Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Rebuttals to Arguments Against “New START”

by John Isaacs [contact information]

“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.”
Final report of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, May 6, 2009

The United States and Russia should simply extend START I.

Response: Neither the United States nor Russia want to extend START for the full five years as allowed by the Treaty. Both countries find many of the Treaty’s provisions cumbersome and obsolete and want to update and amend them accordingly. Many of the same voices now arguing for a simple extension had no qualms with the Bush administration’s decision not to seek an extension of START I in 2007 and 2008.

It is premature to begin negotiations with Russia until the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is completed. The U.S. must first develop a strategy to identify the military and political requirements that the U.S. nuclear force must fulfill before any treaty mandating reductions is signed.

Response: First, the George W. Bush administration selected the number of 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed weapons for the Moscow Treaty before the 2001 NPR was completed. This number was announced in Moscow in early November 2001, whereas the NPR was not completed until the end of December 2001. Second, even the Senate Republican Policy Committee memo on New START conceded that the Pentagon is satisfied that the NPR has sufficiently informed the negotiations. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 9, Marine General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “We prioritized in the Nuclear Posture Review . . . the activities and the analysis that would be necessary to support the timelines associated with the START negotiations or the follow-on START negotiations. . . . I’m very comfortable that we prioritized that analysis at the front end in order to support these negotiations.” The expiration of START I in December 2009 and the close link between the New START negotiations and the NPR process mean that it is both necessary and prudent to try and negotiate a new Treaty by the end of the year without waiting for a fully completed NPR.

Mutual reductions in U.S. and Russian arsenal would disproportionately benefit Russia, since the deployed number of Russian delivery vehicles (missiles and bombers) will drop dramatically with or without a new arms control agreement.

Response: First, it is not necessarily the case that Russia will reduce its nuclear forces without a new arms control agreement. Nor is it true that Russia needs or wants a new arms control agreement far more than the U.S. does. Without limits on the size of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, Russia would have less confidence in its ability to maintain a stable strategic nuclear relationship with the United States. This could give the upper-hand to hardliners in Moscow who want to slow or even halt plans to reduce the number of deployed warheads and delivery vehicles and invest in additional strategic modernization programs.

Second, the Strategic Posture Commission found that “the sizing of U.S. forces remains overwhelmingly driven by Russia.” If the Russians are reducing nuclear weapons, it is appropriate for the U.S. to do so.

Third, the fact the some Russian reductions might happen in any event is beside the point. If START I is allowed to expire without a new arms control agreement to replace it, so too would the limits on and the means of verifying the two countries’ still enormous nuclear stockpiles and delivery systems. These limits and verification provisions greatly enhance U.S. security by (1) bringing predictability and stability to U.S.-Russian nuclear relations, (2) giving each side confidence than neither side is attempting to retain a significant strategic advantage, and (3) reducing the chances for misunderstanding and worst-case scenario planning. Though the Cold War ended two decades ago, the risks of an accidental or mistaken U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange still exist. A new arms control treaty will reduce this risk.

The United States should not agree to further cuts in its nuclear arsenal so long as Russia does not agree to reduce its stockpile of non-strategic (tactical) nuclear forces.

Response: New START will not impose limits on non-strategic warheads. As levels of strategic nuclear weapons decline, Russia’s larger tactical arsenal could develop into a security (or more likely political) concern for the United States (just as U.S. conventional superiority is of concern for Russia). However, the Bush administration did not include tactical nuclear weapons in its 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) with Russia. While experts agree that these weapons present difficult challenges, there is not sufficient time in 2009 to reach an agreement on nonstrategic forces. The best way to address tactical nuclear weapons is to conclude the New START agreement as soon as possible, which will build the confidence and momentum necessary to deal with this issue in the next round of negotiations. Leaving tactical weapons off the table at this time would not endanger U.S. security because (1) the first round of U.S.-Russian reductions will entail only modest cuts in U.S. and Russian deployed strategic forces and (2) Russia’s large non-strategic nuclear stockpile does not increase the threat posed by its existing strategic weapons.

The United States should not agree to further cuts in its nuclear arsenal so long as Russia insists on linking reductions in offensive strategic forces with missile defense.

Response: Russia is concerned about U.S. missile defense plans, which is why the two sides have noted an “interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms.” Yet it is also clear that the Obama administration intends to keep missile defense on a separate track from reductions in strategic offensive arms. In fact, Obama and Medvedev have stated that New START will deal only with strategic offensive arms. The offense-defense link might be noted in the preamble of the new treaty, but the text of New START will not contain any formal or legal limitations on missile defenses. The administration’s recent decision to pursue a more flexible ground and sea-based approach for U.S. missile defense in Europe was based on a prudent evaluation of new threat assessments and technology and developments, not Russian demands. As the Republican Policy Committee report pointed out, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has affirmed that “Russia’s attitude and possible reaction played no part in my recommendation to the president on this issue.”

The United States should not agree to further cuts in its nuclear arsenal so long as Russia insists on linking reductions in offensive strategic forces with U.S. advanced conventional weapons systems.

Response: The previous administration proposed putting conventional warheads on long-range land- and sea-based ballistic missiles (also known as prompt global strike). Congress has so far refused to fund the Conventional Trident Modification program, which would have substituted conventional payloads for the nuclear warheads on only two missiles aboard each of the nation’s 12 deployed nuclear ballistic missile submarines (two are in overhaul at any given time). Meanwhile, the Pentagon has proposed to deploy a very small number of conventionally-armed land-based missiles by 2015. It remains to be seen what the Obama administration’s plans are for a prompt global strike capability. The easiest way to address this issue in New START would be to count long-range missiles whether they carry nuclear or conventional warheads. If it ever decides to do so, a warhead limit of 1,500-1,675 and a delivery vehicle limit of 700-800 would still allow the U.S. to deploy a small number of conventionally armed submarine- and/or land-based long-range missiles.

Russia’s development of the multiple-warhead RS-24 violates START I.

Response: Russia has developed and tested a new, multiple-warhead version of the single warhead SS-27 (known as the RS-24). However, START I prohibits deployment of the RS-24 because it does not conform to the Treaty’s definition of a new type of missile. Since START I limits the SS-27 to a single warhead, a multiple-warhead version would violate the Treaty. Russia plans to begin deploying the missile in December 2009 to coincide with the expiration of START I.

First, provided that Russia does not deploy the RS-24 while START I is still in force, it is not a violation. In any event, New START is likely to allow for the deployment of the new missile. Second, the Bush administration did not make an issue out of Russia’s development of the RS-24. This was in keeping with the conclusions of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which declared that it was no longer appropriate to size and configure U.S. nuclear forces in relation to the Russian arsenal. As former Bush administration official Ambassador Linton Brooks noted recently, “The fact that the Secretary of Defense in the last administration said both publically and privately that we didn’t care [about the RS-24] may have suggested to them [the Russians] that it was ok….We had a long time…to call them on that and we as a government chose not to.”

Russia has also committed numerous other violations of START I.

Response: Critics are pointing to a 2005 report known as the Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments as evidence that Russia is cheating. According to the report, “a significant number of longstanding compliance issues that have been raised in the START Treaty's Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission (JCIC) remain unresolved.”

While Congress is supposed to receive a compliance report every year, the Bush administration completed only two from 2001-2009, the first in June 2003 and the second in August 2005. The 2005 report contained far more detail about Russian implementation of START I than previous reports claiming, among other things, that Russia was not allowing the U.S. to effectively monitor and verify some Russian warheads and missiles. Yet Russia has also raised unresolved issues pertaining to its inability to verify the number of warheads on U.S. Trident II missiles. Compliance concerns on both sides have existed for some time, which is precisely why the JCIC exists.

In a Senate floor speech delivered on November 5, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) stated that concerns about Russian cheating have been greatly overblown. According to Lugar, “such concerns fail to appreciate how much information is provided through the exchange of data mandated by the Treaty, on-site inspections, and national technical means. “Our experiences over many years have proven the effectiveness of the Treaty’s verification provisions and served to build a basis for confidence between the two countries when doubts arose. The bottom line is that the United States is far safer as a result of those 600 START inspections than we would be without them.”

The closure of the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility will compromise our ability to monitor Russian mobile missile deployments.

