[Senate Executive Report 111-6]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
111th Congress Exec. Rept.
SENATE
2d Session 111-6
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TREATY WITH RUSSIA ON MEASURES
FOR FURTHER REDUCTION AND LIMITATION
OF STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE ARMS
(THE NEW START TREATY)
_______
October 1, 2010.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Kerry, from the Committee on Foreign Relations,
submitted the following
REPORT
together with
MINORITY VIEWS
[To accompany Treaty Doc. 111-5]
The Committee on Foreign Relations, to which was referred
the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian
Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation
of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed in Prague on April 8, 2010,
with Protocol (Treaty Document 111-5), having considered the
same, reports favorably thereon with 10 conditions, 3
understandings, and 13 declarations, as indicated in the
resolution of advice and consent for such treaty, and
recommends that the Senate give its advice and consent to
ratification thereof, as set forth in this report and the
accompanying resolution of advice and consent.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Purpose..........................................................2
II. Background and Discussion........................................2
III. Views of the Committee on Armed Services........................64
IV. Views of the Select Committee on Intelligence...................78
V. Committee Action................................................78
VI. Committee Recommendation and Comments...........................81
VII. Text of Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification.......100
VIII.Minority Views of Senators Risch, DeMint, Barrasso, Wicker, and
Inhofe.........................................................110
IX. Additional Documents...........................................124
I. Purpose
The Treaty between the United States of America and the
Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (hereinafter, the New
START Treaty) will commit the United States and Russia to
reductions in strategic offensive arms. By continuing
predictability and transparency between the Parties, it would
ensure strategic stability while enabling the United States to
maintain an effective nuclear deterrent. New START builds upon
the Treaty Between the United States and the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of
Strategic Offensive Arms (the START Treaty) of 1991 and the
Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian
Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (the Moscow
Treaty) of 2002.
The START Treaty limited each Party to 6,000 strategic
warheads attributed to 1,600 deployed delivery vehicles. The
Moscow Treaty limited each Party to between 1,700 and 2,200
deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The New START Treaty
contains lower limits of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and
700 deployed delivery vehicles. Unlike START and the Moscow
Treaty, New START also limits each State Party to 800 deployed
and non-deployed launchers of intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs), launchers of submarine-launched ballistic
missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers. In contrast with the START
Treaty, the New START Treaty does not establish sub-limits on
types of strategic offensive arms. Instead, each Party may
determine its own force structure, within the treaty's limits
and subject to its other provisions, as is the case under the
Moscow Treaty. New START contains no limitations on U.S.
missile defenses other than a silo conversion ban contained in
paragraph 3 of Article V; it explicitly permits modernization
of each Party's strategic offensive arms; and it does not
constrain development of long-range conventional strike
systems, although conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs would
count toward the treaty's limits on deployed delivery vehicles,
on deployed warheads, and on deployed and non-deployed
launchers.
The New START Treaty would supersede the Moscow Treaty upon
entry into force, and its verification provisions revise,
update, and build upon those in the START Treaty, which expired
on December 5, 2009. The Treaty consists of the main treaty
text and a protocol, which contains ten parts and three
annexes.
II. Background and Discussion
HISTORY
The START process of reducing and limiting strategic
offensive arms began during the Reagan administration. As
former Secretary of State James Baker testified to the
committee:
Negotiations on the original START Treaty began . . .
in the early 1980s during some of the most contentious
years in the U.S.-Soviet rivalry, when the United
States and Soviet Union were running the arms race at a
really fast clip. Many feared that the Cold War would
turn hot. And START was about stopping that race.
It was about beginning to shrink the enormous nuclear
arsenals that each side had built, and it was about
stabilizing the nuclear relationship between the two
countries so that our diplomatic relationship could
evolve without the fear that either side was going to
seek an atomic advantage. By dramatically reducing each
side's nuclear forces, START took a relationship that
was filled with uncertainty, and made it far more
predictable. The original treaty provided a foundation
for Washington and Moscow to reduce their arsenals, and
to improve diplomatic ties and overall cooperation.
Those negotiations culminated in the START Treaty, which
President George H.W. Bush and President Mikhail Gorbachev
signed in July 1991. The Bush administration then quickly
proceeded to negotiate a follow-on agreement that would further
reduce U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear forces to
between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads. START II, as this agreement
was known, was signed in 1993, just before President Bush left
office, but it never entered into force because of subsequent
disagreements between Russia and the United States over missile
defense issues. In 1997, Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris
Yeltsin agreed to a framework for a START III treaty, which
would have reduced deployed arsenals to between 2,000 and 2,500
strategic warheads. However, formal negotiations never began
because in 2000 the Russian Duma conditioned the entry into
force of START II on U.S. ratification of agreements made in
the Standing Consultative Commission in September 1997
concerning missile defense.
The George W. Bush administration continued the process of
negotiated reductions in strategic nuclear forces, albeit in
different form. In 2001, President Bush announced his intention
to unilaterally reduce the number of operationally deployed
strategic warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 and suggested
that the Russians could reciprocate. Russia, however, wanted
such reductions to be made through a bilateral, legally-binding
agreement, and in May 2002 the two countries signed the Moscow
Treaty, a far simpler and shorter accord than START or START
II.
Although its warhead limits were lower, the Moscow Treaty
did not replace the START Treaty. The Moscow Treaty relied on
START's verification and transparency mechanisms. It did create
a Bilateral Implementation Commission, but the commission was
not empowered to decide on any measures for verification.
During the Senate's consideration of the treaty, some
questioned whether that arrangement would be sufficient to
ascertain compliance since START was to expire on December 5,
2009, three years before the Moscow Treaty's limits came into
effect. But during consideration of the Moscow Treaty,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the committee that,
``between now and 2009 . . . there is plenty of time to sort
through what we will do thereafter.'' Similarly, Secretary of
State Colin Powell testified at the time:
We thought that long before we got to 2009, as a
result of the work of the bilateral implementation
committee and because of additional work that had been
undertaken but not completed yet with respect to
transparency measures and other things we can do in the
area of confidence-building and transparency, that by
the time we got to 2009 we would know what we needed to
know, and if not then we could suggest some time long
before 2009 that it might be in the interest of both
parties to extend those provisions of START.
In 2006, the United States and Russia began discussions on
what, if anything, would replace START. At that time, Russia
indicated that it wanted to negotiate a successor agreement
similar to the original accord, but the Bush administration
initially maintained that few of the measures contained in the
START Treaty were still needed. Both countries wanted to
maintain some of the verification and monitoring provisions
established in START. Russia wanted these provisions to be part
of a new legally-binding accord, but the Bush administration
suggested a less formal regime of transparency and confidence-
building measures that might include voluntary data exchanges
and on-site visits.
The United States and Russia continued to discuss these
issues in 2007 and 2008 but failed to reach agreement, although
in April 2008 Presidents Bush and Putin did issue a Strategic
Framework Declaration in which they committed to reducing their
nuclear forces ``to the lowest possible level consistent with
our national security requirements and alliance commitments.''
The United States and Russia also met in November 2008 in the
context of a meeting of START's Joint Compliance and Inspection
Commission (JCIC)--together with representatives from Ukraine,
Belarus, and Kazakhstan, which were Parties to the START Treaty
as successor states to the Soviet Union--to discuss extending
the treaty, but they did not agree on a course of action.
After taking office in January 2009, the Obama
administration continued strategic talks with the Russians. In
March, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva and agreed that the United
States and Russia would try to negotiate a new strategic arms
control accord before START expired at the end of the year. In
April, meeting in London, Presidents Obama and Medvedev
instructed their negotiators to begin work on a new agreement
on ``the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms''
to levels below those established by the Moscow Treaty. They
said the new agreement would ``mutually enhance the security of
the Parties and predictability and stability in strategic
offensive forces, and will include effective verification
measures drawn from the experience in implementing the START
Treaty.''
In July 2009, following initial meetings between American
and Russian negotiators, Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed a
Joint Understanding which indicated that the new treaty would
limit each country to between 500 and 1,100 strategic delivery
vehicles with 1,500 to 1,675 associated warheads. American and
Russian negotiators met throughout the year but had not reached
agreement by the time the START Treaty expired on December 5,
2009. At that time Presidents Obama and Medvedev released a
joint statement, which said:
Recognizing our mutual determination to support
strategic stability between the United States of
America and the Russian Federation, we express our
commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to
work together in the spirit of the START Treaty
following its expiration, as well as our firm intention
to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter
into force at the earliest possible date.
In March 2010, the United States and Russia concluded
negotiations. On April 8, Presidents Obama and Medvedev met in
Prague and signed the New START Treaty. The treaty was
submitted to the Senate on May 13, 2010, along with an article-
by-article analysis of the treaty, protocol, and annexes
(Treaty Doc. 111-5).
STRATEGIC RATIONALE FOR THE TREATY
Strategic Stability
The United States and Russia are no longer enemies as they
were during the Cold War, but the two countries still have
significant disagreements, including disagreements over
political-military issues such as the nature of NATO, the
status of Russian military deployments in countries that have
not agreed to a Russian troop presence, and the 2008 war in
Georgia. Moreover, each country still maintains thousands of
strategic nuclear weapons that have the potential to destroy
the other. Under these circumstances, it is prudent to maintain
appropriate measures to assure both countries regarding the
stability of the nuclear balance.
The New START Treaty's limits of 1,550 deployed warheads,
700 deployed delivery vehicles, and 800 deployed and non-
deployed launchers and heavy bombers would ensure that neither
side has a significant nuclear advantage. By re-establishing
limits on strategic nuclear forces and continuing monitoring
and verification procedures, the treaty also establishes
predictability, so that each Party can base its military
planning on reliable data regarding the other Party's strategic
offensive arms and avoid estimates based on guesses that can
lead to destabilizing strategic competition. In his testimony
to the committee, the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command,
General Kevin P. Chilton, USAF, explained why predictability
was important:
[I]f we don't get the treaty, (a) [the Russians are]
not constrained in their development of force
structure, and (b) we have no insight into what they're
doing. So, it's the worst of both possible worlds. And
so, what that means to us is that we have to guess or,
through other national technical means, estimate what
their force structure and what the capability of their
weapons are, which then leads us to do analysis on what
[we] need. And the less precise that is, the more the
probability that we either under- or over-develop the
force structure we require. And neither is a good
result. ``Under,'' it would be a security issue;
``over'' would be a cost issue. We could end up
developing capabilities that we really didn't require.
At the same time, the treaty permits more flexibility than
the original START Treaty in the composition and deployment of
strategic offensive arms, as it eliminates sub-limits on
different types of delivery vehicles. Because it does not limit
non-deployed warheads and because U.S. ICBMs and bombers will
retain the capacity to carry more warheads than they are
deployed with or (in the case of bombers) more than the number
of nuclear weapons attributed to them under the treaty, the New
START Treaty also allows the United States to hedge against
technical or geopolitical surprise (for example, if a warhead
type were to fail unexpectedly or if relations with Russia were
to deteriorate precipitously). The treaty thus allows the
United States to maintain a sufficient nuclear deterrent, while
continuing to reduce and limit its strategic offensive arms. In
response to a question for the record, General Chilton wrote,
``Under the 700 limit on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-
capable heavy bombers, and 800 limit on deployed and non-
deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and nuclear-capable
heavy bombers, the US will maintain a sufficiently robust and
flexible deterrent force.'' (The text of unclassified questions
and answers for the record growing out of the committee's
hearings on the New START Treaty will be published by the
committee in a separate print.)
