Will (Re)START Be Stopped Or Just Delayed?

There hasn't been a whole lot of cheering over the more-or-less joint announcement by the Kremlin and the White House concerning the successful negotiation of the new START which will result in a one third reduction in each country's nuclear warheads and associated long range delivery vehicles. While there is much left unaddressed by the new agreement including short range, tactical systems and nuclear charges withdrawn from inventory but not dismantled, it is a major step towards a stable system predicated on the concept of "finite deterrence."

So, why the lack of good cheer in political circles and mainstream media alike?

There is not yet any reason to celebrate given the great gulf between mere agreement and signing on the one side and necessary Senate ratification on the other. Previous nuclear agreements between the US and, back then, the Soviet Union have fallen into the gap never to emerge to the sunlight of ratification. There is no basis to believe at the moment that ReSTART will not join the pile of corpses at the bottom of the gap.

There is no way that the Obama administration despite Secretary Clinton's brave words regarding the bipartisan nature of national security can avoid the reality that the Democratic Party's take-no-prisoners approach to health care overhaul and other legislation has poisoned the well of bipartisanship. Mr Obama and his henchmen will discover that bullies stand alone when they call upon their victims for assistance.

Making Republican foot dragging if not flat out rejectionism more rather than less likely is the fact that there are excellent pegs upon which recalcitrant elephants can hang their oppositional hats. One such peg is provided by the perceived need to modernize the American nuclear warhead stockpile. Another is provided by the questions revolving around any understandings reached with Putin, Medvedev, and company regarding ballistic missile defense systems and their deployment.

Legislation mandating the administration to put forth a plan for the modernization of warheads has already passed. To date the administration has been unresponsive to the requirement. The American warheads are elderly to say the least. They present very real problems of reliability and security which need to be solved. The technical work to properly fix the problems has been underway for years at Los Alamos and Lawrence-Livermore. But, the administration has been unwilling to use the work done as a foundation for providing an overall scheme for modernization.

It is a safe bet that more than a few Republican Senators will be quite willing to let the START languish until an acceptable modernization plan is presented by the administration. This trade off is completely justifiable and serves the national interest.

A smaller deterrent is credible if it is both reliable and secure. The Russians know this and have publicly pledged to bring their long-in-the-tooth nuclear charges into the 21st century. We have to do this as well or cut our own deterrent throat along with the numbers.

The expressed concerns over Russian objections to the planned limited missile defense system proposed by the Obama administration are also well taken. The Kremlin has been irrational regarding forward based limited ABM systems since the W. Bush administration first mooted the idea over two years ago.

The Russian military and government know perfectly well that the proposed system in no way threatens the credibility and utility of their missiles or at least those aimed at the US. In principle the US ABM system could marginally attenuate a Russian strike using short ranged missiles aimed at Western or Central Europe. Even this very limited "threat" could be easily overcome by either decoys or simple overloading. The Russians have nothing to worry about even given the one third reduction in charges and long range delivery vehicles.

The Russians have expressed a large degree of paranoia regarding American missile defense capacities either actual or under development. This is a critical area of national security considerations in which they are always far behind the curve in comparison with the US. As a result the Kremlin has harbored a deep need to control, to limit or, best of all, to extinguish US efforts in this area.

Taking advantage of President Obama's all-too-obvious desire (need?) to move the globe to a nuclear-free status the Russians could have made limitations on or removal of American ABM capabilities--even those directed against rogue states of limited offensive capacity--an understood prerequisite for signing ReSTART. It is in American national and strategic interest to be absolutely certain that there are no limits, explicit or tacit, now or in the future placed by the Kremlin on our discretionary deployment of ABM systems.

A principled Republican unwillingness to vote to ratify could be based on the need to fully and satisfactorily ascertain the absence of any Russian imposed limits on the US in the ABM area. Anything less would constitute dereliction of duty.

Politics being what politics has become in recent months and years, there are any number of unprincipled bases for opposition by Republicans. Trade-offs, log rolling, linkages between a vote for ratification and any number of flatly irrelevant issues is not only possible but likely. Not even the skills of Senator Lugar, a full-bore supporter of ReSTART can assure that obstructionist efforts of this sort will not occur. Nor can Senator Lugar and other "Reds" of like mind be sure of rounding up the necessary Republican votes.

President Obama cannot be sure that he can corral his own base in support of ratification. The progressives of his party are well known for their seemingly Utopian pursuit of unilateral American nuclear disarmament.

It is almost as certain as the law of gravity that progressives will contend that ReSTART is insufficiently bold. They can and will argue that the quantum improvements in the quality of conventional munitions have rendered nukes evermore useless. This is not a position without real merit. As the power and accuracy of conventional weapons have improved, the justification for the necessity of nuclear munitions and associated delivery systems has lessened. It is a linear progression as well as a tandem one.

The result of both Republican and progressive considerations is that an agreement to reduce the strategic nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia which should have been a slam dunk for ratification is not. The person ultimately responsible for this transmogrification is Mr Obama.

Far from being the first "post-partisan" president since the Era of Good Feelings nearly two centuries ago, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has proven himself to be a polarizing figure of such potency as to make George W. Bush and even Dick Cheney appear as models of bipartisan harmony in comparison. Quite simply the ratification of ReSTART provides the perfect opportunity for the vultures to return to the manure wagon.

Well, Mr O, you win one only in order to lose another. The tragedy is that the one you are shaping up to lose also is a loss for the world as a whole. Think about it as you celebrate the victory of bringing poverty medicine to the American public.