New START Treaty on Nuclear Weapons Reduction

     On April 8, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet in Prague, capitol of the Czech Republic, to sign a new START treaty that will substantially reduce the numbers of warheads and delivery systems each country will maintain. 

     On March 26, the President announced that a final agreement had been reached with Russia to reduce warheads and delivery systems.  Here is the White House statement describing the proposed treaty, and here is the readout of a telephone call between the Presidents of the two countries, the 14th direct meeting or phone call between them addressing START.  The White House says that the treaty contains the following provisions:

Aggregate limits:

1,550 warheads. Warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs count toward this limit and each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments counts as one warhead toward this limit.

This limit is 74% lower than the limit of the 1991 START Treaty and 30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.

A combined limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

A separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

This limit is less than half the corresponding strategic nuclear delivery vehicle limit of the START Treaty.

Verification and Transparency: The Treaty has a verification regime that combines the appropriate elements of the 1991 START Treaty with new elements tailored to the limitations of the Treaty. Measures under the Treaty include on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and notifications related to strategic offensive arms and facilities covered by the Treaty, and provisions to facilitate the use of national technical means for treaty monitoring. To increase confidence and transparency, the Treaty also provides for the exchange of telemetry.

Treaty Terms: The Treaty�s duration will be ten years, unless superseded by a subsequent agreement. The Parties may agree to extend the Treaty for a period of no more than five years. The Treaty includes a withdrawal clause that is standard in arms control agreements. The 2002 Moscow Treaty terminates upon entry into force of the New START Treaty. The U.S. Senate and the Russian legislature must approve the Treaty before it can enter into force.

No Constraints on Missile Defense and Conventional Strike: The Treaty does not contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs or current or planned United States long-range conventional strike capabilities.

     The State Department issued this press release containing statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen.  Here is one reporter's question about the negotiation of the treaty, and Secretary Clinton's response:

Q: Madam Secretary, congratulations. Obviously a couple of deadlines were missed on the way to todayâ��s announcement. What were the sticking points and how were they ultimately resolved? …

SECRETARY CLINTON: You know, Jake, in any complex negotiation there are going to be points along the way where negotiators have to go back to their capitals; where the negotiators need to delegate in-depth conversations — you heard Mike Mullen say what he had to do with his counterpart, Bob, I had to talk to my counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, many times, because the Presidentsâ�� — President Obama and President Medvedevâ��s directions were very clear: We want to do this, and we want to get it done in a timely manner.

But it took a lot of work. Just a few weeks ago I dispatched Under Secretary Tauscher to Geneva because we needed to make it absolutely clear that this was a priority at the highest levels of our government. The Russians responded to that very positively. And we began to just work out the last details.

In addition, though, it�s important to note that we made a decision that we wanted not just to have the treaty agreed to; we wanted the protocols agreed to. Sometimes treaties in the past have been submitted while the work on the protocols still goes on. But we thought it was important that we really went through all the technical work in the protocols so that when we went to our Senate or when the Russian government went to the Duma, it wasn�t just, okay, so what�s going to be in the protocols; it was, okay, we can look at the treaty, we can look at the protocols. So that was also some of the time that had to be taken in order to really get to the point where we both felt like we had the package necessary to go to our legislative bodies.

     Here is an AP report by Tom Raum and Robert Burns about the treaty.  They report that the treaty is supported by Richard Lugar (R-IN), who is an arms control expert, and that the treaty will need the support of seven more Republicans to achieve the two-thirds vote necessary for ratification of a treaty.  Senator Lugar issued the following statement the day that the treaty was announced:

�I commend the U.S. and Russian delegations for months of dedicated effort. I look forward to the President's submission of the new treaty, its protocols, annexes and all associated documents to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. I also look forward to working with Chairman Kerry to begin scheduling hearings and briefings for the Foreign Relations Committee so that we can work quickly to achieve ratification of the new treaty.�

     Here is a link to a thoughtful and informative posting about the proposed treaty by Kingston on the website of the Center for Arms Control and Disarmament.  Finally, here is a link to a story by Christi Parsons and Tom Hamburger of the Los Angeles Times on April 6, 2009, describing President Obama's speech in Prague promising to pursue the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Tagged as: arms control treaty, disarmament, New START, nuclear disarmament, START, START treaty