Of course, the predictability and resulting stability
established by an arms control agreement are achieved only
insofar as each Party is confident that the other is adhering
to the treaty's terms. Trust between the United States and
Russia is significantly greater than in 1991. When the START
Treaty was negotiated, a verification regime to deter or detect
efforts to hide or deploy more warheads and missiles than
allowed under the treaty was a new mechanism. Soviet levels of
production and deployments of strategic offensive arms were
also vastly higher than are Russia's production and deployments
today. Fifteen years of inspections under START have given the
United States a detailed understanding of Russian strategic
nuclear forces and established a basis for evaluating aspects
of the START verification regime that may no longer be needed
due to changed circumstances. Just as under previous treaties,
verifying Russian compliance with New START's limits is
essential, which is why New START contains extensive monitoring
provisions, including unique identifiers for all delivery
vehicles, regular notifications and data exchanges, and 18 on-
site inspections per year. The transparency that these measures
provide will maintain and in some ways increase our
understanding of the modern Russian arsenal of strategic
offensive arms, develop confidence in Russian compliance with
the new treaty's limits, and in turn enhance strategic
stability between the United States and Russia.
The New START Treaty's preamble recognizes, ``the existence
of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and
strategic defensive arms.'' It also notes that, ``this
interrelationship will become more important as strategic
nuclear arms are reduced.'' The treaty does not contain any
binding limitation on U.S. missile defenses beyond paragraph 3
of Article V, and the preamble also notes that ``current
strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and
effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties,''
indicating that the Russians do not feel threatened by current
U.S. missile-defense deployments. In testimony to the Foreign
Relations Committee, two Pentagon officials--Dr. James N.
Miller, Jr., Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, and Lieutenant General Patrick J. O'Reilly, USA,
Director of the Missile Defense Agency--indicated that they had
briefed the Russians on all four phases of the Obama
administration's Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense in
Europe and that the Russians had expressed understanding that
the administration's plans would not threaten their deterrent.
They also stressed that neither the preamble, nor a unilateral
statement regarding U.S. missile defenses made on April 7,
2010, is in any way binding on the United States.
Some Members of the committee have expressed concern that
the New START Treaty's preamble suggests that the United States
will not build missile defenses to protect the United States
from a Russian attack. Those Members note that their concern is
reinforced by Russia's unilateral statement, which suggested
that Russia might withdraw from the treaty in the event of ``a
build-up in the missile defense system capabilities of the
United States of America such that it would give rise to a
threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the Russian
Federation.'' Developing the capability to counter a massive
strike by Russia's strategic nuclear forces has not been the
policy of the United States under Presidents Clinton, Bush, or
Obama. The National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (P.L. 106-38)
provides that it is the policy of the United States ``to deploy
as soon as is technologically possible an effective National
Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of
the United States against limited ballistic missile attack
(whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate).'' [Emphasis
added.] As Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates testified to
the committee on May 18, 2010:
Under the last administration, as well as under this
one, it has been the United States policy not to build
a missile defense that would render useless Russia's
nuclear capabilities. It has been a missile defense
intended to protect against rogue nations such as North
Korea and Iran or countries that have very limited
capabilities. The systems that we have, the systems
that originated and have been funded in the Bush
administration as well as in this administration, are
not focused on trying to render useless Russia's
nuclear capability. That, in our view, as in theirs,
would be enormously destabilizing, not to mention
unbelievably expensive.
U.S.-Russian Relations
In the 20 years since the end of the Cold War, the tenor of
U.S.-Russian relations varied, reaching a nadir after Russia's
conflict with Georgia in August 2008. Ambassadorial and
ministerial contacts at the NATO-Russia Council were suspended
for the remainder of 2008, and in September 2008, the Bush
administration withdrew from congressional consideration the
U.S.-Russia Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation.
Moreover, for much of the previous decade, Russian foreign
policy (particularly regarding Iran, Afghanistan, and North
Korea) tended to exhibit a reflexive resistance to U.S.
positions even when substantial commonality of interest
existed.
In early 2009, the Obama administration initiated a ``re-
set'' of relations with Moscow, focusing on several areas of
mutual interest, including the expansion of the Northern
Distribution Network to supply U.S. and coalition forces in
Afghanistan, diplomatic containment of Iran's nuclear
ambitions, nuclear security, non-proliferation, trade, and
economics, and other areas.
The New START Treaty is an integral element in ``re-
setting'' the policy agenda with Russia in a constructive and
mutually beneficial way. Its ratification will have a positive
impact on U.S.-Russian cooperation, particularly on nuclear
cooperation, security, and nonproliferation matters. During the
Cold War and in the intervening years, arms control
implementation has endured ups and downs in our bilateral
relations and has remained an abiding area of cooperation. As
former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley testified to
the committee,
I think you do need to see this treaty in context of
really a 20-year effort spanning Republican and
Democratic administrations. . . . And quite frankly,
it's an indication of one more thing where Russia and
the United States have found it in their common
interest to work together cooperatively, and that's an
important contribution to the overall environment
between Russia and U.S. relations.
Partly as a result of positive momentum generated by the
New START negotiations, the United States and Russia have
reached new agreements that have materially advanced our shared
interests around the world. For example, in November 2009,
Russia supported the International Atomic Energy Agency Board
of Governors resolution condemning Iran's failure to suspend
uranium enrichment and cooperate with the IAEA; on June 9,
2010, Russia joined the United States in supporting U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1929, which further sanctioned Iran
for its nuclear program. Russia has also announced that it
would not deliver its advanced S-300 air defense system to
Iran--a sale that the United States has opposed since the deal
was initially reached in 2007. In June 2009, the United States
and Russia signed the Afghanistan Air Transit Agreement, which
has allowed 35,000 U.S. personnel and troops to fly to
Afghanistan via Russian airspace.\1\ Russia also joined the
United States in supporting U.N. Security Council Resolution
1874, condemning North Korea for its nuclear test in May. In
their joint statement of June 24, 2010, Presidents Obama and
Medvedev expressed their commitment ``to continuing the
development of a new strategic relationship based on mutual
trust, openness, predictability, and cooperation by following
up on the successful negotiation of the Treaty on Measures for
the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive
Arms.''
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\1\The White House, ``U.S.-Russia Relations: `Reset' Fact Sheet,''
June 24, 2010; available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
us-russia-relations-reset-fact-sheet.
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Ratification of New START could lead to an improved
dialogue on other areas where acute disagreements with Russia
exist. Russia's repeated use of energy exports as a tool of
political coercion of its neighbors and its ongoing occupation
of Georgian territory demonstrate a continuing willingness to
dominate its neighborhood. Russia's implementation of the
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty also has
remained suspended since 2007.
The bottom line is that the United States needs Russian
cooperation to address pressing regional and global security
concerns, including accounting for and securing its substantial
tactical nuclear weapon arsenal; continued implementation of
the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program; and
implementation other U.S.-Russian bilateral threat reduction
programs to secure Russian nuclear sites and fissile material.
Many witnesses who testified to the committee noted that
rejecting the treaty would severely undercut such efforts.
Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, USAF
(Ret.), said that ``the principal result of non-ratification
would be to throw the whole nuclear negotiating situation into
a state of chaos.'' And former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger testified:
This START treaty is an evolution of treaties that
have been negotiated in previous administrations of
both parties. And its principal provisions are an
elaboration or a continuation of existing agreements.
Therefore, a rejection of them would indicate that a
new period of American policy had started that might
rely largely on the unilateral reliance of its nuclear
weapons, and would therefore create an element of
uncertainty in the calculations of both adversaries and
allies. And therefore, I think it would have an
unsettling impact on the international environment.
The degree to which tensions have subsided between
Washington and Moscow during the past 25 years is remarkable,
but it remains true that many Russian security officials
continue to view NATO as a the primary threat to their country
and its interests. Over time, continued cooperation on issues
involving our mutual security and the expansion of our economic
and social ties will continue to improve bilateral relations.
The New START treaty is part of a process that has resulted in
a de-escalation of dangerously strained superpower relations
and the ongoing construction of cooperation on issues of mutual
interest.
Non-Proliferation
There is widespread agreement that the spread of nuclear
weapons--and in particular their diversion to terrorists--is
the chief threat to American security. President Bush stated
that the single most serious threat to the United States was
the possibility of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons.
President Obama agrees; the National Security Strategy,
released in May 2010, said:
The American people face no greater or more urgent
danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.
And international peace and security is threatened by
proliferation that could lead to a nuclear exchange.
Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, the risk of a
nuclear attack has increased. Excessive Cold War
stockpiles remain. More nations have acquired nuclear
weapons. Testing has continued. Black markets trade in
nuclear secrets and materials. Terrorists are
determined to buy, build, or steal a nuclear weapon.
Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered in a
global nonproliferation regime that has frayed as more
people and nations break the rules.
The centerpiece of the global nonproliferation regime is
the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT;
Treaty Doc. 90-24), which opened for signature in 1968.
Although the NPT is aimed at preventing states from acquiring
nuclear weapons, it is an important tool in the fight against
nuclear terrorism as well because would-be nuclear terrorists
would need to acquire fissile material from a state in order to
make a bomb. State-sponsored nuclear programs are also the most
likely source of weapons technology and components.
The NPT prohibits all but five of its States Parties--
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States--from possessing nuclear weapons, but in exchange for
the restraint of the treaty's non-nuclear weapons States
Parties, those five agreed to work toward the eventual
elimination of their weapons. Thus, in the treaty's preamble,
the States Parties declare ``their intention to achieve at the
earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race
and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear
disarmament . . .''. More significantly, Article VI of the NPT
establishes a legal commitment to that effect: ``Each of the
Parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good
faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the
nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,
and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under
strict and effective international control.''
The United States and Russia have used their bilateral
agreements on strategic arms reductions as proof of progress
toward this obligation. The preamble to the original START
Treaty noted that the signatories were ``[m]indful of their
undertakings with regard to strategic offensive arms in Article
VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of
July 1, 1968.'' The preamble to START II cited the NPT twice in
its preamble: ``Stressing their firm commitment to the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968,
and their desire to contribute to its strengthening'' and
``Mindful of their undertakings with respect to strategic
offensive arms under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968.'' The
preamble to the Moscow Treaty says the United States and Russia
are ``[m]indful of their obligations under Article VI of the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1,
1968.'' Similarly, the New START Treaty's preamble says that
the United States and Russia are ``[c]ommitted to the
fulfillment of their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968,
and to the achievement of the historic goal of freeing humanity
from the nuclear threat.''
By working eventually to fulfill their end of the NPT
bargain, the United States and Russia may strengthen the non-
nuclear-weapon states' commitment to nonproliferation.
Continuing the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive
arms has been seen as furthering the process of disarmament
under the NPT. Such measures may only indirectly encourage
rogue states like North Korea or Iran to come into compliance
with their nonproliferation obligations under the NPT as non-
nuclear weapon states and their obligations under U.N. Security
Council resolutions that condemn their illegal nuclear weapons
activities. But U.S. leadership in reducing the size of its own
forces could encourage non-nuclear-weapon states to assist the
United States in its efforts to combat proliferation.
During the committee's hearings on New START, many
witnesses made this point. James Baker testified, ``I happen to
be one who strongly believes that it is important for our
country and for Russia to maintain a vigorous commitment to
arms control as a part of our efforts to create and maintain an
effective non-proliferation regime.'' Former Secretary of
Defense James Schlesinger said, ``[F]or 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.'' Former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger agreed: ``[N]onproliferation has to be a central
American objective. . . . And the ability to achieve its
objectives depends on the credibility of the government. It
would be more difficult for us to achieve the objectives that,
again, have been proclaimed on a bipartisan basis for many
decades'' if the United States failed to ratify the New START
Treaty.
