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Senate ratifies nuclear arms deal

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The US Senate has ratified the New START treaty, a nuclear arms agreement between Russia and the US that has been a key foreign policy objective for US President Barack Obama. The decision paves the way for a new round of bilateral nuclear inspections, which ended in 2009 when the 1991 START I treaty expired.

Obama signed the treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April in Prague (right). It replaces the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which was set to expire in 2012, and which made no arrangement for mutual verification of the arms limits it set.

Under New START, which stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Russia and the US have agreed to limit the number of deployed warheads to 1,550, and the number of deployed delivery vehicles (missile-launchers and heavy bombers) to 700, with another 100 un-deployed, per country. This is a reduction compared to the numbers allowed by the Moscow treaty, but more significant than the absolute figures are the updated verification procedures that the treaty also contains, says Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC, which has come out in favor of the treaty. The new procedures allow inspectors from either country to visit the other’s facilities with a day or two’s notice and to count missiles “under the hood” of delivery vehicles, says Kristensen. Previous treaties didn’t allow for such hands-on inspections, which created uncertainty on both sides. “That’s an important new development,” says Kristensen, “it greatly helps to reduce suspicion.”


Russia currently has fewer warheads deployed than the limits while the US has slightly more. Some Republicans have opposed the treaty by arguing that it appears to give a strategic advantage to Russia. In the Senate Floor Debate, Jon Cornyn (Republican, Texas) connected the treaty to Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, which he slammed. “It sends an impression of weakness and a lack of determination to maintain American’s leadership in the world,” he said, and quoted former US president Ronald Reagan saying that “weakness only invites aggression.” “I fear that the New START treaty will act as a new data point in the narrative of weakness, pursing diplomacy for its own sake,” he added. “Where are the concessions that Russia made to us?” But Bill Nelson (Democrat, Florida) said ratification would give the US additional security on the question of nuclear proliferation, which would actually strengthen the country’s nuclear might. “It will allow us to spend needed resources on the modernization of our nuclear complex,” he says.

The Democrat majority accepted two bipartisan amendments to help the treaty pass; one, an amendment by Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) calls for modernization of the US nuclear weapons complex; the second, an amendment by John McCain (Republican, Arizona), Jo Lieberman (Independent of Connecticut) and Bob Corker (Republican, Tennessee) clarifies that, contrary to a perceived suggestion to the contrary in the preamble to the treaty, the US will continue its development and deployment of a missile defense system. “We’re trying to manage our relationship with the Russian Federation in a way that is conducive to the security of our country,” Lieberman said.

Kyl complained in the debate that the Senate, which the US consitution says must ratify treaties, was being treated as a “rubber stamp” that was unable to change as much as one comma in a treaty for fear it would have to be renegotiated. John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts) responded that the Senate was chosen for the role by the founding fathers because it would be more likely to rule in the national interest than narrow interests.

The treaty passed 71-26. A majority of two-thirds (67) was needed for ratification.

New START does not now need to pass the US House of Representatives to be ratified, but it is still subject to ratification by the Russian parliament.

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    Lorne Marr said:

    It is a remarkable achievement and victory of the Obama administration as well as the majority of Republicans who were in favour of the treaty from the very beginning.

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    Richard Blaber said:

    This treaty is an achievement, but a modest one. It is not as though 1,550 nuclear warheads apiece constituted a modest arsenal. The US and Russia can still wipe out all life on the planet if they have a mind to, any time they choose.

    We have a long way to go yet before President Obama’s stated goal of complete multilateral nuclear disarmament, and I despair when I see that so many of the Republicans opposed even this small step in the right direction.

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    Jay Banks said:

    I remember that, this kind of obstruction has happened before every disarmament treaty. This might be something of a land speed record for ratification, that´s fact. I really didn’t expect this to happen until 2013 and for the following years.

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