Source: The Washington Post
Senate Set to Vote on START Treaty TodayMatthew Rojansky : Nearly two years after President Obama's reset with Russia, and almost as long since negotiations began toward the New START treaty, we're set to see the US Senate vote on ratification. With the Russian Duma (parliament) expected to rubber stamp the treaty as soon as the Kremlin is confident of US approval, it will come into force immediately.
Much has been said--shouted sometimes--and written already about why the treaty is important. As Senator Lugar has pointed out, ratification will enable US inspectors to return to Russian nuclear sites, gathering vital information about what is still the single greatest existential threat to this country.
However it is also true that this treaty comes at a time when the US Russia relationship is not--and should not be--defined any longer solely by arms control, or nuclear issues more broadly. The fact is that the US and Russia have already been cooperating successfully on critical shared security interests--stabilizing the situations in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, sharing intelligence to deny terrorists' access to financial networks, and conducting joint counter terror and counter drug operations, to name just a few examples.
It was and is wrong to argue that ratification of New START is necessary to enable such cooperation with Russia to continue--as if the only way to do business with Moscow is by quid pro quo. New START will certainly help buoy up a positive post-reset atmosphere. But it will not by itself deliver any more than the language of the treaty itself purports to do.
With a heated and far too partisan treaty ratification debate behind us, then, it is now time to think hard about how to take the next steps forward in cooperation with Russia--and not only on security. Russia's vast market, highly educated population, and focus on "modernization" is an ideal window of opportunity to enhance our anemic economic relationship. That's enough of an intro, I think. On to your questions...
Matthew Rojansky : Well, we're there. New START has been ratified,71-26. healthy bipartisan margin.
This is an important step forward for both US-Russia cooperation and nuclear security.
I am looking forward to discussing the treaty and the significance of today's vote with you this afternoon.
What verification do we have that Russia will actually keep the treaty?
Matthew Rojansky : Verification mechanisms are built into the treaty, just as they were built into START I. In this case, however, the negotiators have stated that valuable experience gained from START I inspections and verification processes has been applied to improve and streamline inspections under New START.
One very big advantage of the new treaty is that the counting process and the verification of that count deals directly with the thing we care most about: the warhead. In the past, counting and inspections were limited to projecting warhead numbers based on missile designs, so that, for instance, a missile capable of carrying 10 warheads was always counted as 10 warheads. Now, we have a separate, lower limit for missiles and launchers, and can actually count each separately.
The means of counting is both simple and complex. It occupies whole annexes to the treaty, and depends on the deep technical expertise of a great number of US and Russian government personnel. These officials, serving as inspectors, have the right to visit one another's facilities, and actually count warheads, examine whether a weapon has the characteristics reported by the other side, etc.
Finally, there are "national technical means," basically spy satellites and other intelligence sources. We're pretty good these days at figuring out what is where, so much so that the military and the intelligence community have expressed confidence even in the absence of the inspections regime. But like Dick Lugar, I'd feel a lot better with the treaty's formal verification mechanisms in place.
For a much more detailed discussion, I would recommend looking at the Union of Concerned Scientists' excellent paper:
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/nuclear_weapons/technical_issues/verification-of-new-start.html
What I would like to know is what is the U.S. giving up in order to get this treaty? And why so much of a hurry in the lame duck when Washington has had more than 12 months to get this treaty passed makes me wonder what is wrong with it or is it that it makes Obama look like he has done something? If this this is the reason then it is the wrong one.
Matthew Rojansky : I can't speak for the President or the Senate's political judgment of course, but in my view, the treaty has been given a very significant, thorough consideration. In some ways it is unfortunate that it has come down to the wire of a lame duck session immediately before a significantly changed Congress will be sworn in in January. However, as essential fiscal policy questions on the lame duck agenda illustrate, the business of government cannot always fit comfortably in the few months of the year when Congress is neither campaigning nor preparing for a transition. In this case, the treaty was negotiated for just over a year, and then given seven months in the Senate, including almost twenty hearings, and over a week of floor time for debate. I have not heard fundamentally new arguments for or against the treaty emerge since the summer, and the Administration has been admirably quick to respond to specific questions or concerns from the Senate.