At conferences to review the NPT's implementation, which
are held every 5 years, success or failure has often been
influenced by the perception of how much progress has been made
toward nuclear disarmament. In the run-up to the 2010 review
conference, many states participating in preparatory meetings
called on the United States and Russia to negotiate a successor
agreement to the original START Treaty and continue reductions
to their nuclear arsenals.\2\ The month after Presidents Obama
and Medvedev signed the New START Treaty, the States Parties to
the NPT met in New York for the 2010 review conference.
Signature of the treaty appears to have helped the United
States deflect efforts by Iran to distract attention from its
own nuclear program by pointing out that the United States
maintains a substantial arsenal. In testimony delivered while
the review conference was being held, Secretary Clinton said of
the New START Treaty:
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\2\Paul K. Kerr et al., ``2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Review Conference: Key Issues and Implications,'' Congressional
Research Service, May 3, 2010, p. 7.
In my discussions with many foreign leaders,
including earlier this month in New York at the
beginning of the Nonproliferation Treaty review
conference, I have already seen how this New START
Treaty and the fact that the United States and Russia
could agree has made it more difficult for other
countries to shift the conversation back to the United
States. We are seeing an increasing willingness both to
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be held accountable and to hold others accountable.
Later in her testimony, Secretary Clinton said:
[T]he nonaligned movement states have historically
come to their NPT obligations with some criticism that
the United States is not doing its part on the
disarmament front. There was none of that at this
conference in New York because of the fact that we had
reached this agreement with Russia. So it does provide
a stronger platform on which we stand to make the case
against proliferation.
LIMITS ON STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE ARMS
Like the Moscow Treaty, the New START Treaty is designed to
regulate, reduce, and limit the strategic nuclear forces of two
countries that maintain the capability to destroy each other
many times over, but in dramatically different strategic
circumstances than obtained during the Cold War. The original
START Treaty reflected the Cold War, and there was little
confidence in Soviet compliance with substantial arms reduction
and limitation obligations. The New START Treaty reflects a
changed strategic relationship in which both countries have a
record of meeting such obligations (although there have been
many disputes regarding verification and transparency), and
both countries seek to lower the costs of such measures and to
maintain greater freedom to decide how to meet their
obligations. The result is a treaty that specifies numerical
limits but does not include all of the detailed START Treaty
limitations on throw weight, missiles with multiple
independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), certain
strategic military exercises, and other out-of-base activities
involving mobile ICBM launchers.
The key provisions of the New START Treaty are the central
limits contained in Article II, which require the United States
and Russia to reduce their nuclear forces to:
700 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers;
1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear
warheads counted for heavy bombers;
800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM
launchers, and heavy bombers.
Within these limits the United States and Russia can
structure their forces as they see fit. They have 7 years after
the treaty enters into force to meet these limits.
These limits are lower and are structured differently than
those in the original START accord and the Moscow Treaty. START
limited the United States and the Soviet Union to 6,000
strategic warheads attributed to 1,600 delivery vehicles (it
did not distinguish between delivery vehicles and their
launchers). It also contained sub-limits on different types of
warheads and delivery vehicles. (For example, no more than
4,900 of the warheads could be attributed to deployed ICBMs and
SLBMs.) The Moscow Treaty limited each Party to between 1,700
and 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads, but it did not contain
any limits on delivery vehicles or launchers.
The New START Treaty counts treaty-limited items
differently than its predecessors did. Because of the
difficulty in determining how many warheads an ICBM or SLBM is
deployed with at any given time, the original START agreement
simply attributed to each deployed missile an agreed number of
warheads (sometimes, but not always, the maximum number of
warheads that it could carry). Thus, every deployed Soviet/
Russian SS-24 counted as 10 warheads within the central
limitation of 6,000 warheads (and as one delivery vehicle
toward the central limitation of 1,600 delivery vehicles)
regardless of how many warheads it was actually carrying.
Putting more warheads on a missile than the attributed number
was banned. By contrast, the New START Treaty counts the actual
number of warheads on each deployed ICBM and SLBM, rather than
relying on an attribution of a certain number of warheads to
each deployed missile type. New START thus aims to give a more
accurate account of each Party's strategic offensive ICBMs and
SLBMs, and the treaty's verification provisions--notably
including improved reentry vehicle inspections--have been
structured to reflect this change.
Bomber Counting Rule
The original START Treaty also had different counting rules
for bomber-borne nuclear weapons. Bombers incapable of carrying
long-range nuclear air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) were
counted as having one warhead, even if they could carry
multiple bombs or short-range missiles. Bombers capable of
carrying long-range nuclear ALCMs were counted as having half
the number of weapons that they could actually carry. In part,
this was a function of the difficulty of counting how many
weapons could be deployed on bombers because such weapons are
often stored separately from their delivery vehicles. In
addition, the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to
encourage greater reliance on bombers because they are more
stabilizing than missiles, particularly ICBMs. Bombers are
slow, they can be recalled, and they can be shot down. Thus,
the treaty ``discounted'' the number of warheads each bomber
carried.
The New START Treaty applies similar reasoning to the
counting of bombers, but its counting rule is simpler than
START's. Each heavy bomber--defined either as a bomber with a
range of greater than 8,000 kilometers or a bomber that can
carry long-range nuclear ALCMs--is counted as having one
warhead, regardless of how many it can carry. As Dr. Edward L.
Warner III, the Secretary of Defense's representative to the
negotiations, explained in response to a question for the
record:
This attribution rule was adopted because on a day-
to-day basis neither the United States nor the Russian
Federation maintains any nuclear armaments loaded on
its deployed heavy bombers. If the counting approach
adopted for deployed ballistic missiles had been
applied to deployed heavy bombers, each deployed heavy
bomber would have been counted with zero nuclear
warheads. The New START Treaty approach strikes a
balance between the fact that neither side loads
nuclear armaments on its bombers on a day-to-day basis
and the fact that these bombers, nonetheless, have the
capability to deliver nuclear armaments stored in
nuclear weapons storage bunkers on or near their air
bases.
The Moscow Treaty contained no counting rules, saying only
that each country would reduce its ``strategic nuclear
warheads'' to between 1,700 and 2,200 and that each Party would
``determine for itself the composition and structure of its
strategic offensive arms.'' In a November 13, 2001, statement
cited in the treaty, President Bush said the United States
would reduce its ``operationally deployed'' strategic nuclear
warheads, but he did not define that term. The Moscow Treaty
allowed each Party to determine for itself which warheads
counted toward the treaty limit, and those determinations
differed. One press report indicated that Russia did not count
its bombers as having any warheads, while the United States
counted the number of associated weapons stored with each
bomber.\3\ And the reports submitted to the committee in the
Annual Report on Implementation of the Moscow Treaty provided
pursuant to Condition 2(2) of the Senate Resolution of Advice
and Consent to Ratification of the Moscow Treaty have stated:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\Peter Baker, ``Arms Control May Be Different on Paper and on the
Ground,'' The New York Times, March 30, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/
2010/03/31/world/europe/31start.html.
The Treaty makes clear that the Parties need not
implement their reductions in an identical manner.
Russia, like the United States, may reduce its
strategic nuclear warheads by any method it chooses.
Russia could use the U.S. definition of ``operationally
deployed strategic nuclear warheads'' or some other
counting method to quantify its reductions.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\See, for example, http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/rpt/141429.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rail-Mobile Launchers of ICBMs
The committee examined a claim that the New START Treaty
would not limit Russian ICBMs if they were launched from rail-
mobile launchers. At the time of the START Treaty, the Soviet
Union deployed the 10-warhead SS-24 ICBM on a rail-based
launcher. (The United States had also explored deploying the
10-warhead Peacekeeper ICBM on a rail-based system.) Russia
deployed 36 SS-24 rail-based launchers at the height of its
deployment. The START II Treaty would have required Russia to
eliminate or convert all of its ICBM launchers capable of
deploying MIRVs by 2003. To comply with those limits, Russia
and the United States worked together, under the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction program, to destroy Russia's SS-24
ICBMs and rail-based launchers. Those cooperative efforts
continued even though the START II Treaty ultimately did not
come into force, and the last Russian SS-24 launcher was
eliminated in 2007.
In addition to its overall limit on the total number of
warheads attributed to deployed ICBMs and their associated
launchers, deployed SLBMs and their associated launchers, and
deployed heavy bombers, the START Treaty contained a sublimit
on warheads attributed to deployed ICBMs on mobile launchers of
ICBMs. There was also a sublimit on the aggregate number of
non-deployed ICBMs for all mobile launchers of ICBMs, with a
further limit that the number of non-deployed ICBMs for rail-
mobile launchers of ICBMs could not exceed half of the
aggregate number. The systems covered by these sublimits were
therefore tied to the START Treaty's definition of a ``mobile
launcher of ICBMs.'' Because the sublimit needed to cover both
the rail-mobile and road-mobile launchers that were deployed at
the time of the treaty, the START Treaty's definition of
``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' was ``a road-mobile launcher of
ICBMs or a rail-mobile launcher of ICBMs.''
Article II of the New START Treaty, by contrast, contains
only plain limits on ICBMs and ICBM launchers, SLBMs and SLBM
launchers, and heavy bombers, with no sublimits. Within those
limits, each side retains the flexibility to shape its
strategic nuclear forces. As a result, there is no sublimit on
the number of deployed mobile ICBMs within the treaty's limit
of 700 total deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy
bombers. Similarly, the limit of 800 total deployed and non-
deployed ICBM launchers, deployed and non-deployed SLBM
launchers, and deployed and non-deployed heavy bombers contains
no sublimit on deployed and non-deployed mobile launchers of
ICBMs.
Consequently, the characteristics of the strategic
offensive arms limited by Article II of the treaty--in
particular, the deployed and non-deployed launchers of ICBMs,
the deployed ICBMs, and their associated warheads--do not hinge
on the treaty's definition of ``mobile launchers of ICBMs''
(which, as discussed below, the treaty retains for purposes
other than the limits of Article II). Article II uses defined
terms to establish the limits, and Part One of the Protocol
explicitly defines the terms ``ICBM,'' ``deployed ICBM,''
``ICBM launcher,'' and ``deployed launcher of ICBMs'' that are
used in Article II.
Specifically, Article II, paragraph 1(a) limits each side
to no more than 700 ``deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and
deployed heavy bombers.'' Paragraph 37 of Part One of the
Protocol defines the term ``intercontinental ballistic
missile,'' or ``ICBM,'' as ``a land-based ballistic missile
with a range in excess of 5,500 kilometers.'' Paragraph 13 of
Part One of the Protocol defines the term ``deployed ICBM'' to
mean ``an ICBM that is contained in or on a deployed launcher
of ICBMs.'' Paragraph 14 of Part One of the Protocol in turn
defines ``deployed launcher of ICBMs'' as ``an ICBM launcher
that contains an ICBM and is not an ICBM test launcher, an ICBM
training launcher, or an ICBM launcher located at a space
launch facility.'' The term ``ICBM launcher'' is also a defined
term: Paragraph 28 of Part One of the Protocol defines it to
mean ``a device intended or used to contain, prepare for
launch, and launch an ICBM.''
Reading these defined terms together leads the committee to
conclude that any land-based ballistic missile with a range in
excess of 5,500 kilometers that is contained in or on a device
intended or used to contain, prepare for launch, and launch an
ICBM--which device is not an ICBM test launcher, an ICBM
training launcher or an ICBM launcher located at a space launch
facility--counts under the limit in Article II, paragraph 1(a),
whether that ICBM is deployed in a silo launcher, a road-mobile
launcher, or a rail-mobile launcher. (Article II, paragraph
1(b) in turn limits warheads on items counted under paragraph
1(a); thus the warheads on any deployed ICBM count toward the
1,550 limit.)
