New START Agreement Must Be Ratified Before January

This blog has frequently discussed the critical importance of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and Russia, which was signed in April. The treaty would reduce the deployed nuclear weapons of each nation by about one-third and institute a rigorous inspection and verification system for both countries.

Up until recently, it looked as though the treaty's ratification by the United States Senate would be a fairly routine matter, as have arms reduction treaties between the two sides since the days of the Reagan administration. Unfortunately, ever since the Republican successes in the American mid-term elections earlier this year, right-wing ideologues among the Republicans in the Senate have held the ratification process hostage.

Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) is now attempting to block the treaty's ratification until the new Senate takes office in January. Although he denies it, there seems to be no motive to his actions aside from a desire to embarass President Obama by denying him a foreign policy success. Playing politics with foreign policy is an old story and has been indulged in by both parties, but never on nuclear arms reduction treaties. Before this year, there has always been a general understanding among both Republicans and Democrats that nuclear arms reduction was too serious an issue to be dragged down into partisan politicking. Senator Kyl's actions are reprehensible.

If the treaty is not ratified by January, it is unlikely that it will ever be ratified. The next Senate will have a much more isolationist and unilateralist element in its ranks, including such men as Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), who have constantly expressed disdain for bilateral and mutlilateral international agreements such as New START. Internationalist Republicans like Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) will have their influence within their party caucus sharply curtailed. In other words, if the treaty cannot be ratified during the lame duck session of the current Senate, it is extremely unlikely that it will be ratified in the next Senate.

The consequences of this would be disastrous. Most obviously, nuclear weapons that would otherwise have been dismantled will remain intact, and the world needs to be getting rid of as many nuclear weapons as possible as quickly as possible. In addition, a rejection of the treaty would deal a sharp blow to American-Russian relations in general, and good relations between those former adversaries are critical for the well-being of the world. Furthermore, American credibility on disarmament issues will be badly damaged, hindering American-led efforts to deal with the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. Finally, the absense of an effective inspection system of the Russian nuclear arsenal will mean that the wider world will have no idea what is happening with Russian nuclear warheads, many of which have already come within a hair's breadth of falling into terrorist hands.

This is a very serious matter. The Senate needs to ratify the New START agreement at once.