Draft Resolutions on New START Circulate Before Next Week's Committee Vote

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Wednesday September 8, 2010.

Kerry's Draft Resolution on New START Already Facing Hill Pushback - Foreign Policy's "The Cable" [link]

• The initial draft resolution to ratify the new START nuclear reductions treaty circulated by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry is already facing widespread Republican criticism.
• Lugar, who is the key Republican leader spearheading the drive to ratify the treaty, will submit a substitute resolution at the committee's Sept. 16 meeting that includes several changes to Kerry's language, in the hope of securing the votes of additional GOP senators he believes would oppose Kerry's version.
• It seems now that Lugar's amendment will be the center of gravity in the negotiations over the resolutions language, because it has the best chance of getting GOP committee votes.
• After the committee approves the resolution, it goes to the full Senate, where Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), is the leader many Republicans will be looking to for guidance.
• Whether Kyl can be convinced to support the treaty and whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will allot precious floor time in September to debate it are the looming and unanswerable questions hanging over the treaty following next week's committee vote.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting to vote on the START treaty resolution will be held on Thursday, Sept. 16 at 9:30 AM in the Capitol building.

Russia Signals '10 Arms Pact Ratification Up to U.S. - Reuters [link]

• Russia is ready to ratify a nuclear arms pact with the United States this year but the landmark treaty could face problems in the U.S. Senate, the Kremlin-backed speaker of parliament said on Tuesday.
• "From a technical point of view there is every opportunity to complete this process by the end of the year," Gryzlov said in opening remarks at the autumn session of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
• In May, Medvedev told United Russia leaders the Duma should ratify the treaty at the same time as the U.S. Senate, but not a moment earlier or later.
• Failure to ratify the treaty could undermine improvements in Russia-U.S. ties and hurt both Obama and Medvedev before presidential elections in both countries in 2012.

The Moral Challenge of a Nuclear-Free World - Katsuya Okada and Guido Westerwelle in the Wall Street Journal [link]

• This May, delegations from more than 180 countries gathered in New York, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, to discuss how to free the world from nuclear weapons…With a spirit of cooperation and flexibility from all delegates, however, the conference lived up to its expectations.
• As foreign ministers, we draw two conclusions from this. First, it is remarkable that all delegates agreed on the conference's action plan. Our second conclusion is that the agreement is extremely fragile. Without an intensive concerted effort, states will not honor it.
• Like climate change, nuclear disarmament raises the question of whether mankind can feel a sense of responsibility across national borders and generations. Nuclear disarmament asks whether mankind can act to reduce the risks of self-destruction posed by "God's fire."
• Some may ask themselves why Japan and Germany are seeking to pursue nuclear disarmament with such vigor when both countries rely on the United States for nuclear deterrence. Our countries have long been advocates of disarmament.
• Since re-emerging from total devastation in the second world war, both countries have pursued a peaceful and stable world and the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It is in such a shared conviction that we find a common role. And we believe that pursuing nuclear disarmament is the path that will most reliably minimize nuclear risks and enhance international security.

New use for nuclear arms budget could improve defense - Roger Ray in the Springfield (MO) News Leader [link]

• We currently spend $55 billion every year just to maintain our aging nuclear arsenal which is 20 times larger than we could ever possibly use, even in an absolute nightmare scenario of a nuclear war.
• There is a plausible political debate here. Fiscally conservative Republicans might call for a $50 billion reduction in nuclear arms spending to reduce the deficit. Socially conscious Democrats might petition that the savings be diverted to something such as providing clean water in third world countries.
• Scientists estimate that the detonation of 50 to 100 of our nuclear weapons would bring on a nuclear winter which would result in billions of deaths, which, by my calculation, should be more than enough. We presently maintain more than 9,000 nuclear weapons.
• Perfectly reasonable people can argue whether we should cut nuclear spending to reduce the deficit or to increase foreign aid but no sane person can defend this level of spending on military hardware which has been virtually useless since 1989.
• Without even telling us what you would do with the savings, won't you senators and candidates at least tell us that you would vote to scale back the insanity of this phenomenally dangerous nuclear arsenal?

A View from the Dark Side

New Start Is Unilateral Disarmament - John Bolton in the Wall Street Journal [link]

• Less well-understood—but profoundly misguided—is the treaty's return to outmoded Cold War limits on weapons launchers, which will require the United States, but not Russia, to dismantle existing delivery systems.
• This could cripple America's long-range conventional warhead delivery capabilities, while also severely constraining our nuclear flexibility.
• New Start, with its myopic focus on Russian arms levels, will severely limit our small-war capabilities. Since launchers can be used for either conventional or nuclear purposes, limiting their number to 700 forces war-planners to consider that any launcher used for conventional purposes is in effect one less launcher in the nuclear arsenal.
• Senators need to probe far more deeply than they have into New Start's impact for our conventional force capabilities. Mr. Obama will try to ram the treaty through the Senate, but our defenses need prudence and deliberation.
• MJ NOTE:  Bolton must be referring to these conventional missiles - "Obama Revives Rumsfeld's Missile Scheme, Risks Nuke War" by Wired's "Danger Room"