Article II, paragraph 1(c) also limits each side to 800
``deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, deployed and non-
deployed SLBM launchers, and deployed and non-deployed heavy
bombers.'' Yet again, the definitions of the relevant terms do
not depend upon the Protocol's definition of the term ``mobile
launcher of ICBMs.'' As stated above, the phrase ``deployed
launcher of ICBMs'' is defined by paragraph 14 of Part One of
the Protocol. Paragraph 49 of Part One of the Protocol defines
a ``non-deployed launcher of ICBMs'' as ``an ICBM test
launcher, an ICBM training launcher, an ICBM launcher located
at a space launch facility, or an ICBM launcher, other than a
soft-site launcher, that does not contain a deployed ICBM.''
The definitions of the terms ``test launcher'' (paragraph 80 of
Part One of the Protocol), ``training launcher'' (paragraph 83)
and ``space launch facility'' (paragraph 73) do not reference,
and are not affected by, the defined term ``mobile launcher of
ICBMs.'' Thus, regardless of whether it contained a deployed
ICBM, any rail-mobile launcher that satisfied the definition of
an ``ICBM launcher''--that is, it was ``a device intended or
used to contain, prepare for launch, and launch'' a land-based
ballistic missile with a range in excess of 5,500 kilometers--
would count under the limit established by Article II,
paragraph 1(c).
As noted above, however, even though the treaty does not
handle mobile launchers of ICBMs differently than other
launchers of ICBMs for the purposes of the Article II limits,
mobile ICBM launchers are treated differently than fixed, silo
launchers in certain other ways. Part One of the Protocol,
paragraph 45 creates a special definition for mobile launchers
of ICBMs; the term is defined as ``an erector-launcher
mechanism for launching ICBMs and the self-propelled device on
which it is mounted.'' This definition excludes the reference
to a rail-mobile launcher of ICBMs that had been contained in
the definition in the START Treaty. (START defined a rail-
mobile launcher of ICBMs as ``an erector-launcher mechanism for
launching ICBMs and the railcar or flatcar on which it is
mounted.'') When asked why the definition of mobile launcher of
ICBMs was changed to exclude the reference to rail-mobile
launchers, the Secretary of Defense answered for the record,
``Rail-mobile ICBMs are not specifically mentioned in the New
START Treaty because neither Party currently deploys ICBMs in
that mode.''
The term ``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' is used in, or
otherwise affects, Articles III, IV, VI, VII, and XI, as well
as provisions in the Protocol and Annexes related to those
articles. For example:
In the main Treaty text, Article III, paragraph 5
states that mobile launchers of ICBMs will first become
subject to the treaty when they leave a production
facility (as opposed to silo launchers, which become
subject to the treaty when the silo door is first
installed and closed).
Article IV, paragraph 3(a) bars mobile launchers of
prototype ICBMs from being located at maintenance
facilities of ICBM bases. Article IV, paragraph 4
allows non-deployed mobile launchers of ICBMs to be in
transit between facilities for no more than 30 days at
a time.
Part Two of the Protocol, which describes the
information that is provided for the database created
by Article VII of the treaty, establishes differing
types of information that must be provided related to
ICBM bases, production facilities, storage facilities,
repair facilities, and conversion or elimination
facilities for mobile launchers of ICBMs. The Parties
must also provide height, width, and length data
regarding mobile launchers of ICBMs.
Section III, paragraphs 4-7 of Part Three of the
Protocol--which sets out in detail how the Parties will
satisfy Article VI of the treaty on conversion and
elimination--establishes conversion and elimination
procedures specific to mobile launchers. Paragraph 2 of
Section VII of Part Three of the Protocol establishes a
specific elimination procedure for fixed structures for
mobile launchers of ICBMs.
Paragraph 3(a) of Section II of Part Four of the
Protocol (which covers notifications) requires that the
Parties notify one another no later than five days
after the emergence of new versions of mobile launchers
of ICBMs.
Sections VI and VII of Part Five (on Inspection
Activities) of the Protocol establish slightly
different procedures for inspections of facilities that
house deployed, non-deployed, or eliminated mobile
launchers of ICBMs. For example, paragraph 7(c) of
Section VI of Part Five of the Protocol gives the
inspected Party only five hours after the completion of
pre-inspection procedures at an inspected ICBM base to
transport inspectors to conduct a Type One inspection
of an ICBM on a mobile launcher of ICBMs (the inspected
Party has 12 hours to transport inspectors to a silo
launcher designated for inspection). Part Five of the
Protocol, Section VII, paragraph 4 permits Type Two
inspections in order to confirm, among other things,
that mobile launchers of ICBMs have actually been
eliminated in accordance with an earlier notification.
The committee believes that it is highly unlikely that
during the duration of the treaty the Russian Federation, after
years of working with the United States to destroy its
remaining Cold War-era rail-mobile launchers, would divert
limited resources and infrastructure from its planned
deployment of new road-mobile ICBM forces and instead (or in
addition) build and deploy rail-mobile launchers.
Nevertheless, while a new rail-mobile system would clearly
be captured under the Article II limits despite the exclusion
of rail-mobile launchers from the definition of mobile
launchers of ICBMs, those provisions that actually use the
defined term ``mobile launchers of ICBMs'' would not cover
rail-mobile systems if Russia were to re-introduce them. The
Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense explained for
the record that, if a Party chose to develop and deploy rail-
mobile ICBMs, ``Appropriate detailed arrangements for
incorporating rail-mobile ICBM launchers and their ICBMs into
the treaty's verification and monitoring regime would be worked
out in the Bilateral Consultative Commission.'' Under Article
XV, paragraph 2, under the auspices of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission (BCC) the Parties may make changes to
the Protocol or Annexes that do not affect substantive rights
and obligations of the Parties, without resorting to the
constitutional procedures for amending the main treaty text or
for making changes to the Protocol or Annexes that do alter
substantive rights and obligations of the Parties. If Russia
were again to produce rail-mobile ICBM launchers, the Parties
would work within the BCC to find a way to ensure that the
treaty's notification, inspection, and monitoring regime would
adequately cover them.
The committee does not believe that there is any
disagreement between the United States and the Russian
Federation on any of these points. Rather than take this for
granted, however, the committee recommends that the Senate
include in its resolution of advice and consent to the
ratification of the treaty an understanding, to be included in
the instrument of ratification, that sets forth the United
States' understanding of how the treaty would apply to rail-
mobile-launched ICBMs and their launchers.
U.S. FORCE STRUCTURE UNDER THE TREATY'S LIMITS
The executive branch has provided some details as to how it
will reduce U.S. nuclear forces to comply with New START's
limits in both its Nuclear Posture Review (submitted pursuant
to section 1070 of Title X of Public Law 110-181, the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008) and a plan
provided to Congress in accordance with section 1251 of Title
XII of Public Law 111-84, the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (the ``1251 report''). In the plan
contained in the 1251 report, the Department of Defense
indicated that it would maintain the U.S. nuclear triad of
ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers, but reduce the size of each leg.
Currently, the United States has 450 ICBM silos, and the
administration plans to retain up to 420 ICBMs, each carrying a
single warhead. The United States has 94 deployable nuclear-
capable heavy bombers; the administration plans to convert some
of these bombers to a conventional-only role (at which point
they would not count toward the treaty's limits) and to retain
up to 60 nuclear-capable bombers. The administration plans to
retain all 14 strategic nuclear submarines that the United
States has, but it will reduce the number of SLBM launch tubes
on each submarine from 24 to 20 and it will deploy no more than
240 SLBMs at any one time.
These figures add up to 720 delivery vehicles, so the
United States will have to make further cuts in order to meet
treaty limits. When asked in a question for the record why the
plan did not specify all the cuts that would be made, the
Secretary of Defense responded:
Because the treaty covers a 10-year period after
entry into force, the Department has outlined a
baseline force structure that fully supports U.S.
strategy. This structure is important for planning
purposes and shows our commitment to maintaining the
Triad, but also allows us to modify our force structure
plans while fielding a force of 700 deployed strategic
delivery vehicles, as circumstances dictate.
During its deliberations, the committee examined whether
New START's limits would allow the United States to field an
effective nuclear deterrent force. Several Members pointed out
that, in a 2008 white paper, the Departments of Defense and
Energy had recommended maintaining a larger deployed force of
862 ICBMs, SLBMs, and bombers.\5\ In response, Secretary Gates
noted:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\``National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century,''
September 2008. http://www.defense.gov/news/nuclearweaponspolicy.pdf.
The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) conducted detailed
analysis of current and future threats, as well as
potential reductions in strategic weapons, including
delivery vehicles that would allow the United States to
sustain stable deterrence at lower force levels. The
conclusion from the NPR analysis is that stable
deterrence could be maintained at lower strategic
delivery vehicle levels, given our estimates of current
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
and future Russian strategic forces.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael G.
Mullen, USN, also noted that this determination was made using
existing guidance for the employment of nuclear weapons:
``Utilizing existing targeting policies, the NPR conducted
detailed analysis of potential reductions in strategic weapons,
and concluded that stable deterrence could be maintained at
lower levels, assuming parallel reductions by Russia to meet
the lower ceiling of the New START Treaty.''
In addition, Secretary Gates pointed out that the 2008
white paper had used different counting rules than those used
in the New START Treaty. For example, under New START's
counting rules and provisions for conversion, it is possible to
retain all 14 strategic nuclear submarines with only 240
accountable SLBMs--96 fewer than assumed in the 2008 paper.
Thus, much of the difference between the 862 delivery vehicles
called for in the white paper and the 700 allowed by New START
can be achieved without reducing the number of U.S. strategic
submarines (SSBNs) or heavy bombers.
Similarly, Gen. James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote the Committee on Armed
Services to explain why the treaty's limit of 700 deployed
strategic delivery vehicles ``provides a sound framework for
maintaining stability and allows us to maintain a strong and
credible deterrent that ensures our national security while
moving to lower levels of strategic nuclear forces.'' That
letter is reprinted in full at the end of this report.
General Chilton, who is responsible for the operation of
U.S. nuclear forces, also told the committee that he strongly
supported the New START Treaty and that its limits would not
degrade the U.S. nuclear deterrent. In answering a question for
the record, he replied, ``Under the 700 limit on deployed
ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, and 800 limit
on deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers,
and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, the US will maintain a
sufficiently robust and flexible deterrent force.''
His predecessors agree. On July 14, 2010, seven former
Commanders of Strategic Air Command and U.S. Strategic Command
sent a letter to the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed
Services, noting their support for the New START Treaty and
explaining that its limits were reasonable:
[A]lthough the New START Treaty will require U.S.
reductions, we believe that the post-treaty force will
represent a survivable, robust and effective deterrent,
one fully capable of deterring attack on both the
United States and America's allies and partners. The
Department of Defense has said that it will, under the
treaty, maintain 14 Trident ballistic missile
submarines, each equipped to carry 20 Trident D-5
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). As two
of the 14 submarines are normally in long-term
maintenance without missiles on board, the U.S. Navy
will deploy 240 Trident SLBMs. Under the treaty's
terms, the United States will also be able to deploy up
to 420 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) and up to 60 heavy bombers equipped
for nuclear armaments. That will continue to be a
formidable force that will ensure deterrence and give
the President, should it be necessary, a broad range of
military options.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\General Larry Welch (USAF, Ret), General John Chain (USAF, Ret),
General Lee Butler (USAF, Ret), Admiral Henry Chiles (USN, Ret),
General Eugene Habiger (USAF, Ret), Admiral James Ellis (USN, Ret),
General Bennie Davis (USAF, Ret); Letter to Senator Carl Levin, Senator
John McCain, Senator John F. Kerry, and Senator Richard G. Lugar; July
14, 2010.
This letter is reprinted in full at the end of this report.
