Mount Vernon Area Tea Party, Washington

What’s In the New START Treaty?

What’s In the New START Treaty?
 
Is it really too much to expect that our lawmakers know exactly what they're voting on before they pass it into law?

First there was Obamacare, and now there's the new START treaty between the US and Russia for example, which is up for ratification in the Senate. There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether or not the treaty places limitations on American missile defense capabilities.

The Russians are under the impression that it does.  The treaty will only work, Russian officials argue, if the U.S. "refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities." On the contrary, the U.S. State Department insists, albeit in a watered-down version of its previous statement, that the language of the treaty "does not constrain the United States from deploying the most effective missile defense possible."

It's worrisome that the two signatories are delivering such contradictory messages when they're supposedly reading the same treaty. Why? State Department veteran David Kramer, in an interview with The Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey, explains:

The Russians have to spin this at home as saying they have laid down markers on missile defense.  Here in the United States, the administration is going to underscore that this in no way ties the administration's hands on missile defense.

So what's the truth? Does this new treaty protect America's flexibility to develop and deploy missile defenses or doesn't it?  Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton warns, "advances in missile defense [will be] effectively impossible if this treaty enters into and is to remain in force."

The looming questions about missile defense must be resolved, and the consequences of the treaty need to be clearly defined during the Senate hearings. Senators can and should turn these stones by "demanding access, in classified form, to the Treaty's negotiating record," suggests Heritage's Baker Spring. This will enable them to break through the spin and mixed messaging and clarify specifically what the treaty does and does not say about missile defense.  Anything that compromises American sovereignty and security – such as limiting our defense capabilities - is not worthy of ratification.

In Congressional testimony earlier this week, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urged her former colleagues in the Senate to ratify the treaty.

Now, some may argue that we don't need the new START treaty. But the choice before us is between this treaty and no treaty governing our nuclear security relationship with Russia, between this treaty and no agreed verification mechanisms on Russia's strategic nuclear forces, between this treaty and no legal obligation for Russia to maintain its strategic nuclear forces below an agreed level. And as Secretary Gates has pointed out, every previous president who faced this choice has found that the United States is better off with a treaty than without one, and the United States Senate has always agreed. The 2002 Moscow Treaty was approved by a vote of 95 to nothing. The 1991 START treaty was approved by 93 to 6.

But our choice isn't between the START treaty and nothing. It should be a choice between the START treaty and something better that explicitly protects America's defense capability. Not to mention, if the new START treaty isn't ratified than the old START treaty remains in place through 2012. So the "no treaty" option isn't an option to begin with.