Council for a Livable World

The United States disclosed the current size of its nuclear arsenal for the first time today: 5,113 warheads operationally deployed, kept in active reserve and held in inactive storage. This number does not include an estimated 4,600 warheads that have…

By Travis Sharp and John Isaacs – May 3, 2010

Dr. James Schlesinger—former CIA director, Nixon/Ford Secretary of Defense, and the nation’s first Secretary of Energy—possesses major cachet in the security policy community, particularly with Republicans. The venerably conservative Wall Street Journal anointedhim “Yoda, the master of the universe” for nuclear strategists. This prominence explains why Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee nominated him to lead the conservative wing of the U.S. Strategic Posture Commission, which released its final report last year.

On April 29, however, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s introductory hearing on New START, Schlesinger authoritatively refuted arguments advanced by New START critics. Was Schlesinger effusive about the treaty? No. Did he raise potential concerns about it? Yes. But he also powerfully, if subtlety, rebutted several key criticisms of New START while firmly endorsing ratification.

Let’s take this issue by issue

Ratification of the treaty

The most important question facing the Senate is whether to give its advice and consent to New START.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told a National Defense University audience that “I’m not convinced today that ratifying the New START treaty is in the best interests of the United States.”

Clearly Dr. Schlesinger does not agree. On the contrary, he said:

“I think that it is obligatory for the United States to ratify. And any treaty is going to have limitations, questionable areas. There are some in this treaty. We need to watch them for the future, but that does not mean that the treaty should be rejected.”

When asked by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) about the downside of non-ratification, Schlesinger replied:

“I think that the principal defect, if the Senate does not ratify, lies in the political area in some of the points that have already been made by Secretary Perry. To wit, for the United States at this juncture to fail to ratify the treaty in the due course of the Senate’s deliberation would have a detrimental effect on our ability to influence others with regard to particularly the nonproliferation issue.”

Tactical Nukes

Sen. Kyl has complained  that the United States “did nothing to address the Russian advantage in tactical nuclear weapons” in New START, implying that this might be a reason to oppose the agreement. Indeed, Schlesinger’s submitted testimony spent a lot of time talking about the need to negotiate limits on tacnukes.

Yet under questioning from Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Schlesinger tipped his hand:

KERRY: But this [i.e. New START] is a precursor, is it not, I mean any effort to be able to get to that [i.e. tactical nuclear weapon reductions] requires us to ratify this agreement?  

SCHLESINGER:Yes. And I fervently hope that it’s a precursor.

To repeat, Schlesinger agreed that any effort to address the threat posed by Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal requires ratification of New START. If senators are serious about wanting to reduce Russian tacnukes—as opposed to just raising the issue to score political points—then they should support New START, not oppose it, according to Schlesinger.

Furthermore, Schlesinger pointed out that other Administrations have passed on this issue:

“In this case, the Russians, as I have indicated, have been quite resistant to any discussion of the tactical nuclear weapons. This is not a problem of this administration. It goes on from administration to administration.”

When Sen. Kerry asked if Schlesinger had anticipated that this round of New START negotiations would cover tactical nuclear weapons, Schlesinger replied: “No, I did not anticipate that.”

Missile Defense

Schlesinger commented on the complaint voiced by Kyl that the Obama administration was “disingenuous at best” when it claimed that New START did not limit missile defense. Said Schlesinger:

SCHLESINGER: It is an overstatement [for the administration] to say that nothing in the treaty inhibits missile defense. I don’t think that it inhibits missile defense in a serious way, however.

The operative word here is “serious”.

Instead of raising “serious” questions about substantive issues, Kyl keeps saying that “More important to me” is “the way they described the wording”? With all due respect, in a day and age when nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism pose enormous threats to the national security of the United States, Kyl’s engaging in semantics rather than raising a “serious” concern. .

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) tried to pursue a similar line of questioning on missile defense later, but Schlesinger wasn’t picking up what he was laying down. Here are Schlesinger’s most important points:

SCHLESINGER: I can understand your expression of concern [on missile defense], Senator. I think that the reality is that there is nothing in the treaty that is problematic. I think that the problem will exist in the continued Russian pressure on us with regards to missile defense as reflected in the preamble.

Kyl and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have raised concerns  that Russia’s unilateral declaration that it may withdraw from the treaty if the U.S. goes too far with missile defense will “constrain improvements” by an Administration determined to keep the treaty in force,  

SCHLESINGER: I think that it’s a legitimate concern. I do not think that we will be inhibited by this treaty or even by the Russian pressure with respect to defending ourselves against North Korea and ultimately against Iran because those deployments are much lower. In the case of Iran, we are dealing primarily with regional missile defenses and they are in no way inhibited by this treaty.

