START Provisions Could Weaken U.S. Missile Defense, Say Experts

By Rob Sanna - Talk Radio News Service

Vague language in parts of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) could limit the United States’ ability to improve its missile defense system, according to experts at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C..

Currently the treaty would link missile defense limits to limits on offensive missile systems. Russian officials are using this to claim that their nation has the right to ignore the treaty and increase their nuclear missile count if the United States upgrades or expands its missile defense system in any way (provide a link to a story that confirms this).

“It was so important to the Russians, this one piece of preamble langauge in the treaty, that on the day the treaty was signed they released a unilateral statement saying that ‘Based on this preambluar language, the United States cannot…enhance its missle defenses, otherwise we’re going to withdraw under article 14,’” said Steven Groves with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C..

Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said the U.S. should stop confronting Russia, but instead should try to work with the Russians on issues such as growing weapon stocks in China. He said the U.S. should support denuclearizing some of its warheads if Russia and China agree to do the same.

In addition to the START treaty, Sokolski recommended that the U.N. begin to impose heavy sanctions on nations that violate nuclear agreements.

He also noted that it would be very helpful for the U.S. to use economic leverage over nuclear suppliers like China, Russia, France, Japan, and Korea. Currently, these nations are selling reactors unregulated in the Middle East, effectively under-cutting the restraints the U.S. is pushing for.

US nuclear arsenal is safe for now, but will need to be modernized soon

“Our [nuclear] weapons are safe, reliable, and secure,” said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “the problem is the long term prognosis, which I would characterize as bleak.” Gates spoke of the United States’ effort to reduce its nuclear arsenal while at the same time maintaining a modern nuclear stockpile to deter enemies and enable allies to depend on the United States and not seek nuclear weapons of their own.

Gates spoke extensively on the United States’s effort to reduce its massive, aging Cold War nuclear stockpile. “Within a few years, we will have 75 percent fewer nuclear weapons than at the end of the cold war,” said Gates. He added that the United States must maintain a deterrent capacity in order to prevent rogue states such as Iran and North Korea from threatening their neighbors and US allies with nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. A large number of countries rely on United States’ arsenal of weapons for protection, and without the US deterrent these countries would seek to develop their own nuclear weapons.

The United States’s nuclear arsenal is badly dated, however. “No one has designed a new nuclear weapon since the 1980s, and no one has built a new one since the early 1990s,” said Gates; “...currently the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its arsenal nor has the capability of producing a new warhead.” The nuclear weapons the US currently possesses were designed to have a limited shelf life, and while it is possible to extend the shelf life for a period, this method is not as effective as building new weapons.

The nuclear development program in the US is also experiencing a brain drain, as old scientists are retiring and young scientists have little experience designing and building nuclear weapons. “By some estimates within the next several years three quarters of the work force in nuclear engineering at the national laboratories will reach retirement age,” said Gates.

To try to improve the state of the US arsenal, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy are pursuing a replacement warhead program, but Congress has refused to fund the program beyond its conceptual phase. “Let me be clear,” said Gates; “the program we propose is not about new nuclear capabilities...it is about safety, security and reliability.”

Nuclear defense more feasible and more desirable for the U.S.

A Ballistic Missile Defense Conference was held by the Lexington Institute in order to discuss the positive developments of U.S. missile defense since the Cold War, as well as future strategies. Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said that nuclear defense is more feasible and more desirable for the U.S. Thompson explained that the United States’ ability to defend itself has improved and the nation is more nuclear capable, therefore making nuclear defense more feasible. The character and ideology of the nation’s enemies has also changed, Thompson said, creating more chances of misunderstandings between them and the U.S. and making nuclear defense more desirable.

Dr. Daniel Goure, the Vice President of the Lexington Institute, talked about the future of missile defense. Goure said that the U.S. needs to recognize that there is no longer a bipolar relationship with the Soviets, and that rationality on behalf of U.S. enemies cannot be assured. He said that the nation needs missile defense systems that deploy globally but act locally. Goure also said that the U.S. needs more programs that work on the offensive instead of continually focusing on the defensive.

Baker Spring of the Heritage Foundation talked about the increasing importance in the overall role of missile defense. Spring said that the U.S. needs to modernize defense missile strategies, creating a mix of both the offensive and defensive capabilities. In order to accomplish this, Spring explained that U.S. missile defense needs to meet stability requirements and operational capabilities.