Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona yesterday announced that he opposes any consideration by the lame duck Senate of the New START treaty, which reduces the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union. Kyl, who is the leading conservative voice on nuclear weapons issues in the Senate, has a lot of support in the Republican caucus, and his opposition probably has doomed consideration of the treaty for now. John Bolton and I had publicly called on Senators to put off consideration of the agreement because of its many flaws, the top three of which are the low limits on nuclear warheads, the limits on delivery systems, and the linkage of arms control with national missile defense. Kyl wisely is bargaining with the Obama administration to win more funding for the modernization and maintenance of our nuclear arsenal and to make clear that our missile defense programs will go forward.
Kyl's opposition raises a larger question. Why should the United States keep pursuing these Cold War-era agreements with Russia? It made sense when both nations were superpowers and had arsenals easily exceeding 20,000 warheads. But Russia is not the Soviet Union of old, despite the move back toward authoritarianism under Putin. We have less to worry about with Russia's nuclear posture, which would have grown smaller anyway because of her economic problems. Our major focus should be on deterring nations such as Iran and North Korea from obtaining and deploying nuclear weapons, and providing a strategic counterweight for our Asian allies to rising powers such as China. That means that we should not be reducing our precision delivery systems, which could drop conventional warheads on nuclear weapons facilities abroad, and least of all should we be limiting missile defense, which may be our last best hope of preventing nuclear proliferation from threatening the United States homeland.
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May '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
That's my big beef. I can have 500 knives and battle hand-to-hand at 50 paces, and no one would care. If I have 5 knives and a guided spear to propel them at you, I win. The delivery systems are the hardest part of any such weapon- warheads are relatively cheap and simple. Obama's de facto START limitations on delivery systems is presidential and negotiation malpractice of the first order.
Oct '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
START is a bad deal for the US. Arms control treaties with Russia are a relic from the 70's.
There also is a broader issue going on here: Does Obama even know how to negotiate? He comes back from a G20 summit in South Korea without a trade deal (that Bush had already finalized). Now all of a sudden the START ratification is a top issue during the lame duck session (it was signed in April). Why the rush? Do we need to ratify it before we find out what's in it? (Obamacare shout-out).
This administration is incompetent. I'm not just saying that to bash the President. Seriously...Democrats...Sit this guy down and have a straight talk. I haven't seen a White House in such disarray on the mundane, predictable issues such as summits and treaties. I believe that soon this is going to be dangerous for the welfare of this country.
Edited on November 18, 2010 at 2:04amSep '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Professor Yoo - Please let us know what your qualifications are for opining on the number needed of any of these systems.
Aug '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Patrick advise you to always conduct a simple wikisearch prior to resume challenge on Ricochet This is not your pedestrian blog my friend. Ricochet is shot through with bullets from an Institute of War. Familarize caterpillar , or morph yoself away.
Sep '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
@flown First thing I did. I see nothing there. You? Nor google: john yoo treaty. Was well conscious of Ricochet CoC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo
Jun '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Forget qualifications and put up a counter argument.You have the floor, Patrick, persuade us that your position is better.
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
New START isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but -- to beat an old drum -- real Presidential malpractice would involve turning Russia into a dedicated and active adversary of the USA. (No, ladies and gents, Russia most assuredly isn't already.) Bilateral agreements that maintain some continuity of practice since the Cold War shouldn't be pursued for their own sake, and they shouldn't persist out of pure inertia. But it seems obvious to me that they don't have to -- and, New START's flaws notwithstanding, don't. Our most serious challenges make it essential, I think, that we maintain as predictable, durable, and orderly working relationship with Russia as we are able to maintain. (Plus, bilateral treaties tend to steer us away from globe-straddling international treaties.)
Jun '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
James, you're right about maintaining a relationship, but where does it say you have to disarm to be cordial?
Sep '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Cas Balicki
Forget qualifications and put up a counter argument.You have the floor, Patrick, persuade us that your position is better. · Nov 18 at 7:38am
Let me begin with my response when Yoo wrote several days ago:
"I guess we now have about 5000 nukes active - if that's the right word. If C-level people in the nuclear weapons biz are asked "why do we need 5000 nukes", they would not give a response as foolish as "well we need more than the Russians." But I have heard a response from them equally as foolish: "well it's hard to explain to your wife". And they don't mean because the rationale is secret. Bottom line: we can get by with a lot less than 5000. Counter claims are pure MIC stuff."
Reducing the active nuclear arsenal to hundreds or a thousand is not disarmament. The real reason for a new START is that at this time we are no longer inspecting the Russian nukes. We need to.
May '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
The problem with New START is not its nuclear limitations, it is the conventional impacts. Mr. Obama got taken on this one, time to kill it and go for a New START on the negotiations.
If maintaining a "predictable, durable, and orderly working relationship with Russia" means we ratify this mess, we are better off with an unpredictable, fragile, and chaotic relationship.
Sep '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
@cas #6
One more point: If the argument was made by one of the brains at Hoover rather than Yoo, I'd be inclined to give it more credence.
Sep '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
#2 @cas#6
After a walk, another couple of points. There a number of components of a nuke. Two of the most important are:
1. The fissile material; ie, the highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Even if a nuke is disassembled, this stuff doesn't go away; it is still available for new manufacture. I don't know for sure but I think the fissile material from the cold war weapons we've already disasembled is still around. Same will be true for material from nukes disassembled post new START.
2. The manufacturing capability itself. The weapons complex remains healthy 20 years after fall of Berlin Wall. Its continuing health is one of the major things about which Kyl is negotiating with the White House and the Dems in the Congress.
May '10
Re: Sen. Jon Kyl Halts Progress on New START Treaty
Max Boot says New START is no big deal: "The final figure of 1,550 warheads is plenty big enough to maintain America’s nuclear deterrence; actually, we will have more than that because for the purposes of the treaty B-2 and B-52, bombers are counted as one “warhead” even though they can carry dozens of nuclear warheads. Opponents of the treaty throw out all sorts of other objections, arguing that it would constrict the development of missile defenses or non-nuclear missiles; but no such prohibition is to be found in the language of the treaty."
Stephen Hadley, national security advisor to George W. Bush, also supports it, as do Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. This is to say nothing of the long list of Republican defense and foreign policy experts that some here would not trust, including Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Robert Gates, William Cohen, and others.
Edited on November 19, 2010 at 10:40pm