National leaders join forces to oppose Obama demand that Senate rubber stamp New START in lame duck session

A formidable array of current and former leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives, together with top nuclear weapons and arms control experts, came together Monday, December 13 to oppose President Obama’s New START Treaty and his insistence that it be approved at once.  In a Capitol Hill press conference, these prominent political figures and veteran national security professionals demonstrated the breadth of opposition to the New START Treaty.  They also advanced arguments why it must not be considered precipitously – the only possible outcome if it is taken up in the remaining few days of the lame-duck session.

Among the serving and past Senators and Members of Congress who participated in person and/or used the occasion to issue statements were: Arizona Senator JON KYL, South Caroline Senator JIM DeMINT, former House Speaker NEWT GINGRICH, former Pennsylvania Senator RICK SANTORUM, and Georgia Representative TOM PRICE and Arizona Congressman TRENT FRANKS. 

Also speaking were several of the more than two-dozen authors of a joint letter to Senators Reid and McConnell (reproduced below).  Many of these signatories formerly  served in senior positions under President Reagan.  They strongly disagree with President Obama’s insistence that the New START Treaty reflects Ronald Reagan’s approach to arms control.
 
Participants addressed the reasons why the Senate must take the time necessary both to recognize New START’s myriad, serious defects and to ensure that they are corrected before it advises and consenting to this accord include: former UN Ambassador JOHN BOLTON; former Reagan arms control negotiator HENRY COOPER; former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance PAULA DeSUTTER; former Defense Nuclear Agency Director Vice Admiral ROBERT MONROE and former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting) FRANK GAFFNEY and ROGER W. ROBINSON, former Chief International Economist on the Reagan National Security Council staff.

This video features highlights of this important press conference, including comments by Frank Gaffney, John Bolton, Rick Santorum, Rep. Tom Price and Rep. Trent Franks (via Skype).

The text of the letter delivered to Sens. Reid and McConnell is reproduced below.
The original letter, in PDF form, can be found here.

13 December 2010

Hon. Harry Reid
Majority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Hon. Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senators Reid and McConnell:

As you know, President Obama insists that the United States Senate advise and con­sent during the present lame-duck session to the bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic arms control treaty known as "New START" that he signed earlier this year in Prague. It is our consid­ered professional judgment that this treaty and the larger disarmament agenda which its rati­fication would endorse are not consistent with the national security interests of the United States, and that both should be rejected by the Senate.

Administration efforts to compel the Senate to vote under circumstances in which an informed and full debate are effectively precluded is inconsistent with your institution’s precedents, its constitutionally mandated quality-control responsibilities with respect to treaties and, in particular, the critical deliberation New START requires in light of that ac­cord’s myriad defects, of which the following are especially problematic: 

• It is unnecessary and ill-advised for the United States to make the sorts of deep re­ductions in its strategic forces in order to achieve sharp cuts in those of the Russian Federation. After all, the Kremlin’s strategic systems have not been designed for long service lives. Consequently, the number of deployed Russian strategic inter­continental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and long-range, nuclear-capable bombers will drop dramatically, with or without a new arms control agreement.

Russian sources indicate that, within eight-to-nine years, Russian Federation’s in­ventory of strategic launchers will have shrunk from approximately 680 launchers today (some of which already are no longer operational) to approximately 270 launchers, simply as a result of the aging of their systems and the pace of their mod­ernization program. By contrast, the service life of existing U.S. systems extends several decades. In other words, the Russians are going to undergo a substantial contraction in the size of its strategic nuclear arsenal, whether we do or not.

• There are serious downsides for the United States in moving to the sorts of low numbers of strategic launchers called for in the New START Treaty. These include:

o   New START would encourage placing more warheads on the remaining launchers, i.e., "MIRVing" – which is precisely what the Russians are doing. Moving away from heavily MIRVed strategic launchers has long been consid­ered a highly stabilizing approach to the deployment of strategic forces – and a key U.S. START goal.

o   New START would reduce the survivability and flexibility of our forces – which is exactly the wrong posture to be adopting in the uncertain and dynamic post-Cold War strategic environment. The bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Commission concluded that "preserving the resilience and survivability of U.S. forces" is essential. The very low launcher levels required by New START are at odds with both of those necessary conditions.

o   New START’s low ceilings on launchers and warheads can only create concerns about America’s extended deterrent. Allied nations have privately warned that the United States must not reduce its strategic force levels to numbers so low that they call into question the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella or en­courage China to see an opportunity to achieve strategic parity with the United States. Some of those who have long looked to us for security may feel con­strained to develop and field their own deterrents – a formula for intensified proliferation.

o   New START’s limitations could result in the destruction of U.S. multi-purpose strategic bombers, affecting not only the robustness of our nuclear deterrent but cutting into our conventional capabilities, as well.

• Were the United States to slash its strategic nuclear forces to match those the Rus­sians can afford, it would ironically ensure that it has far fewer nuclear weapons – not parity with the Kremlin – when the latter’s ten-to-one advantage in tactical weapons is taken into account. The Russians have consistently refused to limit their tactical nuclear arms, and will surely continue to do so in the future, especially since Moscow has little incentive to negotiate limitations on such weapons when the numbers are so asymmetrical.