TREATY COMPLIANCE AND VERIFICATION
The President of the United States, in his letter of
transmittal of the New START Treaty to the Senate, stated:
The treaty will promote transparency and
predictability in the strategic relationship between
the United States and the Russian Federation and will
enable each Party to verify that the other Party is
complying with its obligations through a regime that
includes on-site inspections, notifications, a
comprehensive and continuing exchange of data regarding
strategic offensive arms, and provisions for the use of
national technical means of verification.
The Secretary of Defense, who had said that the New START
Treaty ``maintains an effective verification regime'' when the
text of the treaty was first released, testified to the
committee that he was confident of the verifiability of the
treaty:
In my view, a key contribution of this treaty is its
provision for a strong verification regime . . . which
provides a firm basis for monitoring Russia's
compliance with its treaty obligations while also
providing important insights into the size and the
composition of Russian strategic forces.
Admiral Mullen, when asked whether the New START
verification regime would increase or decrease our overall
understanding of the Russian arsenal compared to the START
Treaty period, replied, ``I think, on balance, it would
increase it.''
The committee notes, and witnesses conceded, that the New
START verification regime does not include the START Treaty
regime's perimeter and portal continuous monitoring (PPCM)
facility at the Votkinsk missile production plant in Russia, or
the exchange of nearly all telemetry from long-range missile
tests, and it provides for fewer on-site inspections than under
the START Treaty (although some inspections will include a
range of activities that would have required two inspections
under START, and the number of Russian strategic weapons
facilities to be inspected has decreased over the years as its
strategic forces have been reduced and consolidated). Some
committee members were skeptical, moreover, regarding the
benefits to be gained from such new aspects of the New START
verification regime as increased use of unique identifiers on
Russian missiles and bombers, more extensive notifications of
missile and bomber movements, and inspection of up to 10
missiles per year to determine how many reentry vehicles are
actually on them (as opposed to the less rigorous requirement,
under the START Treaty, to ensure that the missile did not have
more reentry vehicles than the number attributed to it under
that treaty).
The fact remains, however, that the START Treaty's
verification regime ended when that treaty expired on December
5, 2009. Neither Russia nor the United States proposed
extending that treaty, so the choice today is between the New
START Treaty regime and no regime at all. As General Chilton
explained to the committee:
[I]f we don't get the treaty, (a) they're not
constrained in their development of force structure,
and (b) we have no insight into what they're doing. So,
it's the worst of both possible worlds. And so, what
that means to us is that we have to guess or, through
other national technical means, estimate what their
force structure and what the capability of their
weapons are, which then leads us to do analysis on what
[we] need. And the less precise that is, the more the
probability that we either under- or overdevelop the
force structure we require. And neither is a good
result. ``Under,'' it would be a security issue;
``over'' would be a cost issue. We could end up
developing capabilities that we really didn't require.
The committee heard testimony in closed session from U.S.
Intelligence Community witnesses and from chief New START
negotiator Rose Gottemoeller in her capacity as Assistant
Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance. The
committee also reviewed both public and classified materials on
these issues, including: the National Intelligence Estimate on
U.S. capabilities to monitor Russian compliance with the
treaty; the State Department's report on the verifiability of
the treaty, provided pursuant to section 306(a)(1) of the Arms
Control and Disarmament Act (22 U.S.C. 2577(a)(1)); and the
Secretary of State's report (with the concurrence of the
Director of National Intelligence) on other countries'
compliance with their arms control obligations under treaties
to which the United States is a party, provided pursuant to
section 403(a) of the same Act (22 U.S.C. 2593a(a)), which
included a discussion of START Treaty compliance issues for the
period between 2005 and the expiration of that treaty in
December 2009. All three reports were discussed at this closed
hearing.
The committee received a letter from the Secretary of
Defense that summarized ``the Department's assessment of the
military significance of potential Russian cheating or
breakout, based on the recent National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE) on monitoring the treaty.'' (The unclassified text of
that letter is appended to this report.) The committee also
received classified letters from the chairman and from the vice
chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which
conducted its own review and held its own hearings on
verification issues relating to the New START Treaty. Based on
its review of all these materials, the committee concludes that
the New START Treaty is effectively verifiable.
The standard of ``effective verification'' is a term of art
that has been used since the Reagan administration, which
applied it regarding the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty in 1988. Ambassador Paul Nitze explained the term
to the committee as follows:
What do we mean by effective verification? We mean
that we want to be sure that, if the other side moves
beyond the limits of the treaty in any militarily
significant way, we would be able to detect such
violation in time to respond effectively and thereby
deny the other side the benefit of the violation.
The Secretary of Defense's letter to the committee
addressed the concept in similar terms, explaining that:
[A] key criterion in evaluating whether the treaty is
effectively verifiable is whether the U.S. would be
able to detect, and respond to, any Russian attempt to
move beyond the treaty's limits in a way that has
military significance, well before such an attempt
threatened U.S. national security.
Arms control verification is not perfect science, and no
arms control treaty comes with the assurance of perfect
compliance or verification. Arms control compliance can be less
than complete even when countries are trying to comply with
their obligations, either because the obligations are unclear
or because they are difficult to implement. Disclosing military
information to representatives of another country runs against
the grain of most militaries, moreover, and that is surely so
in Russia. Items limited by arms control treaties are seen as
significant instruments of national power and sovereignty. To
understand verification and compliance under the New START
Treaty, it helps to consider how these concerns were addressed
under the START Treaty and what factors go into estimating the
likelihood and implications of various potential cheating
scenarios.
When the original START Treaty was considered in 1992, the
imperfections of arms control verification were readily
conceded. The Director of Central Intelligence (Robert M.
Gates, who is now Secretary of Defense) testified that the
Intelligence Community would have difficulty counting the
number of non-deployed mobile missiles and the number of
Russian warheads. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
added that there would be ``relatively low levels of monitoring
confidence with respect to the range and arming of air-launched
cruise missiles (ALCMs), as well as the number of ALCMs
actually carried by a heavy bomber.'' The same concerns exist
today for mobile missiles and for warheads. There are no
specific ALCM provisions in New START, so verification of the
numbers and capabilities of such systems is no longer needed,
although transparency regarding ALCM numbers and the carrying
capacity of Russian heavy bombers remains a concern.
The desire for strict verification of the other party's
compliance with treaty obligations must be balanced against the
desire in one's own armed forces to avoid such verification of
their activities. Thus, in the START Treaty, the Joint Staff
preferred to treat sea-launched cruise missiles in a political
arrangement outside the treaty so as to avoid any verification
requirements. In return, the United States agreed to a similar
arrangement that avoided any treaty-mandated verification of
Russian commitments regarding the Backfire bomber. And
exemptions were added to the telemetry exchange provisions of
START to satisfy military concerns in both countries. In New
START, the desire of both countries to avoid having to disclose
telemetry relating to missile defense systems or to reentry
vehicle penetration features led to a treaty in which the
provision of telemetry is a largely discretionary transparency
measure, rather than a verification requirement.
Strategic arms control agreements are often complex,
moreover, and compliance disputes can arise due to differing
interpretations of treaty text that is not crystal clear. The
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence noted three areas in
which the original START Treaty might lead to compliance
disputes, warning, in part, that:
START's ban on ``concealment measures'' does not
apply to ``cover or concealment practices at ICBM bases
and deployment areas, or to the use of environmental
shelters for strategic offensive arms.'' Neither
``concealment measures'' nor ``concealment practices''
is defined, so it is not clear precisely what
activities are to be permitted.
The same provision appears in paragraph 2 of Article X of
the New START Treaty. An optimist could conclude that the
concerns voiced in 1992 did not come to pass; a pessimist might
respond that New START will inherit some of the START Treaty's
risk of compliance disputes.
Many factors influence the verifiability of an arms control
treaty. One way to think about these factors is to consider the
calculations of a would-be violator of the treaty. This
highlights a key element that Nitze's definition of ``effective
verification'' leaves out: that the most effective verification
is that which deters other parties from violating the treaty in
the first place. It is never a certain matter what the other
party's political and military leaders contemplate in this
regard, so we rarely measure verification effectiveness by its
impact on their calculations, but arms control treaties and
their verification regimes can still be constructed to maximize
such an impact.
To the extent that the other country is a rational actor,
its decisions related to treaty compliance will be based on a
cost-benefit analysis. What is to be gained by cheating, and
what costs and risks (which are a contingent form of cost)
would this entail? One reason why the Moscow Treaty contained
no verification regime of its own was the belief that, since it
merely codified decisions that each Party had already made,
neither Party would have any desire to cheat.
Similarly, a good case can be made that Russia has little
incentive to violate the core obligations of the New START
Treaty. Owing to economic pressures, it is very likely that
Russian forces would be reduced with or without the treaty, and
Russia's objective in the negotiations was probably to prevent
the United States from taking the opportunity to maintain
substantially larger strategic forces than Russa can afford to
field. If this is so, then the same dynamic that was at play in
the Moscow Treaty may pertain for New START: a country that
already plans to reduce its forces is less likely to cheat than
one that feels compelled by the treaty to undertake distasteful
actions.
The perceived benefits of cheating will also be influenced
by how one party believes the other would respond. Would the
United States detect Russian noncompliance in time to respond?
And what could it do if it did so? When the Soviet Union
violated the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), there was
little the United States could do other than publicize the
evidence of the violation and prepare for possible biological
weapons attacks in the event of a war. The publicity affected
Soviet prestige, however, and eventually the massive
Biopreparat infrastructure for biological weapon research and
production under the cover of civilian activities was
dismantled or diverted into acceptable pursuits. (Concerns
remain regarding the activities of Russian military
laboratories.) Similarly, the Soviet Union admitted and
remedied its construction of the Krasnoyarsk radar in violation
of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty).
Department of Defense witnesses on the New START Treaty
have emphasized the ability of the United States to respond to
any serious Russian violation of the treaty. General Chilton
said: ``What gives me some confidence, just looking at it from
the DOD perspective, is that we have preserved a hedge
capability, both for technical failure and for geopolitical
surprise, that I think makes me comfortable with where we are
at this time.'' Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy Miller elaborated on that hedge, noting:
[T]he Treaty allows us to maintain our stockpile of
nondeployed warheads in an upload capacity with our
strategic delivery systems, which provide a hedge
against adverse technical developments or a serious
deterioration in the international security
environment.
Russian commentary during the negotiation of the treaty
suggests that Russia is very sensitive to U.S. upload
capabilities, and it would be reasonable to assume that such
capabilities would figure in the Russian cost-benefit analysis
of any proposed serious violation of the treaty.
While the U.S. upload capacity lowers the perceived
benefits of any Russian violation scenario, Russian concerns
over those upload capabilities could lead it to improve its own
force reconstitution capabilities, so as to be prepared if the
United States were to break out from New START. The United
States begins with an advantage in this area, however, because
it plans to deploy its ICBMs and SLBMs with fewer warheads than
they are equipped to carry--thus leaving a significant upload
capacity. Russia has not announced similar plans and would have
to increase its production of ICBMs and SLBMs (and associated
launchers) to make much progress in this regard, which means
that there would be real costs involved. Any newly-produced
Russian solid-fueled ICBM or SLBM must be notified to the
United States at least 48 hours before the missile leaves the
final assembly plant, so the United States will have a good
sense of whether Russia is building up its stock of readily-
deployable non-deployed missiles.
A more readily available (although still not cost-free)
approach to increasing upload potential might be for Russia to
increase its stock of heavy bombers, gravity bombs or ALCMs.
Bombs and cruise missiles are not limited in this treaty, in
keeping with the U.S. position ever since the original START
Treaty to encourage the use of heavy bombers as second-strike
weapons. As chief New START negotiator Rose Gottemoeller told
the committee, ``heavy bombers have long been considered to be
more stabilizing than ICBMs or SLBMs because, as slow-flying
weapons systems, compared to ballistic missiles, they are not
well suited to first-strike missions.''
An important feature of New START breakout scenarios is
that while they could be conducted in secrecy, neither Party
would appear to have much to gain through covert production and
stockpiling of non-deployed warheads. In Russia's case,
moreover, if its plans call for missile and launcher numbers
well below the New START limits, it may have the option of
increased overt production of those systems. In short, New
START offers each Party a perfectly legal alternative to
cheating scenarios, including for Russia to build the same
upload capacity that the United States plans to maintain. If
Russia finds such an overt build-up unnecessary or too costly,
then it is that much more likely to reject covert options. In
any case, the incentive to cheat and attempt to evade detection
under New START is not great for Russia.
A treaty's verification provisions and U.S. monitoring
capabilities (especially our ``national technical means of
verification'' (NTM), satellites and radars that are protected
from interference by Article X of the treaty) would also figure
in any Russian cost-benefit calculus. A strong verification
regime and effective U.S. monitoring would raise both the
likelihood of detection (and, therefore, of having to pay the
costs that are incurred if cheating is exposed) and the costs
associated with trying to avoid such detection in the first
place.
The original START Treaty broke new ground in the
verification of strategic arms control compliance, as had the
earlier INF Treaty for nuclear-capable missiles with shorter
ranges. START combined notifications and on-site inspections
with PPCM at the Votkinsk missile production plant, exhibitions
of weapons of each type and variant, detailed (and, as it
turned out, unbearably expensive) standards for the conversion
or elimination of treaty-limited items, a substantial ban on
telemetry encryption, a requirement for extensive exchange of
telemetry, and the right to require, from time to time, that
heavy bombers or mobile launchers of ICBMs be displayed in the
open for six hours so that they could be located and counted
through the use of satellite imagery.
The verification regimes established by the INF and START
Treaties were an immense success. Some pre-START estimates of
Soviet weapons production were found to be inflated as
inspectors visited Russian bases, came to know their military
hosts, and learned the day-to-day production, basing and
deployment activities of Russian strategic offensive arms. (Of
course, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet
Union also helped change both Russian capabilities and American
perceptions.) Monitoring at Votkinsk gave the United States
over 20 years of observing Russian missile production. And 15
years of exchanging telemetry tapes provided extraordinary
insight into Russian missile design and characteristics.
PPCM at Votkinsk ended when the START Treaty expired. PPCM
had been needed to distinguish INF Treaty-limited missiles from
ICBM stages, and it was used under START to monitor mobile ICBM
production. The New START Treaty has no sublimits on mobile
missile numbers, so the need for PPCM is decreased; the treaty
does provide for 48 hours' notice of the departure of a solid-
fueled ICBM or SLBM from a production facility; and Russia made
clear years ago that it would oppose continuing PPCM at the
Votkinsk facility after the expiration of the START Treaty, as
there was no similar facility for Russians to monitor in the
United States. For all these reasons, neither the Bush
administration nor the Obama administration insisted upon
retaining PPCM in a replacement of the START Treaty.
The New START Treaty is a treaty for an era in which
neither Russia nor the United States seriously worries that the
other country contemplates nuclear war. The treaty has fewer
restrictions on strategic forces, and its verification regime--
although based on that of the START Treaty--had to compete in
both countries with the goals of force flexibility, information
security, and cost containment. Under this treaty, as under
START, it will still be difficult to determine with certainty
how many deployed warheads or non-deployed mobile ICBMs Russia
has. And under this treaty, as under START, treaty compliance
will have to compete with other pressing priorities for the use
of U.S. intelligence systems.
The New START verification regime and U.S. arms control
monitoring will still put major obstacles in the path of any
significant cheating scenario, however, and the notifications,
inspections, and possible telemetry exchanges that will result
from this treaty will still foster important transparency and
confidence building regarding each country's strategic nuclear
forces. That is why the committee judges that the treaty is
effectively verifiable, so long as a high priority is given to
the use of the treaty's verification regime and U.S. NTM.
Under the New START Treaty, an initial database will be
created within 45 days of the treaty's entry into force. This
database will include the unique identifier (UID) of each
deployed or non-deployed ICBM, SLBM, and heavy bomber (in
effect, a serial number printed on each heavy bomber; on each
missile and, as appropriate, on its canister; and on or near
its launcher) and specify its location. It will also specify
the total number of deployed warheads each country has, by type
of missile. The database will be fully updated every six
months.
As noted earlier, a new solid-fueled ICBM or SLBM will no
longer be observed by on-site inspectors as it leaves the
production facility. But Russia will be required to provide 48
hours' prior notice of that departure, so that the United
States can monitor the production facility with satellite
imagery and perhaps observe the event. The notification will
include the UID of each missile leaving the production plant.
Most changes to the database will be notified within five
days. When a new missile or heavy bomber is deployed, or when a
deployed missile or launcher is moved from one base to another,
this change to the database must be notified. When a missile or
heavy bomber goes into maintenance or is lost due to accident,
disablement, placement on static display, conversion, or
launch, it changes from deployed to non-deployed and, so, must
be notified. Similarly, when it returns to deployed status,
this must be notified to the United States.
Non-deployed mobile launchers of ICBMs may be in transit no
longer than 30 days at a time, pursuant to paragraph 4 of
Article IV. Such launchers may otherwise be located only at
ICBM bases, production facilities, ICBM loading facilities,
repair facilities, storage facilities, conversion or
elimination facilities, training facilities, test ranges, and
space launch facilities. Mobile launchers of prototype ICBMs
shall not be located at maintenance facilities of ICBM bases,
pursuant to paragraph 3(a) of Article IV.
At any given time, therefore, the United States will have a
reasonable understanding of where each Russian ICBM, SLBM, and
heavy bomber is based and whether that missile or bomber is
deployed or in maintenance. Over time, moreover, the United
States will get a sense of each missile and heavy bomber's
deployment and maintenance routine.
On-site inspections will offer access to additional data on
Russian missiles or heavy bombers. When a missile base is
inspected (and there will be up to ten inspections per year of
bases housing deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, or heavy bombers), the
inspectors will be told and shown where each missile is, and
told how many warheads are deployed on it. The warhead
information is new to this treaty, as is the identification of
each SLBM and silo-based ICBM. The inspectors may then pick one
missile and be shown how many warheads that missile is
carrying. This is different from reentry vehicle inspections
under START, in which the only requirement was to demonstrate
that the missile did not have more warheads than the number
attributed to it in the START database. This different
requirement--and years of JCIC discussions with Russia that
resolved many, but not all, disputes regarding the use of
reentry vehicle covers to limit the information provided in
these inspections--led the New START negotiators to include
more detailed language regarding the nature of permitted covers
in reentry vehicle inspections under the new treaty. New START
also includes provisions for the use of radiation detection
equipment, as necessary, to confirm that an object on the front
section of a missile that is declared to be non-nuclear (and,
hence, not a reentry vehicle) is, in fact, non-nuclear. This
technique was developed during the START years and was adopted
by the JCIC as a measure to improve the viability and
effectiveness of that treaty.
As it did under the START Treaty, the executive branch will
rely on authorities in the treaty to give effect to certain of
the New START Treaty's provisions, including those that relate
to according privileges and immunities to inspectors and
aircrew members and provide for the transfer to the Russian
Federation of certain restricted data.
The committee cannot know whether there will be further
compliance disputes over the use of covers in these
inspections, but both Parties clearly understand the
requirement to demonstrate precisely how many reentry vehicles
are on the inspected missile. Senior U.S. negotiators explained
one way they addressed the possibility of disputes on this
issue:
[T]he New START Treaty has a provision that requires
that before a hard or combined RV cover is used for the
first time during a reentry vehicle inspection, the
fully assembled cover must first be demonstrated,
including the right to measure the cover. This approach
is intended to help address issues early on if Russia
elects to use reentry vehicle covers that hampered the
ability of U.S. inspectors to accurately count the
number of RVs emplaced on an ICBM or SLBM during the
implementation of START.
Assuming that the results of a reentry vehicle inspection
under New START are undisputed, the question arises of what
inferences analysts may draw from knowing the number of
warheads on up to ten Russian missiles per year. Under the
START Treaty, to the extent that the United States could
determine that no inspected Russian missile had more than the
permitted number of warheads, it could infer that the
uninspected missiles were also within treaty limits. The
confidence with which that inference could be reached rose with
the number of such inspections and with the size of the
cheating scenario that one was worried about (since a cheating
scenario involving more missiles with extra warheads would
raise the odds of detection in a reentry vehicle inspection,
and would therefore raise the significance of conducting x
inspections without finding any offenders). If a missile had
been found with more warheads than the number attributed to
that type of missile, moreover, it would have been in violation
of Article V, paragraph 12 of the treaty.
Drawing inferences from New START inspections will arguably
be more complicated. If a missile at the inspected base is not
the one that inspectors were told it was, or if it is not one
that previous notifications placed at that base, then clearly
an error has been made; whether the error implies the existence
of a purposeful violation of the treaty may be difficult to
judge. If there are more missiles or launchers present than
were declared for that base, then the error may more readily be
viewed as evidence of a violation. If the missile designated
for reentry vehicle inspection has fewer warheads than the
number that was given to the inspection team, the error may be
viewed as unintentional. If the missile has more warheads than
the number given to the inspection team and if no missile of
that type has been declared to have that many warheads, then
intentional deceit would be a reasonable conclusion. But if
some missiles of that type have x warheads and some have a
larger number y, and if a missile declared to have x warheads
turns out to have y, it will be difficult to infer a systemic
violation on the basis of finding a single error. If several
inspections produce similar results, then the inference of
systematic cheating may be more readily drawn, although it
could still be difficult to prove.
The question also arises of what inferences can be drawn if
reentry vehicle inspections always find precisely the number of
warheads that Russian hosts told the inspection team the
inspected missile was carrying. From a statistical standpoint,
repeated findings of ``no problem'' do increase the likelihood
that there is, indeed, no problem. That inference will be more
readily drawn if the declared number of warheads is constant
for a given type of missile (even if the missile is capable of
carrying more warheads than are found on it), because that will
suggest that the loading is a standard operating procedure for
Russian forces. If the declared warhead loading is at or near
the maximum that we believe the missile is designed to carry,
then we will more readily infer from ``no problem'' inspection
results that little or no cheating could possibly be taking
place. And if a given Russian missile base is inspected a few
times and no anomalies are found, then the odds become good
that there is no problem, at least at that base.
This statistical inference, or inference aided by analysis
of standard and current Russian practices regarding the warhead
loadings of each type of its missiles, may be supplemented by
considering the cost-benefit calculus that would govern any
decision to violate the treaty. The costs to Russia of being
caught with more warheads than it has declared could be
substantial. As noted earlier, the United States could readily
upload American heavy bombers or missiles in response to an
apparent Russian violation. It seems unlikely, therefore, that
Russia would violate a major provision of the treaty (such as
its Article II limits) if the perceived odds of being caught
were not quite low. Viewed from that standpoint, up to ten ``no
problem'' inspections per year may in only a few years give us
confidence that, unless Russia became desperate or profoundly
foolish, there was in fact no significant cheating going on.
One complicating factor is the possibility that some SLBMs
or mobile ICBMs might be away from the base when an inspection
is carried out. Extra missile launchers could be put on patrol
or more warheads put on out-of-base missiles than on those made
available for inspection. It would be a challenge, however, to
add extra missile launchers without ever being observed by NTM,
or to carry extra warheads without ever being caught in an
inspection when the offending unit came back to base. (Pursuant
to paragraph 1 of Section I of Part Six of the Annex on
Inspection Activities, no later than one hour after an
inspection team names the base that it wants to inspect, the
inspected Party shall implement pre-inspection restrictions at
that site, including ceasing the removal of any treaty-limited
items or other items large enough to hold treaty-limited
items.) Keeping the offending unit or submarine permanently
out-of-base would be impractical, moreover, both because the
equipment requires regular maintenance and because all troops
(not just the troops in a unit with extra launchers or
warheads) need periodic out-of-base training. After a few
inspections at a base, there would be a record regarding
whether particular launchers were being kept out-of-base to an
unusual extent (thanks to being provided the UID of each
missile at a base through the notification process and being
able to confirm the UID of each missile on base whenever we
inspect that base).
Given Russia's apparently low production rates for SLBMs,
submarines, and mobile missiles and launchers over the last 15
years, it is hard to believe that Russia will have the number
of extra missiles and launchers over the next 10-15 years that
would enable it to field a militarily significant covert force.
This is especially true in light of the hedge that the United
States will retain against technical or strategic surprise, as
discussed earlier. The Secretary of Defense's letter to the
committee presented essentially the same conclusion:
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint
Chiefs, the Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, and I
assess that Russia will not be able to achieve
militarily significant cheating or breakout under New
START, due to both the New START verification regime
and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the
planned U.S. strategic force structure. Additional
Russian warheads above the New START limits would have
little or no effect on the U.S. assured second-strike
capabilities that underwrite stable deterrence. U.S.
strategic submarines (SSBNs) at sea, and any alert
heavy bombers will remain survivable irrespective of
the numbers of Russian warheads, and the survivability
of U.S. inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
would be affected only marginally by additional
warheads provided by any Russian cheating or breakout
scenario.
If Russia were to attempt to gain political advantage
by cheating or breakout, the U.S. will be able to
respond rapidly by increasing the alert levels of SSBNs
and bombers, and by uploading warheads on SSBNs,
bombers, and ICBMs. Therefore, the survivable and
flexible U.S. strategic posture planned for New START
will help deter any future Russian leaders from
cheating or breakout from the treaty, should they ever
have such an inclination.
Despite the low likelihood of significant cheating,
violations and compliance disputes are a fact of life in the
implementation of arms control treaties. Over the course of 15
years, the JCIC, where START compliance concerns were discussed
and sometimes resolved, issued 55 agreements, 40 joint
statements, and 60 formal unilateral or coordinated plenary
statements by Parties to the treaty (as well as 29 changes to
the diagrams specifying areas open to inspection in the
facilities covered under the treaty). These were not disputes
over how many missiles each country had, but rather over
compliance with locational restrictions, conversion and
elimination procedures, inspection modalities, and the like.
The likely reason for non-compliant activities was less a plot
to maintain additional forces than a desire to avoid the costs
associated with treaty compliance. Even the famous Krasnoyarsk
radar violation of the ABM Treaty noted earlier was probably
due to the costs associated with building and maintaining that
radar in a treaty-compliant location. (The Soviet Union's
violation of the BWC was another matter, and it stands as a
stark reminder of why effective verification is so important.)
The Secretary of Defense's letter to the committee included
assurances regarding the seriousness with which any Russian
violation of the New START Treaty would be addressed:
The U.S. expects Russia to fully abide by the treaty,
and the U.S. will use all elements of the verification
regime to ensure this is the case. Any Russian cheating
could affect the sustainability of the New START
Treaty, the viability of future arms control
agreements, and the ability of the U.S. and Russia to
work together on other issues. Should there be any
signs of Russian cheating or preparations to breakout
from the treaty, the Executive branch would immediately
raise this matter through diplomatic channels, and if
not resolved, raise it immediately to higher levels. We
would also keep the Senate informed.
It is reasonable to expect that there will be disputes
regarding implementation of the New START Treaty. U.S.
negotiators told the committee, however, that there was a
systematic effort to reduce the likelihood of such disputes.
Both negotiating teams included experienced START inspectors,
and their influence is reflected at times in the easing or
removal of START requirements that were too expensive to meet,
as well as in the greater detail and clarity provided regarding
certain matters, such as the covers that will be permitted in
reentry vehicle inspections.
The classic example of a START requirement that had
unintended consequences was the strict regime regarding
conversion and elimination of weapons covered by the treaty.
Some of the compliance disputes with Russia concerned weapons
that Russia counted as eliminated without meeting the detailed
requirements for elimination, but that both sides knew were
effectively no longer serviceable. The American approach to the
inordinate cost of complying with elimination requirements was
to keep decommissioned aircraft on the books for START
accounting purposes, even as they sat rusting in Arizona at
Davis-Monthan AFB. The approach taken by New START was both to
ease the requirements for conversion and elimination and to
permit a Party to simply devise its own procedures and
demonstrate them to the other Party. The easier requirements
were adopted partly because of the costs to the verifier of
conversion and elimination. As the executive branch explained
to the committee:
Under START elimination inspections, inspectors were
required to remain at the elimination inspection sites
up to several weeks a year as items were undergoing the
entire elimination process. During a Type Two
elimination inspection under New START, inspectors now
would confirm only the results of the elimination
process once notified by the possessing Party that an
item of inspection has been eliminated.
New START recognizes that creating one's own conversion or
elimination procedures may lead to compliance disputes. The
treaty establishes (in Section I of Part Three of the Protocol)
ground rules for such disputes: if a Party develops its own
procedures, it must notify the other Party of those procedures;
if requested, it must demonstrate those procedures to the other
Party; and once having done that, its procedures are recorded
and it may proceed, even if the other Party still finds fault
with the procedures.
The treaty provides that converted or eliminated systems
must be made visible to NTM for 60 days, beginning on the date
when such conversion or elimination is notified to the other
Party. If the notification is of multiple conversions or
eliminations that are displayed together, then the display need
last only 30 days. In either case, display satisfies the
requirement (and may be ended if a Type Two inspection takes
place). Inspection of the converted or eliminated system may be
undertaken within 30 days after receiving notification that
that an elimination or conversion has been carried out.
Paragraph 2 of Section I of Part Three of the Protocol
states: ``Elimination of strategic offensive arms subject to
the treaty shall be carried out by rendering them inoperable,
precluding their use for their original purpose.'' In the case
of eliminated mobile launchers of ICBMs, paragraph 7 of Section
III provides that ``the vehicle may be used for purposes not
inconsistent with the treaty.'' Paragraph 5 adds that if the
``eliminated'' vehicle is used at a declared facility, it must
be painted so as to make it distinguishable by NTM from a
working mobile launcher of ICBMs.
The administration stated in an answer for the record that
in determining whether newly developed elimination procedures
are sufficient, the United States will not limit itself to a
predetermined set of criteria. Rather, it will assess the
procedures used and take into account the experience and
knowledge gained from 15 years of START Treaty implementation
to determine whether the procedure will render that item
inoperable. In the event questions arise regarding newly
developed procedures, a Party may request that the Party
carrying out the elimination conduct, within the framework of
the BCC, a demonstration of the procedures. Demonstrations may
include descriptions, diagrams, drawings, and photographs, as
needed, or may be conducted on-site, if so agreed.
Demonstrations will not count against the limit of eight Type
Two inspections per year.
If significantly ambiguous procedures are continually
applied with no effective resolution in the BCC, they could
defeat the object and purpose of the New START Treaty. In such
a case, the burden shifts to the converting or eliminating
Party. Pursuant to Article VIII:
In those cases in which one of the Parties determines
that its actions may lead to ambiguous situations, that
Party shall take measures to ensure the viability and
effectiveness of this Treaty and to enhance confidence,
openness, and predictability concerning the reduction
and limitation of strategic offensive arms.
If the ambiguity resulting from conversion or elimination
procedures were to become grave, it could even lead to U.S.
withdrawal under Article XIV. This said, however, it is highly
unlikely that such situations will result from the conversion
and elimination aspects of the New START Treaty. The Parties
sought to create fundamentally more flexible treatment for
conversion and elimination as compared to START, and the United
States gained greater flexibility for its bombers and
submarines in this regard. Had there been a record of
significant concern regarding Russian conversion and
elimination of strategic offensive arms subject to START, then
a different scheme would have been applied in the new treaty.
The committee recommends that the Senate's resolution of
advice and consent to ratification include the requirement in
Condition (10) that the President's annual report on treaty
implementation contain either a certification that New START
conversion and elimination procedures have not resulted in
ambiguities that could defeat the object and purpose of New
START, or a list of any cases where a Russian procedure has led
to doubts and the steps the United States has taken to address
them.
The United States has taken a similar approach to the
question of whether future, strategic-range non-nuclear weapon
systems that do not otherwise meet the definitions of the New
START Treaty would be considered new kinds of strategic
offensive arms. The United States recognizes that compliance
disputes could arise and accepts the requirement to attempt to
resolve such issues in the BCC pursuant to paragraph 2 of
Article V of the treaty. At the same time, the United States
asserts that there is no requirement to delay deployment of the
new system pending such resolution. The committee recommends
that the Senate's resolution of advice and consent to
ratification include an understanding, to be included in the
instrument of ratification, that demonstrates the Senate's
endorsement of this interpretation of New START.
Transparency is an important objective of arms control, and
one that is different from compliance and verification. While a
treaty may have specific requirements that demand compliance
and lead to the need for verification, transparency may be
encouraged, rather than required, and may apply to activities
or data that are otherwise not even addressed by a treaty. In
the START Treaty, telemetry exchange and a ban on most
activities that would deny telemetry to the other Party were
requirements. There were persistent disputes regarding
compliance with these requirements, but telemetry exchanges
provided information that was vital to verifying compliance
with START Treaty provisions that dealt with missile
capabilities (e.g., a missile type's launch weight, throw
weight, and number of reentry vehicles ever released or
simulated in a test launch). In New START, there are no
provisions that require telemetric information to verify
compliance. Such information can still provide useful insights
into the nature of Russian weapon systems, however, and both
the United States and Russia could use it to assure each other
that their missile tests do not relate to the development of
undeclared capabilities that could deprive the other side of
its nuclear deterrent. The telemetry exchange and non-
interference provisions of New START do not require that any
exchange of telemetry occur, and they point toward a regime in
which any transmission of unencrypted telemetry may be limited
to information about the boost stages of a missile. The
authority is created, however, for such provision and exchange
of telemetry as the two Parties may decide, in the coming
years, is in their national security interests. The telemetry
exchange exemptions written into the START Treaty were rarely
used, so it is possible that the two countries will agree to
exchange useful telemetric information under New START.
This said, it will be important that the Russian telemetry
obtained by the United States be meaningful. Telemetric
information exchange decisions will take place in the year
following a test, so each Party will have a good idea of what
telemetry it seeks. Russia is undertaking several ICBM and SLBM
modernization and testing programs. The United States is less
likely to flight test new ICBMs in the next decade, so Russia
may instead request telemetry on tests of U.S. missile defense
interceptors or on conventional prompt global strike (CPGS)
systems. The committee recommends that the Senate's resolution
of advice and consent to ratification make clear in Condition
(5) that the treaty does not obligate the United States to
provide any missile defense telemetry, and that it require in
Condition (7) both that CPGS telemetry provided to Russia not
undermine the effectiveness of the tested system and that such
telemetry be provided either to demonstrate that such system is
not subject to the limits in Article II of the New START Treaty
or to obtain telemetry on a Russian test of a system that is
not listed in Article III of the treaty or that was not
deployed before the START Treaty expired.