Response: Votkinsk is where Russia produces its Topol-M (SS-27) and Bulava (SS-26) missiles. In November 2008 the Bush administration presented the Russians with a proposal for a follow-on agreement to START I that did not include continuing monitoring at Votkinsk. This concession tied the Obama administration’s hands in its negotiations with Russia on New START. In any event, while New START will not include on-site monitoring at Votkinsk, it will include provisions that will continue to allow the U.S. to monitor Russian’s nuclear weapons deployments.

The Obama administration has given next to no consideration of how to bridge the gap between the expiration of START I and entry into force of New START.

Response: This claim is simply not true. As numerous Obama administration officials have noted, the U.S. and Russia have been negotiating a bridging agreement in parallel to the new Treaty to cover the gap. The Administration has not, however, divulged the details of a bridge agreement that is still being negotiated.

The U.S. cannot trust the Russians or verify what is done by the Russians.

Response: It is ironic that some of the same Republican Senators who supported SORT, which contained no verification provisions, are now accusing the Obama administration of being weak on verification. In praising SORT on the Senate floor in April 2003, Sen. Jon Kyl stated: "This treaty is a masterstroke. It represents, and, I am sure, will be sent as ushering in a wholly new approach to arms control for a wholly new era. The simplicity of this treaty is a marvel. It is extremely brief, indeed just three pages long. It is shorn of the tortured benchmarks, sublimits, arcane definitions and monitoring provisions that weighed down past arms control treaties."

The United States has long-established techniques for verifying Russian compliance with its treaty obligations. New START is likely to include an updated system of procedures that draws upon the most important verification provisions in START I so that each side can continue to have confidence that it knows what the other is doing.

The United States should not agree to further cuts in its nuclear arsenal unless a program is put in place to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Response: In a July 23 letter to President Obama, a bipartisan group of Senators which included Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), Richard Lugar (D-IN), Carl Levin (D-MI), John Kerry (D-MA), and Robert Byrd (D-WV) stated that when the START treaty is submitted to the Senate, the President should also submit a plan, including a funding estimate for FY2011 (and out years across the next decade), to enhance the safety, security and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile, to modernize the nuclear weapons complex (i.e. improve the safety of facilities, modernize the infrastructure, maintain the key capabilities and competencies of the nuclear weapons workforce — the designers and the technicians), and to maintain the delivery platforms. This message was later codified in the FY2010 Conference Report on the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Obama Administration has made it clear that it will act in accordance with the letter and bill when it releases the Nuclear Posture Review and presents its Fiscal Year 2011 budget request, which will occur before any Senate vote on New START. It’s important to note that there is no requirement in the letter or bill that the President must deliver a plan to design and build new nuclear weapons. As a September 2009 independent report from the JASON scientific advisory group pointed out, “Lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence.”

Reducing the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal would encourage other countries to build nuclear weapons. While the U.S. has retired thousands of nuclear weapons, Iran and North Korea develop, and Russia and China continue to upgrade, their nuclear forces.

Response: The U.S. has been modernizing its nuclear forces by refurbishing both nuclear warheads and nuclear delivery vehicles. The U.S. nuclear arsenal remains second to none.

Reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles will not prevent North Korea or Iran from attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.

Response: The Senate Republican Policy Committee claimed that U.S. nuclear numbers have zero effect on North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs. Thus increasing or decreasing the U.S. stockpile or retaining the status quo will not convince either North Korea or Iran to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. But, as already pointed out, there are plenty of reasons to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles. Moreover, as the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States pointed out, the U.S might not be able to marshal the international support it needs to safeguard and eliminate dangerous nuclear materials, universalize the Additional Protocol, which grants the IAEA far more intrusive rights of access to suspected nuclear-related information and sites, or put added pressure on North Korea and Iran if it takes steps to reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal.

New START limits should not be so low as to invite peer competition.

Response: Even after a New START agreement, the U.S. will still have at least 1,500 deployed strategic nuclear weapons (as will the Russians), plus many more in reserve. Other nuclear powers such as China have only 200-250 nuclear weapons, far from the U.S. total.

The Senate should take its time on ratification.

Response: Some Senators have pointed out that the Senate took many months or even more than a year to vote on treaty ratification and should take its time on New START approval. However taking more time does not necessarily mean more thorough consideration but rather fairly customary Senate delays. With START I set to expire on December 5, 2009, it makes sense for both the U.S. and Russia to move expeditiously on the new agreement.