This stance should not be surprising since it is this category of weaponry that makes up the bulk of Moscow’s nuclear stockpile. Russian doctrine emphasizes the war-fighting utility of such weapons and their modernization and exercising remain a priority for the Kremlin. In fact, some of those weapons with an explosive power comparable to, if not greatly in excess of, that of the Hiroshima bomb are believed to be aboard submarines and routinely targeted at the United States. Others are targeted against our allies. These were among the reasons that prompted the Con­gressional Strategic Posture Commission to identify the Russian tactical nuclear ar­senal as an "urgent" problem.  

Such capabilities constitute a real asymmetric advantage for Moscow. What is more, given that these Russian tactical nuclear weapons are of greatest concern with re­gard to the potential for nuclear war and proliferation, we cannot safely ignore their presence in large numbers in Russia’s arsenal.  It is certainly ill-advised to make agreements reducing our nuclear deterrent that fail to take them into account.

• New START imposes de facto or de jure limitations on such important U.S. non­nuclear capabilities as prompt global strike and missile defenses. In the future, the nation is likely to need the flexibility to field both in quantity. It would be folly to limit, let alone effectively preclude, available options to do so.
• New START is simply not adequately verifiable. Lest assurances that the treaty will be "effectively" verifiable obscure that reality, the truth is that the Russians could engage in militarily significant violations with little fear of detection by the United States. And, for reasons discussed below, it could take years before we could re­spond appropriately.

These and other deficiencies of the New START treaty are seriously exacerbated by the context in which Senators are being asked to consent to its ratification. Specifically, the Senate’s endorsement of this accord would amount to an affirmation of the disarmament agenda for which it is explicitly said to be a building block – namely, Mr. Obama’s stated goal of "ridding the world of nuclear weapons."

This goal has shaped the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and would, if left unchanged, condemn the United States to a posture of unilateral nuclear dis­armament. (See, in this regard, the attached essay by Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 25, 2010.) By precluding the development and production of new nuclear weapons and the realistic testing of those currently in the stockpile and by "devaluing" the role played by these weapons and the mission of those re­sponsible for maintaining our deterrent, the NPR sets the stage for the continued obsoles­cence and atrophying of our arsenal. No other nuclear power is engaged in such behavior.  And, given our global security responsibilities and the growing dangers from various quar­ters, neither should we.

For all these reasons, we urge you and your colleagues to resist pressure to consider the New START Treaty during the lame-duck session. The Senate should reject this accord and begin instead a long-overdue and vitally needed process of modernization of the nuclear stockpile and refurbishment of the weapons complex that supports it. Only by taking such steps can we ensure that we will, in fact, have the "safe, secure and effective deterrent" that even President Obama says we will need for the foreseeable future.

Sincerely,

Judge William P. Clark, Former National Security Advisor to the President

Hon. Edwin Meese, III, Former Counselor the President; Former Attorney General of the United States

Hon. Kathleen Bailey, Former Assistant Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Norman Bailey, Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs

Hon. Robert B. Barker, Former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy)

Amb. John Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs

Brig. Gen. Jimmy L. Cash, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former Vice-Commander, 7^th Air Force

Hon. Fred S. Celec, Former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs

Amb. Henry F. Cooper, Former Director, Strategic Defense Initiative, Former Chief U.S. Negotiator, Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union

Hon. Paula DeSutter, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation

Hon. Fritz W. Ermarth, Former Chairman and National Intelligence Officer, National Intelligence Council; Former Member of the National Security Council Staff

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (Acting)

Daniel J. Gallington, Former Secretary of Defense Representative, Defense and Space Talks; Former General Counsel, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Policy

Hon. Bruce S. Gelb, Former Director, U.S. Information Agency, Former Ambassador to Belgium

Hon. William Graham, Former Chairman, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, Former Science Advisor to the President, Former Deputy Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Amb. Read Hammer, Former U.S. Chief START Negotiator; Former Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Hon. Fred Iklé, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Sven F. Kraemer, Former Director of Arms Control, National Security Council

Dr. John Lenczowksi, Former Director of European and Soviet Affairs, National Security Council

Admiral James "Ace" Lyons, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Tidal W. McCoy, Former Secretary of the Air Force (Acting)

Lieut. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former Deputy Chief of Staff

Hon. J. William Middendorf II, Former Secretary of the Navy, Former Ambassador to the European Union, the Netherlands and the Organization of American States

Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Former Senior Staff, Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States; Former Senior Staff, Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack

Roger W. Robinson, Jr., Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council, former Executive Secretary of the Cabinet-level Senior Inter-Governmental Group for International Economic Policy

Amb. Ed Rowny, Former U.S. Chief START Negotiator; Former Special Advisor to President Ronald Reagan on Arms Control

Michael S. Swetnam, Former Program Monitor, Intelligence Community Staff with liaison responsibilities to INF and START Interagency Groups, and Former Member of the Technical Advisory Group to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Major Gen. Paul E. Vallely, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Army Pacific

Hon. Michelle Van Cleave, Former National Counterintelligence Executive

Dr. William Van Cleave, Former Director, Department of Defense Transition Team

Hon. Troy Wade, Former Director, Defense Programs, U.S. Department of Energy