Ready to START
Confession: I'm pretty bummed out by conservatives' loud opposition to the new START treaty with Russia. Too many voices on the right simply skip over the fact that our military -- who should know -- are firmly in support. But, worse, there's just a flat-out absence of creative thinking about our relationship with Russia. New START is derided as a Cold War-era reflex. But it's a hidebound view of US-Russian relations that's powering that snark.
Don't get me wrong -- I have zero illusions about Putin, Muscovite autocracy, and all the rest. Sometimes, however, I feel all too alone in taking the long view of America's grand-strategic opportunities and necessities in Eurasia. New START isn't perfect, but the "reset" is real, and Obama's foreign policy team deserves real credit for steering Russia away from that implacable-enemy status that some commentators seem bizarrely to crave. Ponder just how bad our lives could get with Russia working actively to undermine our national interests around the world.
And if you think that Moscow is doing this already, you've got more thinking to do. With Russia against us in a serious way, our foreign policy objectives are toast. It's foursquare in our national interest to stay engaged with Russia in a constructive working relationship. We're already seeing significant, perhaps critical, results. This is no time to bring that string of successes to a halt.
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Feb '10
Re: Ready to START
I don't know enough about the issue to have a strong opinion. I do like to hear an honest discussion and not just Obama bashing. There's plenty to bash already; they can't be wrong about everything.
Re: Ready to START
But James, how do you respond to legitimate concerns, expressed by Heritage Foundation scholars, and others, about the de-emphasis on modernization, the step-child treatment of SDI, and the absence of verifiability, not to mention the administration's highly questionable premise that reducing stockpiles will decrease the likelihood of terrorist acquisition of nukes, when the most vulnerable nukes are Russia's tactical ones, which will remain robust? Sorry for the run-on sentence/question there.
Aug '10
Re: Ready to START
Charles Krauthammer makes the case that this treaty is "90% useless and 10% perilous.... Russia isn't a nuclear threat to us, and we're not in the Cold War anymore...Who cares if they want to squander their dwindling resources on nukes?"
Many of the high-profile military thinkers, like Scowcroft, who want us to sign this treaty are the same people who told Bush in a 2006 report that the Iraq War was lost, aren't they?
May '10
Re: Ready to START
We should not trade any conventional capacity to make Russia happy. We should not have pulled any missile defense. We should be building it where ever we can, while maintaining B2's and such.
The Military is not the place to get long term strategic planning. They always want to fight today's war. Tomorrow's war might well be back with large powers. We are the only superpower, and by God, we should keep things that way until India is ready to join us as a democratic leader of the world.
We should be testing our nukes, and making new ones. There is no such thing as having too many nukes. Thugs like Putin do not respect weakness. They will not honer anything that is not in their interests. Engagement with thugs is wrong. It is like meeting with Al Capone to strike deals. As far as I am concerned, on the world stage I have a simple policy when it comes to Russia:
We win. They lose.
May '10
Re: Ready to START
Oh fine, make all those points so clinically. I agree with all this too. With passion (see post above ) :)
Re: Ready to START
I should also add that for me it's not a matter of Obama bashing. It's that I disagree with Obama's philosophy and am therefore instinctively skeptical of almost anything he supports. He has made clear he is uncomfortable, to say the least, with America's superpower status, and it is no secret that he has an appeasement philosophy toward most foreign policy matters. At a time when the nuclear genie is already out of the bottle, I don't understand why this country should be anxious to disproportionately (note I didn't say "unilaterally") disarm.
Re: Ready to START
Bryan G. Stephens: We should not trade any conventional capacity to make Russia happy. We should not have pulled any missile defense. We should be building it where ever we can, while maintaining B2's and such.
The Military is not the place to get long term strategic planning. They always want to fight today's war. Tomorrow's war might well be back with large powers. We are the only superpower, and by God, we should keep things that way until India is ready to join us as a democratic leader of the world.
