President Barack Obama signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. The treaty requires that the United States and Russia cut down their 2200 warheads to 1550, and keep one another informed about their nuclear arsenals. While the treaty may prevent another arms race, it ignores several other pressing issues on the security front, not to mention that it will cost a whopping $84 billion.
Among the strongest advocates of the treaty are many smaller European countries such as Denmark, Norway, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania, which desire the treaty’s ratification in the name of furthering the trans-Atlantic alliance, NATO, and enhancing European security. Such countries see Russia’s expanding arsenal as a major security threat and hope the treaty will open doors to further communication about their concerns.
Many of Obama’s advisors see the treaty as an opportunity to restore his political momentum after suffering heavy losses in the midterm election. They fear that pushing back the deadline of the ratification vote any further will only serve to foster an even weaker standing for Obama. Republicans in the lame duck Senate encourage waiting for the new Congress to convene in January before putting the treaty to a vote.
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona has drawn the most attention on the matter, citing concerns about the modernization of the nuclear triad and the budget for the nuclear weapons complex. In order to sway the vote, Gen. Kevin Chilton approached Kyl with a proposal from Obama to spend a total of $180 billion on nuclear weapons from 2012 to 2016.
START requires the reduction of warheads and inherently puts the United States at a disadvantage. America is the target of several violent and nuclear weapon-possessing countries, and a treaty that proclaims to the world that the US must reduce its number of arms merely begs for trouble. The immense spending on the nuclear triad and nuclear weapons complex would also mean less to spend on security measures for nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On the Russian front, it is true that we could all sleep a little better knowing that the apocalypse won’t transpire between the two superpowers. Ultimately the treaty boils down to which is worse: the possibility of a slow and painful death at the hands of extremist factions, or an arms race with Russia.
Trisha Thacker is a biology freshman and may be reached at [email protected].
How does reducing our warheads from 2200 to 1550 invite terrorists to attack us? It's the basic nature of terrorist/guerrilla warfare that you can't bomb them out of existence. What terrorist is going to step back from attacking a civilian plane and decide that and extra 650 warheads is reason to stop? As far as the extra warheads being a deterrent to the extremist nations that possess warheads themselves; now we can only nuke their entire country 100 times over instead of 150. The author is seriously reaching.
It's not terrorists attacking us that is the threat. The other nuclear powers attacking us is the threat. In case you're not up to date, China has as many nukes as Russia and is not included in the treaty. The US disarming is a grave threat to our security.
How is this even a choice? The above posts do a good job pointing out the stats. But in addition, there are some deep flaws in the author’s logic. And here is why. At this point, and ever since the last START treaty expired last year, WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONITORING OF RUSSIAN NUCLEAR ARSINAL; a fact that might interest us after seeing Russia's ongoing willingness to maintain international aggression (i.e. Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia). The truth is we had a treaty before (a treaty that was passed by W Bush and fully supported by Republicans, see START II), it expired, and now we need a new one. This one is BETTER than the last. It allows real time monitoring of Russian nuclear warheads, something we never had in the past. Plus it allows 18 on site visits a year (see http://www.armscontrol.org/node/4559).
Thus the new found opposition to the new treaty is most likely a political tool being used to assure that the white house doesn't get anything passed that could gain momentum before the party takes another run at the white house is 2012. Not a bad strategy, as a lack of bipartisanship in congress is something outsiders usually exploit to gain power. But here is the problem with applying this approach in this case. By choosing to block the START treaty, Republicans are leaving the US even more exposed than we were before, as there is NO ALTERNATIVE options on the table (mainly since this is the one that both parties have been seeking since day 1, and, on that note, IS a good show of bipartisanship).
Secondly, when have Republicans ever blocked spending measures on spending on domestic security? As explained above, START is a very important domestic security treaty. And by saying it would cost too money, they are doing just that (in reality, Senator John Kyl has said he wants a guarantee that there will be MORE funds spend on modernizing our weapons before he passes the treaty). Thus this might be the reasons most top Republicans are hesitant to publically oppose the treaty. So the truth is we either pass the treaty, which is even better than the last one (that, again, had full support of Republicans), or we choose to have absolutely no monitoring of Russian nuclear arsenal. The latter choice might, I admit, lead to a scenario similar to what the sounds similar to the one suggested; except it would most likely involve a slow death from extremists IN ADDITION TO being involved in an arms race with Russia. So again, how is this even a choice?
This can't be true can it.? A treaty of such importance and again the Republicans will block it just to be against Obama? My God, get me out of this country, the lunatics are running the asylum.
It is not about being 'against Obama', it is a simple lesson in common sense. The problem is not so much of what is in the Treaty as what is not. There is no address of all the other nuclear nations, they are free to build as many as they want and deliver them any way they want. There is no address of tactical nukes, you know the "little ones". Those little ones are in the same power range of the Hiroshima / Nagasaki bombs. Yeah, "little" and not even addressed in this so called treaty.
Mr. Mazzei, if you want out there are one way tickets to where ever you want to go and the price is not bad.
Start in it's current concept must be stopped.
Russia is notorious for reneging on treaties. China is on the rise, and is rapidly expanding military capability specifically designed to counter U.S. military. This START treaty not only puts us at a disadvantage with Russia, the language in the treaty limits our ability to modernize an aging fleet of old weapons. This is not good policy, plane and simple.
Another freshman?
Hard to take you seriously when you use "plane" instead of "plain."
Stop discussing and assessing nuclear treaties and focus on spelling. One step at at time, Matty.
It's hard to take YOU seriously when something as serious as placing the country at a strategic disadvantage is the topic and all you can focus on is someone else's spelling.
Russia is notorious for reneging on treaties. China is on the rise, and is rapidly expanding military capability specifically designed to counter U.S. military. This START treaty not only puts us at a disadvantage with Russia, the language in the treaty limits our ability to modernize an aging fleet of old weapons. This is not good policy, plain and simple.
Matt, I agree that China is the biggest challenge facing the US. And this might possibly be the greatest task facing whatever government is in the white house after 2012. So as Russia shares some of it's border with China, it is good to consider if START will limit US ability to respond in the case of chinese agression. But I simply did not read any language that would limit that ability in the treaty (nor, as wire knob pointed out, do the joint chiefs of staff, most of whom expertise are on military strategy with China.) As to modernizing our weapons, I do know the current government has offered 14 billion over the next six years towards modernizing our weapons– which is more than was offered by our last government. Finally, Russia has just as much interest in START as we do. So their history of reneging does not seem revenant here.
The world has changed since Reagan started the disarmament talks with Russia in the 80's. This new START treaty should be rejected and not only that we should be strengthening our forces, both nuclear and conventional, not weakening them. All you lefty, commie peaceniks can go to hell. You'll be begging for a soldier to save you when the Chinese are parachuting into your town square.
What amuses me most is people who use 'commie' and 'lefty' in the same sentence, or these terms at all. They sound like geezers out of the paranoid 1950s who just can't get off their high horse. I think they are either joking or being satirical, since it's hard to believe anyone sane could spout such drivel.
Some of us are old enough to remember the "real" Communism. You know, the one that killed millions of people. Not the one that teaches our children that Mao, Che, and Lenin were some kind of superheroes. How old are you? 20? 25? You know nothing about the world so just shut up before you embarrass yourself.
Just because all your friends jump off a bridge does that mean you should do it, too?