President Obama used his Weekly Radio Address on November 20th to browbeat the Senate into voting on New START during the lame duck session, evoking the name of President Reagan five times during the course of the address. The irony is particularly rich, given that President Reagan would have never agreed to a treaty providing any limitations on US missile defense systems.
Almost twenty-five years to the day before that weekend’s address, President Reagan addressed a joint session of Congress upon his return from his first Summit meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev in Geneva. In that address, President Reagan articulated a broad framework for future arms control discussions with the Soviets, and he recounted his description to the General Secretary of US missile defense initiatives.
Eleven months later, President Reagan addressed the nation upon his return from the Reykjavik Summit. He described how the parties discussed eliminating all nuclear weapons, which was a vision he had, as the current Administration frequently points out. It rarely points out that President Reagan was not prepared to sacrifice missile defense on the altar of arms control in order to secure such an agreement.
Enter New START, where the Obama Administration was all too eager to appease Russia on the issue of missile defense, agreeing to a direct prohibition in Article V of the treaty on the deployment of US missile defense systems. It is of no moment that the United States currently does not have a plan to engage in the missile defense action prohibited by the treaty. New START was supposed to be a treaty about strategic offensive nuclear arms, as the Administration’s negotiators have claimed on untold numbers of occasions. No Obama Administration official has ever explained, however, why a treaty about limiting offensive nuclear weapons contains a direct limitation on US missile defense systems. They have yet to explain what the United States obtained in return for this concession. For example, why wasn’t a higher delivery vehicle limitation number obtained in exchange for a direct restraint on US freedom of action on missile defense matters.
President Reagan explained clearly in his address to the nation why he would not negotiate away missile defense programs in exchange for an arms control agreement, summarizing, “We prefer no agreement than to bring home a bad agreement to the United States.” As he further said, missile defense programs, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative at the time, are “the key to a world without nuclear weapons.” As Senators continue to hear that New START merely furthers the vision of President Reagan’s world without nuclear weapons, they should also bear in mind that President Reagan would have never made American missile defense programs subject to capitulation and bargaining in pursuit of that vision.
RPC Analyst Michael Stransky
