A memo circulated by Republicans on the Hill in response to Obama's joint statement with Russian President Medvedev today follows. The author notes that Obama's expectations for the speed at which the new treaty on arms reductions will be ratified does not conform to precedent. Obama says that these reductions are necessary to dissuade nations rogue states from developing and building their own arsenals -- that we must lead by example -- but the author also notes that the U.S. stockpile has been shrinking for years, with no discernible effect on the nuclear aspirations of hostile regimes. I'd further note that the United States has prohibited nuclear testing for the last 18 years, with an unknown but likely severe impact on the reliability of the nations nuclear stockpile, yet this has done nothing to dissuade North Korea, Pakistan, and India from testing nuclear weapons -- or the Russians and Chinese from cheating at the margins. Read the whole thing:
Five months from yesterday, START will expire by its terms. Today, President Obama issued a joint understanding with Russian President Medvedev, which I have clipped below and provided a link to, providing guidance for completion of a legally binding agreement to replace START.
As for timing, the joint statement provides that the negotiating teams will continue their work toward "finalizing an agreement for signature and ratification at the earliest possible date." President Obama stated during the press conference that "this legally binding treaty will be completed this year." By way of reference, approximately 425 days passed from the time the United States signed START (July 31, 1991) and the U.S. Senate provided its consent to the Treaty (October 1, 1992).
As for numbers, the joint statement provides that strategic warheads will be reduced to a range of 1500-1675 (where the range under the Treaty of Moscow is 1700-2200). The statement further provides that the range for strategic delivery vehicles will be 500-1100 (where the maximum allowable number of such vehicles under START is 1,600). Also of interest was President Obama's statement during the press conference that the parties "hopefully can move even beyond [these numbers] in subsequent agreements and treaties." President Obama set these START follow-on numbers and made this aspirational statement without the benefit of a completed nuclear posture review, which the Department of Defense is preparing to submit to Congress in December of this year.
President Obama then seemed to outline the rationale of "why this post-START agreement is so important," namely that the parties cannot show "leadership" on this issue "unless we are showing ourselves willing to deal with our own nuclear stockpiles in a more rational way." Put more finely, the New York Times yesterday described the President's theory that "reducing arsenals" would provide the United States greater "power" to halt weapons programs in North Korea and Iran, and quoted him from that proposition as, "It's naïve for us to think . . . that we can grow our nuclear stockpiles . . . and that in that environment we're going to be able to pressure countries like Iran and North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons themselves."
Of course, the United States has been shrinking (not growing) its nuclear stockpile for quite some time now. For example, under START accounting rules, the number of US warheads attributed to deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers in recent years has been:
1997: 7,957
2000: 7,519
2006: 5,966
2008: 5,951
2009: 5,576To this end, it seems as if Iranian and North Korean proliferation decisions are wholly removed from US nuclear stockpile decisions. Indeed, for example, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, North Korea was making initial strides in its nuclear program, operating the 5MW reactor at Yongbyon and testing the reprocessing plant, the same time period the United States was signing, ratifying, and implementing an arms control treaty directed at eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons (the INF Treaty).
