Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

How the "New START" Treaty Increases U.S. Security

by John Isaacs [contact information]

New START will provide critical verification procedures to ensure we know what the Russians are doing.
If START is allowed to expire without a new arms control agreement to replace it, the limits on and the means of verifying the two countries’ still enormous nuclear stockpiles and delivery systems would disappear. START’s monitoring and verification provisions have provided each side with important information on the size and location of the other’s nuclear forces. Without such an infrastructure, neither side would be able to assure that the other was not attempting to retain a significant strategic advantage.

Reductions in numbers of nuclear weapons will reduce the risk of accidents or theft.
Together the United States and Russia possess some 20,000 nuclear weapons, about 95 percent of all these in the world. Designed for the Cold War, such massive arsenals are useless against current threats like terrorism. U.S. and Russian reductions would reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorized launch or theft of weapons or materials for use in nuclear terrorism. The appropriate mission for U.S. nuclear weapons is deterrence. Reducing the current U.S. nuclear stockpile will not undermine or endanger this mission.

The treaty is an important means to improve U.S.-Russian relations, which are important to deal with common problems such as Iran and North Korea.
Though the United States and Russia have serious differences on several foreign policy issues, the formal arms control process can enhance U.S.-Russian relations and greatly limit the incentives for a renewed arms race. Further reductions in strategic arsenals would make it easier to pursue other vital objectives central to U.S. security, including buttressing programs to secure and safeguard nuclear material stockpiles worldwide and reigning in Iran’s nuclear program.

Deeper nuclear reductions can help to strengthen the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
This treaty is the first line of defense against the spread of nuclear weapons. U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions – a promise made to the non-nuclear weapons states at the 1995 NPT Review Conference in return for their agreement to extend the NPT indefinitely – are essential to non-nuclear weapons states’ willingness not to pursue nuclear arsenals and support tougher nonproliferation and nuclear security measures.

Bottom line: because the treaty so clearly benefits U.S. security, the agreement enjoys broad bipartisan support.
Even conservative Republicans favor negotiating a legally binding successor to START. For example, the May 2009 report of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which included several very hawkish Republicans, concluded: “The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reduction in the nuclear arsenal. The United States and Russia should pursue a step-by-step approach and take a modest first step to ensure that there is a successor to START I when it expires at the end of 2009.”