen declared that he is “very comfortable with the verification regime that exists in the treaty right now.” Mullen has also pointed out that under New START “there are almost twice as many inspections per facility, per year than under the previous treaty.”  Re: allegations of Russian cheating, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) noted last year: “Our experiences over many years have proven the effectiveness of the [START I] Treaty's verification provisions and served to build a basis for confidence between the two countries when doubts arose.”

The reality is that New START contains an updated set of data exchange and monitoring provisions that are more than adequate to verify Russia’s compliance with the treaty.  And let’s not forget:  We’ve had no on-site monitoring presence in Russia since START I expired last December.  If New START is not ratified we will continue to lack an essential window into the size and makeup of Russia’s arsenal.  Critics would do well not to confuse a different verification regime for a weak verification regime.  

In sum, the RPC admits that the treaty does not limit our ability to modernize our forces, does not prohibit the U.S. from deploying conventional prompt global strike capabilities, and does not contain meaningful constraints on missile defense.  And it raises concerns about verification that have been debunked over and over again.  

All the more reason, then, for the RPC to dispense with its senseless and politically motivated calls for indefinite delay and further concessions on issues peripheral to the treaty. It's long past time for Republican Senators to support New START.  Not only would doing so demonstrate responsible leadership, but further delay or defeat of the treaty could blow back up in the GOP's face (see here, for example).  As Robert Kagan put it in an op-ed aimed at his fellow Republicans in yesterday’s Washington Post, the GOP has very little to lose if it supports the treaty, but very much to lose if it rejects the treaty. 

Read more

New START, Nukes on a Blog, verification (all tags)

In a newly declassified letter snagged by the AP, top Pentagon officials conclude that Russia will not be able to achieve "militarily significant cheating" under the New START treaty. The U.S. nuclear arsenal, which under New START can be deployed in a flexible manner beneficial to American interests, will "help deter any future Russian leaders from cheating or breakout from the treaty, should they ever have such an inclination," states the assessment, which was endorsed by ADM Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen Kevin Chilton, commander of STRATCOM.

This assessment apparently means little to diehard New START skeptics like John Bolton. As he wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, New START reflects military judgments “only marginally” and is instead “political, diplomatic and legal in nature” – as if military and political factors are separate considerations in strategy formulation (Clausewitz, dude). He also claimed that the military endorses and implements agreements such as New START because it knows “that thinking outside the treaty's four corners isn't career-enhancing” – as if military leaders were a bunch of empty vessels incapable or unwilling to speak truth to power.

The fact is that numerous military leaders have affirmed that the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons initiatives were developed through close cooperation between civilian and military officials. Nothing was imposed on anyone, as Bolton suggests. Military officials have endorsed New START because they were involved in its creation and believe in its substance. To assert otherwise is to question their integrity.

The Pentagon supports New START because Russia won’t be able to cheat significantly under it, among other reasons. The Senate should support the agreement, too.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, Verification (all tags)

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Paula DeSutter has spent most of the summer arguing that the New START treaty drops the ball on verification.  This is a pretty daft claim, since DeSutter was one of the ring leaders for an administration that believed verification was neither necessary nor useful.  Recall that the Moscow Treaty was entirely devoid of any detailed data exchanges and monitoring and verification provisions.  In the eyes of DeSutter, President Reagan’s signature phrase “trust but verify” read “trust but don't verify”.    

Both Kelsey Hartigan and Greg Thielmann have penned great take-downs of DeSutter's latest contribution, which is particularly stunning and riddled with obfuscation. Writing in the National Review earlier this week, DeSutter alleges:

Had the administration deemed the data provided under START to be critical, they could have extended the START treaty until negotiations on New START were completed and it was ratified by the U.S. and Russia. Instead, they let START expire and negotiated against a deadline after making clear their desperate desire for getting an agreement.[emphasis mine.]

Alas, the 2007 version of Paula DeSutter made an extension of START I next to impossible:

While the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or START "has been important and for the most part has done its job," Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter told Reuters the pact is cumbersome and its complicated reporting standards have outlived their usefulness.

In the post-Cold war era, many provisions of the 1991 START accord, which mandated deep nuclear weapons cuts, "are no longer necessary. We don't believe we're in a place where we need have to have the detailed lists (of weapons) and verification measures," added DeSutter.[emphasis mine.]

Kelsey also points out that DeSutter ran roughshod over the verification provisions in other key arms control treaties.

In last week's Washington Post, Walter Pincus noted that the standard by which many Republican Senators are judging New START is markedly different from the one they used to judge the George W. Bush administration's Moscow Treaty. As we've noted on the blog before, nowhere is this more evident than on the issue of verification.  See below the jump for some choice comments from select Republican Senators on verification during the Moscow treaty debate.  Could it be, as former Bush I national security adviser Brent Scowcroft has suggested, that "some just don't want to give Obama a victory" before the midterm elections?

Remember, "trust, but don't verify"...

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, verification (all tags)

National Journal snagged an interview with Sen. Richard Lugar on New START. Kiss the rings, peasant wonks.

Lugar’s comments on missile defense and verification are most quotable:

NJ: Some critics object to language in the nonbinding preamble of the treaty suggesting that Russia might withdraw from the New START pact in the future if it thinks that a U.S. missile defense system has tipped the strategic balance. How do you answer their concerns that such language might ultimately constrain development of a U.S. missile defense system?

