The first principle of treaty making is to negotiate from a position of strength. The Obama administration thus far appears to negotiate geopolitical relationships from a position of ideology. While the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) treaty built Obama’s credibility with the Russians, in terms of strategy to make the world a safer place it only copies Reagan’s twenty-five year old plan. This approach no longer makes sense along side unstable nations like North Korea and Iran.
It's a new START.
Ideology
Purely on face value Obama’s ideology regarding arms control seems to be that the world will be safer and nuke-free if the U.S. sets a good example by disarming first. Obama’s rhetoric and actions are reminiscent of Woodrow Wilson whose language of freedom, respect and observing the rights of nations dominated the Treaty of Versailles following World War I.
According to Larry Schweikart, author of a Patriot’s History of the United States, the Senate never ratified the treaty signed in 1919 by the allies. Schweikart says the Senate cited vague and unfeasible language regarding the League of Nations and the notion that every ethnic group should have “statehood.”
Treaty components
Both the 1991 and 2010 START treaties combine caps on nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and verification plans. The White House website boasts that the 2010 treaty limits on U.S. warheads and bombers is 74% lower than the limit of the 1991 START Treaty and 30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty.
Russo-American power balance
George Friedman of Stratfor explains succinctly, that while numbers of weapons may affect budgets and targeting metrics, danger is derived from the political relationship between nations.
Beginning in the 1960s, nuclear balance equated to global balance. Both sides became obsessed with preventing the other side from gaining a nuclear advantage, according to Friedman.
Thus a nuclear arms race and the perception that imbalance might ignite a war. The treaty approach sought to make the balance static, but it depended on verification of compliance and led to Reagan’s Star Wars (space-based reconnaissance and defense systems).
In spite of the Administration’s insistence that the New START does not constrain testing, development or deployment of U.S. missile defense programs, the Russians believe that it does and they point specifically to the text of the treaty. In a recent article from The Voice of Russia , Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian parliament International Affairs arm says “…The first thing is that our American colleagues do not recognize the legal force of the treaty’s preamble. The preamble sets a link between strategic offensive arms and defensive arms. . .”
Alexei Arbatov, a member of the Carnegie Scientific Council, insists that “all the chapters of the treaty including the preamble are legally binding, which is a common norm of international law. It is not lawful to take certain provisions and to give them unilateral interpretations like the American senators do.”
Perhaps this is why the Russians threatened to walk away from the treaty if the Senate made any wording changes. They live in the same “global community” that Obama touts where international law trumps national constitutions.
Obama already weakened the U.S. position and insulted allies when he abandoned missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic during early START negotiations. This move only reinforced the Russian strategy to link offense and defense.
The Bush Administration signed a deal to base interceptor missiles in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic as part of a missile defense against threats from Iran. The Russians were outraged claiming the move would hinder their own defenses. The newly elected Obama abandoned the plan saying that the Iranian threat was over stated and if need be could be countered by shorter-range systems (see more at BBC News ).
Abandoning an agreement with allies that strengthened the U.S. position in the long term to assuage Russia’s fear that it would hinder their strategy was poor strategy. Waving off the Iranian threat in explanation for that move reveals a dangerous ideology.
Read Obama affirms long range missile defense at Washington Times
Technical and creative writer Carla G. Harper follows current events with one eye on history and one eye on the future. Her goal is to encourage people to think critically about what’s going on, both around them and in their lives. Follow Carla at Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlaGHarper.
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