National Security National Security

  • November 23, 2010

    Reagan Would Have Never Limited US Missile Defenses

    President Obama used his Weekly Radio Address on Saturday 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.

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  • November 17, 2010

    Rush to Make Up for Admin’s Own New START Mistakes is On

    Secretary of State Clinton held a press conference this morning arguing that the Senate must complete action on New START before adjourning for the year, in part because the United States currently has no “boots on the ground” in Russia in the form of US inspectors monitoring compliance with an operative arms control treaty.
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  • October 26, 2010

    New START, Russia & Iran

    For the time New START has been before the Senate, one of the Administration’s primary arguments throughout has been how beneficial the treaty is to nonproliferation in general, and to the relationship with Russia in particular, especially in gaining Russian support in confronting Iran’s nuclear program. For example, as part of the opening argument, in Secretary Clinton’s first appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, she asserted that “A ratified New START Treaty would also continue our progress toward broader U.S.-Russian cooperation, which is critical to other foreign policy priorities, including dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.” As part of the closing argument, Rose Gottemoeller, the Chief Negotiator of New START, asserted in her final appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee that completing New START would demonstrate the United States was living up to its NPT commitments such that it would “enhance our credibility to convince other governments to help strengthen the international nonproliferation regime and confront proliferators.”
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  • September 9, 2010

    A non-starter of a Resolution of Ratification

    Chairman Kerry’s proposed draft of a resolution of ratification for New START has now made its way to the blogs. The text circulated by the Chairman so fundamentally misapprehends the purpose of a treaty resolution of ratification that it is difficult to see how it can even serve as a starting point for negotiations on such a text.
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  • August 13, 2010

    This week in the "Russia reset": continued nuclear assistance to Iran, strengthening occupation of Georgia

    One of the main Administration talking points in favor of New START is all the additional cooperation it has supposedly secured from Russia on nonproliferation issues specifically, or for more cooperative relations in general. For example, during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on New START on June 17, Secretary of State Clinton asserted that “our close cooperation with Russia on negotiating this New START treaty added significantly to our ability to work with them regarding Iran.” On Wednesday of this week, she joined with Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, the lead negotiator of New START, and the Assistant Secretary of State for legislative affairs (Mr. Verma), to encourage the Senate to give its consent to the treaty. In that event, she went on to say, “I think that the reset that we have pursued which has produced significant progress on major issues, most particularly the new START treaty, is moving forward.”
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  • August 2, 2010

    Securing Our Nation’s Borders

    Rhetoric and Political Posturing Will Not Solve the Illegal Immigration Problem

    Americans have differing views on immigration, but the overwhelming majority agree that our current immigration system is broken and the government is not doing enough to solve the problem. The President is blaming Republicans for his failure to secure our borders and solve these problems. But the facts show that the responsibility for these failures lies with the President and his allies, who are more interested in scoring political points than fixing a problem of national concern.
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  • June 30, 2010

    House releases amendment porking-up war supplemental

    The House has posted on the Rules Committee web site its amendment to the war supplemental. Its amendment starts by reading “Page 90, after line 18, insert the following.” This means that the House has completely taken the war supplemental as passed by the Senate, and then added a host of domestic spending and programs .
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  • June 23, 2010

    What Exactly Has Been “Reset” in the Relationship With Russia?

    At the Munich Security Conference in February 2009, Vice President Biden said it was “time to press the reset button” in the U.S. relationship with Russia.[i] During her March 2010 trip to Russia, Secretary of State Clinton claimed, “We believe that this reset of the relationship has led to much greater cooperation, coordination, and a constructive ongoing consultation on numerous issues that are important to our bilateral relationship and to the global issues that we both are facing.”[ii] And Administration officials continue to cite the negotiation of New START as “beneficial to the reset button with Russia.”[iii]
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  • June 17, 2010

    The Missing Benefits from New START

    In her opening statement at this morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on New START, Secretary Clinton asserted that “bringing the New START Treaty into force” will make clear that the United States is committed “to upholding our end of the bargain under the Non-Proliferation Treaty–which has already brought important benefits in my discussions with foreign leaders, about strengthening the nonproliferation regime and a range of other topics.”
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  • June 9, 2010

    New START, the reset, and the last 24 hours.

    At a press conference last week, Rose Gottemoeller, the lead negotiator of New START, asserted that the negotiation of New START “has been beneficial to the reset button with Russia.”  Two interesting data points from the last twenty-four hours point out just how well New START has led to a reset in relations with Russia or more helpful Russian behavior.

    First, Russia was wholly unhelpful in imposing meaningful sanctions against Iran in the United Nations Security Council Resolution that was just passed this morning.  As the Washington Post reported today, the sanctions of the resolution “have been watered down enough that Tehran’s crucial oil sector will probably be spared, and Russia’s and China’s business dealings with Iran will go largely untouched.”

    Second, the eleventh round of the Geneva Discussions on the Russian invasion of Georgia are currently on-going.  The State Department released a statement yesterday pointing out how Russia continues to occupy Georgia, as “we still await from the Russian Federation” “full implementation” of the August 12, 2008 ceasefire agreement between Russia and Georgia.

    Given these actions, along with Russia’s continuing nuclear assistance to Iran, it remains wholly unclear what beneficial geopolitical developments with respect to Russian behavior have taken place that compel further reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, or what beneficial changes in Russian behavior have come about through the signing of New START.

    RPC Analyst Michael Stransky

  • May 14, 2010

    New START Will Require Diligent Senate Consideration

    The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which provides limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, and a complex regime to verify compliance with those limits, expired on December 5, 2009. The U.S.-Russia nuclear relationship has not appeared to destabilize in the treaty’s absence. In this respect, there is no reason for the Senate to rush its constitutional duty to evaluate the merits of the replacement treaty independently. There are many questions to be answered as the Senate considers whether it is in the U.S. national security interest to ratify this treaty.
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