The Obama administration has negotiated its first major arms control treaty: a new pact between the U.S. and Russia that would cut by 30 percent the number of strategic nuclear warheads each country is permitted to deploy.
“It took patience. It took perseverance. But we never gave up. And as a result, the United States will be more secure, and the American people will be safer,” President Barack Obama said Friday in announcing an agreement on a new START treaty, the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades.
Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room that he spoke by telephone Friday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to confirm the new agreement. The two men are planning to travel to Prague for an April 8 signing ceremony, the White House said.
Obama said he hoped that by pledging nuclear reductions in the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, the deal will aid efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and add momentum to the international effort to rein in nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
“With this agreement, the United States and Russia — the two largest nuclear powers in the world — also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities,” Obama said.
Under the deal, the number of deployed strategic warheads will drop over the next seven years to 1,550 on each side from an approved level of about 2,200 now. There would be a cap of 800 on deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear weapons. Only 700 of those weapons could be deployed at any given time.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the agreement marked the end of an era of confrontation between the U.S. and Russia.
“The START treaty, it says to our country the Cold War really is behind us, and these massive nuclear arsenals that both of our countries maintained as part of deterrence no longer have to be so big,” she said.
Clinton called the U.S.-Russian negotiations “difficult.” U.S. negotiators were eager to complete the pact by the end of 2009, but that deadline slipped away. However, the White House was urgently intent on getting the deal done before two upcoming summits where nuclear issues will be center-stage: a nuclear security summit Obama is hosting in Washington next month for leaders from 43 countries and a meeting at the United Nations in May to discuss possible changes to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
“We come with more credibility, Russia comes with more credibility having negotiated this treaty,” Clinton said.
Points of tension in the negotiations reportedly included Russia’s desire for access to U.S. technologies as part of the verification process. Russia has also complained about large stocks of weapons that the U.S. maintains which it considers not to be deployed but which experts say could be readily put into use. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the pact calls for the two sides to exchange so-called telemetry information on at least five missile launches per year.
“We have adhered to the Russian proverb President Reagan frequently employed: trust but verify,” Clinton said.
One major challenge Obama will face is getting the ratification of the measure by the necessary two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. Obama met Wednesday with Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) and ranking member Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) to help build what Obama said he hoped would be “strong bipartisan support” for ratification.
Clinton predicted that the polarized political environment over health care reform would not derail the treaty. “I don’t believe that this ratification effort will be affected by anything other than individual senator’s assessment of whether this is in the best interests of America’s national security,” the secretary of state said. “We’re confident that we’ll be able to make the case for ratification.”
Some Republicans have expressed concerns that the treaty will undermine missile defense efforts in Europe. Obama restructured the program last year, while insisting that it would only target missiles launched by rogue regimes.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the new pact would place no limits on missile defense and that the U.S. still hopes to get Russia to take part in a European air defense shield. However, officials conceded the treaty’s preamble does contain language, which Russia insisted upon, about a relationship between offensive and defense weapons systems.
“Missile defense is not constrained by this treaty,” Gates said. “I think we have addressed the concerns that there may have been on the Hill.”
Officials also said the new pact will demonstrate that Obama is serious about pushing for a world without any nuclear weapons, but Gates made clear that no one was contemplating the U.S. abandoning its nuclear arsenal anytime soon.
“The president has been very realistic,” Gates said. “When he originally discussed this, [he said] perhaps not in his lifetime….We realize that other countries have substantial numbers of nuclear weapons. Others are attempting to develop them. So we will do this in a realistic way.”
Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35081.html
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