OPINION: Senate should support New START nuclear treaty
Avis Bohlen served as U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria and was assistant secretary of state for arms control from 1999-2002. Daryl G. Kimball is executive director of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association.
Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on a treaty that could define our country's nuclear security for the next decade. Lawmakers must act swiftly to approve it.
The measure under consideration - the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) - was signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. But it won't go into effect until two-thirds of the Senate grants its consent. Under the terms of New START, both the United States and Russia would scale back their nuclear weapons arsenals. The treaty would also strengthen America's position in the global fight against nuclear proliferation.
New START mandates that Washington and Moscow cut their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals by 30 percent below current limits, from about 2,200 warheads each to no more than 1,550. It also requires both countries to reduce their stock of nuclear-armed long-range missiles and bombers to 700 each.
To make sure that both countries stick to their obligations, New START re-establishes sophisticated verification that includes detailed data exchanges and - most important - 18 on-site inspections per year.
It's been more than eight months since New START's predecessor, START I, expired, and during that time, there hasn't been a single American nuclear inspection in Russia. Satellite monitoring and other intelligence operations can't provide certain crucial information - like the number of warheads inside a given missile - that on-site inspections can.
The treaty still leaves the United States with a devastatingly powerful nuclear arsenal that is more than large enough to deter an attack from Russia - or any of the world's other nuclear-armed states, none of which have more than 300 nuclear bombs.
The revival of U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue has already improved cooperation in a variety of fields. New START will help strengthen our joint efforts to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists, and will help persuade Russia to stick with the tough international sanctions and diplomatic pressure that are needed to force Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Without mutual, verifiable reductions through New START, U.S.-Russian relations could deteriorate - and Russian support on nuclear security matters will be far harder to obtain.
It's no surprise that New START has received nearly unanimous support from America's national security leadership, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and six former secretaries of state, including Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger.
Regardless, a few senators are withholding support unless the administration guarantees even more funding for upgrades to the U.S. nuclear weapons production infrastructure.
That line of thinking makes little sense. Over the next decade, the Obama administration plans to spend $80 billion to modernize the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) weapons-production complex and refurbish our existing nuclear stockpile. The White House is also calling for another $100 billion over that time to modernize and maintain strategic delivery systems.
Lawmakers just approved a $7-billion budget request for the NNSA's ongoing weapons maintenance work and new facilities - a 13-percent increase over last year's appropriation. Linton Brooks, who ran the NNSA under President George W. Bush, has said that he "would have killed" for that budget.
Other critics of New START complain that the treaty doesn't require Russia to reduce its stockpile of "tactical," or short-range nuclear warheads. But no formal arms treaty with Russia has ever tackled tactical nukes. It would be foolish to risk the progress we've made on long-range nuclear weapons by insisting that the policy for short-range weapons be settled now as well. New START lays the diplomatic foundation necessary for a future accord on tactical nuclear weapons.
Further, the vast majority of Russia's tactical nukes have very short ranges, are deployed to defend Russia's border with China, or are in storage. So they have little impact on the military balance between Russia and the NATO alliance.
Since the Reagan administration, every U.S.-Russian arms control treaty has been promptly approved by the Senate with broad bipartisan support. There's no reason why this accord should be any different.