If this treaty was passed back in September, I don't think it would have been hailed as a major foreign policy achievement. The Republicans have bascially handed Obama a major victory on the brink of the new Congress.
Matthew Rojansky : I think if anything, both sides in Washington have been responsible for blowing the treaty's relative importance--both its benefits and its potential costs--way out of proportion. The fact is it is a good but modest step forward in a very well trodden path for the US and Russia. So yes, it is a foreign policy victory for the President, but it's not a game changing one, certainly not a "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" kind of moment, and I would argue perhaps not even as significant as the April nuclear security summit in Washington.
Jon Kyl at the beginning seemed intent on making the treaty better. What happened to him, that he turned into basically whining about this treaty not being put off until the next Congress in January?
Matthew Rojansky : The question is not just about Senator Kyl, in a sense. His negotiating position made very clever use of studied ambiguity on whether he could actually support the treaty itself. While he kept the administration guessing whether they could get his vote (and with it, probably a dozen or party line Republican Senators), he negotiated for and won major promises on the nuclear complex--the US ability to maintain the weapons we have and build new ones if necessary.
But on the other hand, the Administration could have called him out on substance much earlier in the game. Once it was clear that Kyl was not coming along, and it was going to be a fight for the bare minimum of 67 votes to pass, you can see the White House deployed an effective game plan. Had we seen a concerted effort to win those votes and get floor time, for example, in September, there might have been much less incentive for opportunistic opponents to play the "wait for the next Congress" card.
The movie The Russia House starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Sean Connery and Roy Scheider is a good dramatic spy portrayal about the Cold War. It was filmed on location in the Soviet Union before its dissolution. The movie is an interesting what-if dilemma facing U.S .and British intelligence agencies when a book by a Russian weapons expert indicating Russia's nuclear capabilities did not work inadvertently falls into the hands of these agencies. But this expert's efforts were undermined, he became sick, was hospitalized and soon died presumably because people in high places in both countries wanted to keep the spending going for reasons unrelated to protecting their citizens from a nuclear attack. How much of the resistance to the START Treaty do you feel is due to opponents not wanting to cut federal spending that supports defense related enterprises and jobs in their districts?
Matthew Rojansky : It's an interesting question. The simple answer is, when a member of Congress--house or Senate--has to decide how to vote on an issue, the first decision making filter is *always* whether it's good for the constituency. You only rarely ever see members bucking that trend, and they're usually either on their way out, or are so safe that they can afford to be "statesmen." So, in the case of this treaty, I definitely know of Senators whose first reaction was, "well I don't want to see a single job cut in X facility in my state, where we make/maintain/design components for Y nuclear weapons system." Same can be said for military bases where our weapons are deployed. Obviously, further down the line of negotiations, other factors come into play, but they are still often in the form of incentives that benefit the member back home.
Republicans have charged that the START treaty will prevent the U.S. from pursuing missile defense systems. What specific programs are they talking about? Is this a fair charge? What other kinds of military activities would the U.S. be restricted from pursuing under START?
Matthew Rojansky : It is important to acknowledge that the treaty does contain constraints on defensive systems--specifically non-binding prefatory language describing an "interrelationship" between offensive and defensive capabilities, and one clause prohibiting the same silos that are now used for ballistic missles to be converted for missile defense purposes. However, both the White House and the military have been quite clear that neither of these places any practical constraint on current US missile defense plans--dubbed the "phased adaptive approach."
Basically this approach commits the US to developing and deploying levels of missile shielding technology commensurate with the most likely threats we currently face. So, for instance, in the current phase, there is no known Iranian long range missile capability, and thus while the technology to intercept such missiles may be under development, it will not be deployed unless or until the threat becomes real.
This threat-matching perspective is very important when it comes to parsing the seemingly contradictory positions of Moscow and Washington on New START. Moscow says any enhancement in US capabilities could be grounds for withdrawing from the treaty if it undermines Russia's nuclear deterrent. Washington says the treaty contains no constrants on missile defense, and US plans will go forward. The key to reconciling these views is that defensive deployments targeted to respond to a real and credible threat from a third country, e.g. Iran or North Korea, will likely be viewed very differently by Russia than if the US were to deploy advanced defensive systems now, before the threat has materialized (and when the Russians are unconvinced that it will ever be real). In time, and in particular through a proposed joint NATO-Russia defense system, levels of trust between the sides may also increase to a level where even anticipatory deployments would not be destabilizing. But we're not there yet.