[snip]

SCHLESINGER: For the Russians, it [missile defense] is not only a serious issue in their minds, but more than that it is a political battering ram that they have been using against us over the years and I don’t think that we will persuade them to give it up.

As Schlesinger points out, New START will not inhibit U.S. missile defenses nor prevent us from protecting ourselves against North Korea or Iran. The future challenge for U.S. missile defense is thereby political (Russia), not legal (New START). (Also technical and strategic, but that’s a whole other story)

Spending on the nuclear weapons complex

Sen. Kyl has frequently raised concerns over the level of spending on the nuclear weapons complex.

This is the topic where Schlesinger was cagiest. We will just quote his key remark and let you judge:

SCHLESINGER: It is essential that we augment the money that has been allocated for the labs, for the science program in particular. The add-on for next year looks to be significant. But I hope in the out years that it continues to be appropriate. We don’t know yet, within a few weeks at least, we should have the 10-year program recommended by the administration which will I think influence strongly the decisions of senators.

Verification

Finally, Schlesinger shared his assessment of New START’s verification provisions:

SCHLESINGER: I think all in all that the verification possibilities under this treaty, though much more limited than START I, are still adequate.

Again, was he effusive? No. But he reaffirmed that the verification provisions are adequate from his perspective. This is the same thing Secretary Gates concluded, saying that “I think that when the testimony of the intelligence community comes on the Hill, that the DNI and the experts will say that they are comfortable that the provisions of this treaty for verification are adequate for them to monitor Russian compliance, and vice versa.”

Can the party establishment deliver in Tuesday’s primaries? http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/the-line/how-powerful-is-the-party-esta.html Senate primaries in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina on Tuesday should give us a good indication of h…

I blogged a few weeks ago about Democrats worried about the special election to replace the deceased John Murtha.  Polling since that post indicates that the Republican, Tim Burns, may be poised to defeat Democrat Mark Critz.  A Research 2000…

The prospects for ratification of the New START nuclear arms reduction agreement rose dramatically today.

Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who was a key figure in torpedoing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999 and opposed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, today endorsed ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty.

He is widely admired by Republicans for his extensive experience and forceful positions on nuclear issues and has been a close ally of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Schlesinger and Kyl almost dual-handedly killed the test ban treaty.

His endorsement of the treaty follow that of other Republican heavyweights such as Former Republican Secretaries of State George Shultz, Former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft and Stephen Hadley, Former National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Ambassador Linton Brooks, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen and former START negotiator Richard Burt.

It also follows enthusiastic support for the treaty by uniformed and civilian Pentagon leadership.

Public opinion polling shows strong support for the treaty as well: 60% in a Quinnipiac poll and 70% in a CNN poll.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with former Secretary of Defense William Perry, Schlesinger said, “It is obligatory for the US to ratify this treaty,” while acknowledging that this treaty and all treaties have shortcomings.

Schlesinger also agreed with Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who identified that, “failure to ratify New START is detrimental to U.S. influence over other countries’ non-proliferation policies.”

(Note: All Schlesinger quotes and statements are taken from John Isaacs’ notes, rather than from a transcript, and may not be exact.)

Dr. Schlesinger made several other statements that will help the treaty’s prospects for ratification. While he acknowledged that there is less verification in this treaty than in START I, which was signed in 1991, he argued that, “all in all, verification possibilities are still adequate.”

He identified that there though missile defense is mentioned in the treaty preamble and the treaty itself, “the treaty does not limit U.S. missile defense in a serious way.”

In response to a question from Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), both Schlesinger and Perry agreed that New START had to be ratified as a precursor for dealing with the issue of tactical nuclear weapons, where the Russians have a significant advantage.

Dr. Schlesinger even went so far as to soften some treaty criticism in his prepared statement, which stated: “As to the stated context of strategic nuclear weapons, the numbers specified are adequate,” and he then added, “at the reduced level,” a change from “though barely so” wording in his prepared text.

He endorsed the Obama administration’s new nuclear weapons budget for Fiscal Year 2011 when he said, “the add-on for next year looks to be significant.”

In short, New START, which has yet to be formally sent to the Senate, starts off (no pun intended) in good shape before the inevitable slings and arrows of congressional debate.