A poor START

The Senate refused to ratify the Salt II treaty signed by Jimmy Carter in 1979, and it rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999. If Obama is going to get New START – his sudden rush obviously has to do with avoiding six more Republican senators next year – he’ll have to do it through persuasion rather than sheer assertion.

The case for New START is so weak that we’d better hope the fate of the planet doesn’t hinge on it. It places a limit on strategic warheads of 1,550, and a limit on deployed delivery vehicles – missiles, bombers, submarines – at 700. Even in theory, this isn’t much of a cut in warheads. Under the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, Russia and the United States had already agreed to arsenals of 2,200 to 1,700 each.

Here’s the catch: The Russians are already beneath 700 launchers. The aging of their arsenal, coupled with economic constraints, means that they aren’t going higher regardless. Effectively, New START only mandates cuts on us, and we make concessions to the Russians for the privilege. This is classic Obama chump diplomacy.