We should be testing our nukes, and making new ones. There is no such thing as having too many nukes. Thugs like Putin do not respect weakness. They will not honer anything that is not in their interests. Engagement with thugs is wrong. It is like meeting with Al Capone to strike deals. As far as I am concerned, on the world stage I have a simple policy when it comes to Russia:
We win. They lose. · Nov 23 at 9:36am
Yes, Bryan, I forgot to mention the negative effects on our conventional capabilities, which you properly highlight.
May '10
Re: Ready to START
James is right. David, Heritage is out to lunch on this one. Without New Start there is NO verification regime. Obama admin is committing $80 bn to modernization. Nuke testing is unnecessary for modernization purposes according to the heads of all three nat'l labs, missile defense is simply not imperiled, and like James said the top military commanders are in favor. Us winning and them losing presumes we are in a conflict already -- and we simply aren't.
Edited on Nov 23, 2010 at 9:53amMay '10
Re: Ready to START
Bryan: the moratorium on nuke testing was started by Bush 41 and has been upheld by every successive administration. It also has almost nothing to do with START.
May '10
Re: Ready to START
First off: I don't see how you can be sure a bomb works unless you blow some up. I do not buy simulations for this stuff. Just because a simulation says a warhead that has been sitting there a decade should work, does not mean it will.
Second: We can modernize without bothering with Russia.Just do it.
Third: Who cares what inventory they have? Screw the verification and just have more of ours. They cannot afford crap. They have to take their stuff apart anyway, since they are very broke.
Finally: If you think we are not in a conflict with Russia, you are the one out to lunch.
Harlech: James is right. David, Heritage is out to lunch on this one. Without New Start there is NO verification regime. Obama admin is committing $80 bn to modernization. Nuke testing is unnecessary for modernization purposes according to the heads of all three nat'l labs, missile defense is simply not imperiled, and like James said the top military commanders are in favor. Us winning and them losing presumes we are in a conflict already -- and we simply aren't. · Nov 23 at 9:50am
May '10
Re: Ready to START
I knew that, actually. I did not agree with it then and don't now. I would support Obama ending it right now.
We need nukes that work, and the world should know they work.
Jun '10
Re: Ready to START
James Poulos, Ed.: Ponder just how bad our lives could get with Russia working actively to undermine our national interests around the world.
And if you think that Moscow is doing this already, you've got more thinking to do.
I'm willing to keep an open mind (given I feel sufficiently uninformed), but it seems to me that Russia is indeed working to undermine our interests, Iran and Venezuela being at the top of the list. Sure, some of it is a PR and propaganda battle. Seems to me that treaties are not entered into by partners, but by adversaries. They work best when both sides act in good faith - is Russia really that partner?
If there is a strategic, short term gain for US interests (verification), that's fine. But a treaty that ties our hands long term is not a trophy to desire. But as I said, I'm no expert, and I have more to learn.
May '10
Re: Ready to START
Reagan said: "We win, they lose." Newsflash: we won, they lost. Time to move on and eject that Red Dawn DVD you've got looping continuously in the living room:
1. By your logic we should test every single weapon we have just to make sure they all work. Needless to say, that would leave us with zero expendable munitions since -- as you say -- we can't know if they work until we use them. The heads of Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos National Laboratories -- all of whom have PhDs in physics -- say we don't need to test. What do you know that they don't?
2. I may be out to lunch, but I see Russian cooperation on Afghanistan as vital to our national interest. None of the tit-for-tat games we've seen with them are really that big of a deal.
May '10
Re: Ready to START
Understandable and I have to agree! ;-) Which is why I urge Ricocheters to take their cue from Max Boot, Robert Gates, Brent Scowcroft, George Shultz, and other dependable, sensible defense policy guys on our side of the aisle who support this.
