Thursday 16 December 2010

The Case for the START Treaty

It now seems probable that there will be enough support in the US Senate to ratify the new START treaty. This would be a victory to the Obama administration. However, according to analyst Robert Kagan, the treaty would also be beneficial to republicans:

New START, whatever its flaws, is not a threat to U.S. security. The three previous arms-control treaties, all negotiated by Republican presidents, cut deployed nuclear weapons from near 12,000 to around 2,000. New START reduces the totals to 1,550. Passing it will neither produce a nuclear-free utopia nor disarm the United States.

But blocking the treaty will produce three unfortunate results: It will strengthen Vladimir Putin, let the Obama administration off the hook when Russia misbehaves and set up Republicans as the fall guy if and when U.S.-Russian relations go south.

And if relations with Russia do sour, as I expect, it will be important that the record be clear as to why.


Read more here.

No comments: