Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- Republican senators whose support will be crucial for ratification of a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty last week expressed continued misgivings about the pact (see GSN, April 30).

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday featured criticisms that critics are likely to raise when the full chamber begins considering the “New START” pact. Topping the list of concerns were whether the agreement would allow the United States to field an adequate missile defense and whether it would protect the country against nuclear terrorism.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April signed the replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The new agreement would obligate the two former Cold War adversaries to cap their fielded strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 warheads, down from the maximum of 2,200 demanded of each by 2012 under the 2002 Moscow Treaty. The new deal would also limit U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear delivery vehicles to 700, with another 100 platforms allowed in reserve.

Obama administration officials have touted the treaty as a modest first step with Russia that could lead to even greater arms reductions. The White House has said it intends to submit the treaty and its accompanying annexes -- technical documents which were finalized last week, according to the State Department -- to the Senate in the coming weeks.

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) plans to make the matter a priority for the panel, which is responsible for recommending to the full Senate whether the pact should be ratified. Thursday’s hearing was the first in a series of committee sessions scheduled to consider the treaty.

"In the coming weeks, administration witnesses and outside experts from across the political spectrum will testify about this historic opportunity to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons," Kerry said in his opening statement. "An honest and thorough discussion will be an important part of building the kind of bipartisan support the treaty requires and -- I believe -- deserves."

Obama needs 67 votes to secure ratification. Eight of those votes would have to come from Republicans. The only safe bet at the moment appears to be Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a noted arms control specialist (see GSN, April 20).

Senator James Risch (R-Idaho) asked Thursday why language was included in the treaty preface that acknowledged the link between offensive and defensive weapons systems.

In negotiating the pact, Russian officials had pressed for restrictions on U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe. The Obama administration accepted only what it described as nonbinding wording that would not restrict missile defense activities.

Even that language was too much for Risch.

"What in the world was that doing here in the first place?" he said. "This is supposed to be an offensive weapons treaty."

Lugar, ranking member on the committee, said in opening remarks that the Obama administration must answer a number of questions if it hopes to secure Senate support for the treaty. It must demonstrate how conventional military assets could replace nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence, as stated in the recently issued Nuclear Posture Review, and show how it plans to keep U.S. nuclear assets in working order, the senator said.

While the new pact echoes its predecessor in noting a link between offensive and defensive weaponry, "New START also contains limits on the deployment of U.S. interceptor missiles in existing strategic missile launchers," Lugar added. "The administration must elaborate on how these provisions constitute no constraint on our missile defense plans, as it claims."

Former Defense Secretary and CIA head James Schlesinger acknowledged that the treaty would prohibit the military from inserting missile interceptors into existing ICBM silos and bar the conversion of submarine missile launch tubes to carry interceptors.

Schlesinger told the committee that because the Defense Department had already decided to abandon the idea of using ICBM silos for missile defense purposes, due to the high cost, negotiators regarded it as a “throwaway” to the Russians (see GSN, April 7, 2009). The pact includes no other missile defense restrictions, according to Schlesinger and fellow former Defense Secretary William Perry.

"I’m confident it in no way restricts us in doing anything we planned to do," Perry told the committee.

Risch, though, said the administration accepted the provision without considering the long-term ramifications.

"Administrations change and it is entirely possible, I would think, that in the future these apparatus will be considered to use for defensive purposes so … I just can’t understand why they would have incorporated that in there," Risch said, adding that the U.S. government might have rethink its missile defense needs in the future in light of North Korea and Iran’s continued missile development.

"They don’t think the same way that the Russians do so we’re going to have to think about defending ourselves differently," he said.

Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said that the issue of whether the treaty constrains future U.S. missile defense systems had "become a point of contention and it’s important that even prior to formal debate that we examine that question."

Schlesinger said he did not think that New START would inhibit the United States’ ability to develop its missile defense capacity as it saw fit to protect against possible regional missile strikes.

"Our position will have to be that we will resist those pressures from Russia," he said. "For the Russians it is not only a serious issue in their mind but more than that, it is a political battering ram that they have been using against us over the years and I don’t think we will be able to persuade them to give it up."

Washington should assuage Russian fears over missile defense by including Moscow in plans to build a missile shield in Europe, Kerry said (see GSN, April 30).

Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said he would base his vote on whether he felt the treaty aided efforts to secure the United States against a possible nuclear terrorist attack.

"Is there anything in this treaty that helps us with regard to some degree of comfort that a terrorist is not going to get a weapon?" Isakson said.

Perry said the treaty would aid nuclear security efforts indirectly by improving the United States’ international standing on nuclear proliferation. If the world sees that Washington is following through on its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitment to move toward disarmament, foreign nations would be more likely to participate in U.S.-backed programs to secure the world’s nuclear materials, he said.

"I think this treaty is one modest step in the direction of getting that support from other nations," Perry said, adding later that "this treaty is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to cooperation."