Lugar: Well, it's simply not true, which has been asserted in about every way possible. The Russians might withdraw from New START, but they didn't withdraw from START I even after we withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in 2001. In other words, the United States exercised our option to withdraw from an arms control treaty on that one conspicuous occasion, and the Russians remained committed to START I until it expired on Dec. 5, 2009. Regardless, the Obama administration asserted in all our hearings and testimony that it is not only reserving the right to proceed on building a missile defense system, it is actually building it. The Russians aren't happy about that, and they've been assertive in stating their objections.

NJ: As someone who has dealt with verification issues for decades, are you confident that the verification protocols in the new START are sufficient?

Lugar: Yes I am. I believe it will provide more transparency than START I, rather than less. The numbering system for warheads and delivery systems is much more transparent than before. START I verification was really about making sure that neither side was cheating, and avoiding a breakthrough that could have changed the strategic balance. The new START reflects the fact that the Russians are now really looking for stability, and they want to avoid a race to greater numbers of nuclear weapons. Before one of President Obama’s early meetings with [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev, he invited [Senator John] Kerry and me over to the White House situation room, where we met with [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates, [National Security Adviser Jim] Jones and others. The president asked us what essential elements the treaty had to include to win bipartisan support. We told him it had to get verification and missile defense right. And I think the administration team did a good job in achieving that goal. President Obama knew he would have to counter the objections of some lawmakers who would launch a frontal assault on the treaty.

[Title and caption: It was tough to decide which amazing lyrics to use, but beware: bad words and misogyny abound]

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, Senate, Missile Defense, Verification (all tags)

On April 26, USD-AT&L Ashton Carter formally commissioned a new Defense Science Board Task Force to assess nuclear treaty monitoring and verification technologies. “Potential requirements for new or expanded monitoring and verification requirements place a renewed focus – after almost 2 decades of limited investment,” Carter’s memo states, “on the adequacy of the Nation’s technical tools to support monitoring and verification, both as part of the cooperative verification regimes of the treaties and through national intelligence.”

The objective of the Task Force will be to “recommend a comprehensive set of time-phased technical programs that could be conducted” by DOD, DOE, and/or the Intelligence Community, with thought given to how State, DHS, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy might pitch in.

Depending on when its findings are released, this Task Force could affect New START and CTBT ratification deliberations. Stay tuned.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, CTBT, verification (all tags)

Today President Obama announced that after nearly a year of tough negotiations, the U.S. and Russia have reached agreement on the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the “New START Treaty”).  Presidents Obama and Medvedev will sign the new agreement on April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic.

The new agreement is a modest but critically important and necessary first step toward reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.  The treaty enhances U.S. security by verifiably reducing surplus U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles and ensuring a stable and predictable U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship.  Moreover, it will allow the U.S. to maintain a robust and flexible nuclear deterrent and will not limit development of U.S. missile defenses or advanced conventional weapons systems.

And did I mention that it already has strong bipartisan support?

Below are some preliminary comments on what we know so far about the specifics of the new agreement based on recent news reports, materials released this morning by the White House, and remarks this morning from President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, missile defense, verification (all tags)

...read Arms Control Association Senior Fellow Greg Thielmann's most recent threat assessment brief.  It's a comprehensive and outstanding take on the purpose of verification and how to think about it in the context of the (hopefully) soon to be signed New START agreement, especially the hand wringing over Votkinsk and telemetry.  I've been trying to make many of the same points here at NoH, but Greg seamlessly ties it all together in less than 8 pages.

The bottom line, as Greg notes, is that while New START will draw upon much of what was in START I, the new treaty will contain new rules and limits.  New rules and limits in turn require verification provisions that are actually pegged to those new rules and limits, not rules and limits from a treaty that was negotiated during the 1980s and early 1990s...  

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, verification (all tags)

The Cable’s Josh Rogin and Global Security Newswire’s Elaine Grossman confirm what we’ve known for some time: verification, specifically telemetry, is delaying completion of the New START agreement.  

START I defined “telemetric information” as “information that originates on board a missile during its flight test that is broadcast or recorded for subsequent recovery.” It required both parties “to make on-board technical measurements during each flight test of an ICBM or SLBM; to broadcast this information using unencrypted telemetry, with limited exceptions; and to exchange copies of telemetry tapes acceleration profiles, and interpretive data from all flight-tests.”

The Russians are arguing that they should no longer be required to share (and broadcast unencrypted?) telemetric information because they are building new missiles while we are not.  The Obama administration is under pressure to retain START I’s provisions on telemetry in part because, as Travis notes, "certain [mostly Republican] senators will go nuts without access to the data."  

I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind as we think about this issue – and verification more broadly…  

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, telemetry, verification (all tags)

Via Max Bergmann over at the The Wonk Room, today's Wall Street Journal editorial on Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech predictably includes far more misinformation than truth about the "New START" negotiations...

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, verification (all tags)

Via Heather Hulburt, Executive Director of the National Security Network, comes still more evidence that despite what Jon Kyl would have you believe, there was a time not so long ago when some Republicans deemed it ok not to freak out about the configuration of Russia's nuclear forces or the absence of provisions to verify the size and location of those forces.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, verification (all tags)