Re: Ready to START
Beyond Harlech's remarks, I'm not sure the case for going forward is hampered by simply setting aside the claim that reducing stockpiles is a hedge against proliferation to terrorist organizations. But I'm feeling confident that working with Russia here will continue to redound to our benefit with regard to Iran, the most dangerous would-be new proliferator. Russia's refusal to arm Iran with the cutting-edge S-300 missile system -- and subsequent attempt to stiff Iran for what the mullahs had ordered! -- seems to me to be significant evidence that "we win, they lose" isn't the best framework going forward. The Soviets already lost. The question is, now what?
Aug '10
Re: Ready to START
Limbaugh is right. It is a good idea to instinctively distrust anything that comes out of the WH. They are committed to a out-of-date disarmament theory and they occasionally trust the Russians.
The Russians ARE ENABLING THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM !!
Isn't that all the proof we need ? Do we have to compartmentalize threats to distort the picture that confronts us ? I guess the MSM buys the charade, and alot of dummies out there, but not us Ricochetti !!
Ask Natan Sharansky ! Read the Venona Papers ! Come on folks, we can do some arms-length business with these people (well maybe not if they delink from the dollar), but please don't let them near the kids or the closet with the guns .
Edited on Nov 24, 2010 at 7:51amMay '10
Re: Ready to START
Harlech,
I am not sure what "Red Dawn" has to do with anything, and clearly I don't think we should test 100% of anything. I wonder if next up, there is crack coming because I am a simple southern Georgia Boy.
Since we know that you can test a sample of something (they do this in factories all the time- I seen it on that there TV box), it stands to reason you take some percentage of warheads out and blow them up to test them. No simulation can account for everything in real life.
Russia is being run by a former KGB director. Russia sent its army into Georgia and there it sits. Russia has never honored treaties. All they want is to bind us with a treaty.
Russia is still trying to be an evil empire. If anyone is still locked in cold war thinking, it is the Russians. Russia spends its time, right now, looking for ways to stymie us on the world stage.
You don't get into bed with thugs. You don't negotiate with thugs.
We won the cold war. We should act like it.
Oct '10
Re: Ready to START
but the "reset" is real, and Obama's foreign policy team deserves real credit for steering Russia away from that implacable-enemy status
the "drift" in US-Russia relations happened because Russia invaded Georgia. But you wouldn't know that by listening to the current administration. And what about Bush? does he not deserve some credit for trying to establish friendly ties with Pooty Putin and Moscow early in his administration?
May '10
Re: Ready to START
I have nothing against the prior START. The reason we presently lack the previous verification schemes is that Obama did not extend the prior treaty- he wanted instead to make a new mark on his 1970's Cold War Russia Reset crusade. And thus, having blown the prior terms, he went to negotiate this one, he got his head handed to him.
If Russia is to be a solid partner (Afghanistan? Give me a break), failing to give away the store here is not going to tip this over the edge.
I am fine with a treaty that 1) does not limit our missile defense options, and 2) does not limit our conversion of delivery systems to conventional use.
But short of that, I have no interest in what Chuck Hagel the rest of the "realists" say about this. Regarding numbers of nuke warheads, I agree that the treaty is no big deal. I am concerned, I will say, that we have pretty much shut down our capacity to build such stuff.
Re: Ready to START
John Marzan: but the "reset" is real, and Obama's foreign policy team deserves real credit for steering Russia away from that implacable-enemy status
the "drift" in US-Russia relations happened because Russia invaded Georgia. But you wouldn't know that by listening to the current administration. And what about Bush? does he not deserve some credit for trying to establish friendly ties with Pooty Putin and Moscow early in his administration? · Nov 23 at 8:03pm
Parsing out the Russo-Georgian War will take us into thorny territory, but the episode was illustrative (I think) of how limited and circumscribed Russia's objectives really are. Of course, there's no excuse for occupying undisputed Georgian territory. But there's no question in my mind that the kind of bristling stance taken by, say, John McCain on the issue, and on Russia generally, is far inferior to the one in evidence today, and, as you suggest, Bush's own early posture.
PS, Duane, Chuck Hagel gives realism a bad name. (Not that anything I've laid out here is terribly dependent on "Realist" orthodoxy.)