Does the new START treaty specify who or what agency will conduct the actual inspections? Are penalties specified in the treaty if the signatories fail to comply with the request for an inspection? Thanks.
Matthew Rojansky : My understanding is that the treaty does not specify which agency or even which type of experts would participate in the delegations. So for instance, I know that in past START inspections, it's been argued by the Russians that a US translator or embassy staffer accompanying the technical people counts as a member of the expert team. So the US will have to be careful to construct interagency teams--DoD, State, DOE, national labs, with the right mix of expertise to get the job done without much support once they're on the ground. That said, these kinks will be quickly worked out once inspections begin, and one thing the negotiators already said coming out of the treaty drafting/negotiating process is that there is much more trust and mutual understanding between the sides since it's no longer a Cold War environment.
Regarding failure to allow inspections, failure to report data as required, or any other breach of the treaty terms, typically "penalties" are not specified, but some basic international law rules apply. For one thing, the aggrieved side can call for remediation--"fix it". They can also suspend their own compliance for as long as the other side is not complying. And finally they can withdraw from the treaty entirely. What is never allowed, of course, is punitive behavior. E.g. "if you fail to comply we will bomb you."
This treaty also creates a bilateral control commission (BCC) which has a lot of flexibility to resolve disputes as they arise during implementation. As I said, in an atmosphere of now extensive experience (over 3 decades) of implementing these treaties, and with enhanced trust, this is a pretty robust system.
Wasn't it telling that the foreign ministers of almost every NATO ally in eastern Europe showed up for at a press conference in Spain a month or two ago to urge ratification of this treaty?
Matthew Rojansky : Not only that. Earlier this month a group of EU foreign ministers published an oped (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/opinion/18iht-edstart18.html) urging swift ratification of New START and asserting an EU strategic interest in US-Russian bilateral arms control.
I think the days when Washington and Moscow run the table more or less by themselves on these titanically important global issues have ended. Europe is feeling its oats more and more on security matters, and most US leaders agree that it is probably a benefit to the US to have more direct European engagement on security issues.
From Russia's perspective, it may be difficult to swallow sitting down across the table from Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy representative, rather than Hillary Clinton, or Herman Van Rompuy, rather than Barack Obama--they are not exactly famous names--but Europe's relative impportance to Russia as an energy market, source of high technology, and as a partner on human security issues in Russia's neighborhood is actually much greater than that of the US.
Russia seemed to have better luck getting Bulava to actually fly in its last test. Since Russia is already below the maximum number of missiles allowed under the treaty, I take it that this won't affect the Bulava and the new submarines to be armed with it?
Matthew Rojansky : Russia is in the early stages of a thorough nuclear modernization plan. Bulava and new road-mobile MIRV-able missiles will be used to reduce the number of total launchers and the complexity required for Russia to maintain basically the same deterrent capability. Financially and militarily speaking it's an impressive plan. Politically, it's absolutely the wrong thing for Russia to be spending money on now because it doesn't help a lick with Russia's core probems of decaying infrastructure and rampant corruption, and it doesn't even give Moscow any new capability to address 21st century threats like terrorism and state failure.
The Bulava, by the way, is one of the things that gives conservative critics of New START nightmares, and causes them to want to invest more in the US complex to keep up. My reaction, on the other hand, is let's focus on getting both sides (and other nuclear powers) down lower, so we don't get trapped into an arms race on any scale.
Matthew Rojansky : Let's not forget that before New START will actually come into force, the Russian side will also need to ratify it. We don't expect that to present much of a problem, because of the "close" relationship between the executive and legislative branch in Russia, but there could still be some rhetorical fireworks around the US missile defense plans--reiterating the official position that withdrawal is still an option if Russia doesn't like the direction of US or NATO missile defense. But if past experience is any guide, Russia will move quickly to match the US position and bring the deal into force. A nice holiday present for everyone.