Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Senators Letter on START and Missile Defense

by John Isaacs [contact information]

Washington, DC, July 2, 2009.

The President,
The White House,
Washington, DC.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: In anticipation of your upcoming visit to the Russian Federation, we write to express our concern about recent comments by Russian leaders suggesting limitations on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe as a prerequisite for agreeing to a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). We urge you to not combine discussions about U.S. missile defense efforts and the ongoing START negotiations.

Speaking on May 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that an agreement on a START replacement would be ``impossible ..... without taking into account the situation in the missile defense sphere.'' Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also noted during an April speech that ``(a)nother aspect of security is the relationship between offensive and defensive weapons.'' Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likewise suggested a quid pro quo between START and missile defense during a visit to Japan on May 10, when he said that ``Russia will link missile defense to strategic offensive armaments.''

We feel strongly that linking missile defense plans to offensive force negotiations in this way runs contrary to America's strategic interests and would undermine our security. As you have noted, the planned European missile defense system is limited in scope to defend the United States and its allies against the rising threat posed by Iranian long-range ballistic missiles, but it poses no threat to Russia's strategic missiles.

We support your determination to bring into force a follow-on agreement to START prior to its lapse on December 5th of this year. However, we will be reluctant to support any agreement that is explicitly conditioned on U.S. abandonment of missile defenses in Europe or otherwise linked to a U.S. decision to curtail or abandon those defenses.

Given that negotiations for a follow-on treaty to START are being conducted on a relatively short timeline, we believe that the paramount goal this year is to ensure that the verification and confidence building measures from the 1991 START treaty do not lapse.

The United States and the Russian Federation will need to find ways to cooperate on many issues in the coming years and we hope that your representatives bear in mind the broader strategic context in which these negotiations with Moscow are taking place.

Sincerely,

James M. Inhofe
Joseph I. Lieberman
Jon Kyl
Ben Nelson
John S. McCain
Mark Begich
Jeff Sessions
Mike Johanns
Roger Wicker
Orrin Hatch