The committee can predict with more confidence that the
notification and inspection regimes established by this treaty
will lead to increased transparency. Apart from the use of
notifications and inspections to verify compliance with treaty
obligations, these regimes will maintain the access that START
provided into the thinking and normal practices of Russian
military officers who handle strategic weapons. And the treaty
will maintain momentum in Russia for accepting U.S. assistance
through the global Nunn-Lugar and other cooperative threat
reduction programs, which will provide additional insight into
Russian force composition and planning and additional avenues
through which each side can learn about the other. The
committee believes strongly that these transparency initiatives
have been of immense importance in maintaining strategic
stability between the United States and Russia, and it urges
both countries to maintain and support these programs.
The Senate has addressed compliance and verification
concerns when it approved the ratification of past strategic
arms control agreements, and the committee believes that it
should do so on the New START Treaty as well. The resolution of
advice and consent that the committee recommends to the Senate
includes several provisions on this topic. Condition (2) of the
committee's recommended resolution of advice and consent
requires that prior to entry into force, and annually
thereafter, the President certify that U.S. monitoring
capabilities are sufficient to ensure effective monitoring, to
include timely warning of any Russian effort to break out of
the treaty's limits. The committee recommends further that the
resolution require the Intelligence Community to present a plan
for New START monitoring and to regularly update that plan.
The committee recommends that the executive branch be
required to offer briefings regarding compliance issues to the
Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees before and
after each meeting of the BCC, in order to keep those
committees informed, especially of compliance issues that are
to be raised in that forum and of the results of such efforts.
Its recommended resolution also calls for the President to
continue cooperative threat reduction assistance to Russia,
including for the purpose of facilitating implementation of
this treaty.
The committee recommends that the resolution of advice and
consent to this treaty call for the President to submit an
annual report to the Foreign Relations and Armed Services
Committees, which would include a discussion of any compliance
issues. The report would also include specific discussions of
any ambiguities raised by Russian conversion or elimination
practices and of the operation of the treaty's transparency
mechanisms, including its telemetry provisions. Such a report
will not only inform the Senate, but also encourage the
executive branch to make its own annual evaluation of the
treaty's compliance and verification record.
As aggregate levels of strategic offensive arms decrease,
the strategic implications of a Russian breakout may increase
(although, as discussed above, such scenarios are unlikely and
U.S. military leaders assured the committee that any breakout
under the New START Treaty would be unlikely to be of military
significance). The committee recommends that the Senate's
resolution of advice and consent to ratification include a
condition requiring that if the President, after consultation
with the Director of National Intelligence, determines that the
Russian Federation intends to break out of the limits specified
in Article II of the New START Treaty, the President shall
immediately inform the Committees on Foreign Relations and
Armed Services of the Senate, with a view to determining
whether circumstances exist that jeopardize the supreme
interests of the United States, such that withdrawal from the
New START Treaty may be warranted pursuant to paragraph 3 of
Article XIV of the treaty.
Finally, the committee recommends that the resolution of
advice and consent to this treaty require that if the President
determines that the Russian Federation is acting or has acted
in a manner that is inconsistent with the object and purpose of
the New START Treaty, or is in violation of the treaty, to such
an extent as to threaten the national security interests of the
United States, then the President shall consult with the Senate
regarding the implications of such actions, urgently seek a
meeting with the Russian Federation at the highest level with
the objective of bringing the Russian Federation into full
compliance with its obligations, and then submit a report to
the Senate detailing: (a) whether adherence to the New START
Treaty remains in the national security interest of the United
States; and (b) how the United States will redress the impact
of Russian actions on the national security interests of the
United States. Strategic arms control succeeds only when all
parties to an agreement abide by its terms, and the Senate
should keep a watchful eye on the implementation of such a
sensitive agreement as the New START Treaty.
MISSILE DEFENSE
For at least two decades, the United States has pursued a
missile defense policy focused on defending the United States,
its troops, and its friends and allies from limited ballistic
missile threats. The National Missile Defense Act of 1999
(Public Law 106-38) codified that policy:
It is the policy of the United States to deploy as
soon as is technologically possible an effective
National Missile Defense system capable of defending
the territory of the United States against limited
ballistic missile attack (whether accidental,
unauthorized, or deliberate) with funding subject to
the annual authorization of appropriations and the
annual appropriation of funds for National Missile
Defense.
In February 2010, the Department of Defense submitted to
Congress its Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) Report, as
required by Section 234 of the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (Public Law 110-417).\7\ The BMDR
established the following priorities to fulfill the National
Missile Defense Act of 1999:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\Department of Defense, ``Ballistic Missile Defense Review
Report,'' February 2010; available at
BMDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10%200630_for%20web.pdf.
``The United States will continue to defend the
homeland against the threat of limited ballistic
missile attack.''
``The United States will defend against regional
missile threats to U.S. forces, while protecting allies
and partners and enabling them to defend themselves.''
In his preface to the BMDR Report, the Secretary of Defense
went on to explain,
I have made defending against near-term regional
threats a top priority of our missile defense plans,
programs and capabilities. I have also directed that we
sustain and enhance the U.S. military's ability to
defend the homeland against attack by a small number of
long-range ballistic missiles.
The BMDR Report argued that, with the deployment by year's
end of 30 Ground-Based Interceptors, the United States ``is
currently protected against the threat of limited ICBM attack,
as a result of investments made over the past decade in a
system based on Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD).''
Regarding regional missile threats to U.S. forces, allies, and
partners, the BMDR Report concluded:
Over the past decade the United States has made
significant progress in developing and fielding
essential capabilities for protection against attack
from short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
However, these capabilities are modest numbers when set
against the rapidly expanding regional missile threat.
The BMDR Report outlines the administration's plan to
maintain the United States' capability to defend against
limited ballistic missile attacks against the territory of the
United States, and to address regional threats to U.S. forces,
allies, and partners. In pursuit of this plan, Secretary of
Defense Gates testified to the committee in May 2010 that ``we
are putting our money where our beliefs are'': the
administration's Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget request included
$9.9 billion for ballistic missile defense, an increase of
nearly $700 million over the amount appropriated for FY 2010.
Secretary Gates went on to state that ``we have a comprehensive
missile defense program, and we are going forward with all of
it. And our plan is to add even more money to it in FY 12.''
In line with the policy established by the National Missile
Defense Act of 1999, the plans outlined in the BMDR Report
would not create a capacity to threaten the deterrent potential
of the strategic nuclear forces of the Russian Federation. The
BMDR Report stated:
While the [Ground-Based Missile Defense] system would
be employed to defend the United States against limited
missile launches from any source, it does not have the
capacity to cope with large scale Russian or Chinese
missile attacks, and is not intended to affect the
strategic balance with those countries.
This lack of capacity is far less a matter of choice than a
matter of technical and financial reality: Russia currently
deploys too many strategic nuclear weapons for the United
States to defeat with anything resembling its current missile
defense capability. Lt. Gen. O'Reilly explained to the
committee in testimony on June 16, 2010, that current United
States missile defense employment doctrine generally requires
setting aside a minimum of two interceptors against each
reentry vehicle that would be targeted--and in some cases, four
interceptors would need to be dedicated to each target.
Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Miller
explained in his prepared testimony for the same hearing that
``Russia will likely field well over 1,000 ICBM and SLBM
warheads,'' even under the limitations that would be
established under the New START Treaty. Putting in place a
ballistic missile defense to defeat Russia's strategic arsenal
under even the minimal two-to-one interceptor-to-target
doctrine would require constructing, deploying, and maintaining
at least 2,000 Ground-Based Interceptors--a capability far
greater than the 30 interceptors that the United States has
managed to deploy after more than a decade of effort. Even if
the United States decided to pursue this approach, Russia could
observe the United States as it was planning, constructing, and
deploying this capability, and would have ample time to react.
Russia could do so by deploying more warheads on more ICBMs and
SLBMs, by deploying greater numbers of alternative delivery
systems such as bomber-delivered cruise missiles, or by
developing more sophisticated missile defense countermeasures
that would force the United States to employ still more
interceptors against each target.
For these reasons, former Secretary of Defense Schlesinger
explained to the committee that the United States might have to
accept for the foreseeable future its inability to wholly
defeat Russia's strategic offensive arms with missile defenses:
``It's not because we would not like to have an impenetrable
defense, as President Reagan had hoped for. It's just beyond
our capability. They can always beat us with the offensive
capabilities.''
In 2007, President George W. Bush made clear that he also
recognized that the United States did not have the capability
to defeat Russia's strategic offensive forces, and argued that
this reality should not be a concern:
The missile defenses we can employ would be easily
overwhelmed by Russia's nuclear arsenal. . . .
Moreover, the missile defenses we will deploy are
intended to deter countries who would threaten us with
ballistic missile attacks. We do not consider Russia
such a country. The Cold War is over. Russia is not our
enemy.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\``President Bush Visits National Defense University, Discusses
Global War on Terror,'' Washington, DC., October 23, 2007; http://
georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071023-
3.html.
In his testimony before the committee on May 18, 2010, the
Secretary of Defense explained that it has long been the policy
of the United States not to attempt to defeat Russia's
strategic offensive forces with its missile defenses, because
trying to do so would be both prohibitively costly and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
strategically dangerous:
[O]ne point needs to be clarified here. Under the
last administration, as well as under this one, it has
been the United States policy not to build a missile
defense that would render useless Russia's nuclear
capabilities. It has been a missile defense intended to
protect against rogue nations, such as North Korea and
Iran, or countries that have very limited capabilities.
The systems that we have, the systems that originated
and have been funded in the Bush administration, as
well as in this administration, are not focused on
trying to render useless Russia's nuclear capability.
That, in our view, as in theirs, would be enormously
destabilizing, not to mention unbelievably expensive.
Secretary Gates went on to say that:
Our ability to protect other countries is going to be
focused on countries like Iran and North Korea, the
countries that are rogue states, that are not
participants in the NPT [the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty], countries that have shown aggressive intent.
And we are putting in defenses in Europe that will be
able to defend them. We have defenses in Asia. We're
building defenses in the Middle East. So, we have
missile defense capabilities going up all around the
world, but not intended to eliminate the viability of
the Russian nuclear capability.
New START Treaty Preamble Language on Missile Defense
In April 2009, Presidents Obama and Medvedev stated that
they would pursue a new, legally-binding treaty to replace the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; the subject of the treaty
would be ``the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive
arms.'' In July 2009, the two presidents reached a further
joint understanding that, while the new treaty would address
reductions and limitations of their ``strategic offensive
arms,'' it would contain ``[a] provision on the
interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic
defensive arms.''
The preamble of the treaty ultimately signed by Presidents
Obama and Medvedev contains the following statement:
Recognizing the existence of the interrelationship
between strategic offensive arms and strategic
defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become
more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced,
and that current strategic defensive arms do not
undermine the viability and effectiveness of the
strategic offensive arms of the Parties.
Secretary of State Clinton testified to the committee that
the preamble should be regarded as ``simply a statement of
fact,'' not as a constraint. Indeed, Secretary Clinton stated
for the record that
The Obama administration has consistently informed
Russia that while we seek to establish a framework for
U.S.-Russia BMD cooperation, the United States cannot
agree to constrain or limit U.S. BMD capabilities
numerically, qualitatively, operationally,
geographically, or in other ways.
In his testimony, former Secretary of State Kissinger
agreed with Secretary Clinton, saying of the preambular
language, ``it's a truism. It is not an obligation. It's
something to which countries can react unilaterally.''
This is by no means the first time the interrelationship
between offensive and defensive systems has been recognized.
For example, in their joint statement of July 21, 2001,
President Bush and President Putin agreed that ``major changes
in the world require concrete discussions of both offensive and
defensive systems. We already have some strong and tangible
points of agreement. We will shortly begin intensive
consultations on the interrelated subjects of offensive and
defensive systems [emphasis added].''\9\ In the press
conference that followed, President Bush emphasized that
offensive and defensive systems were interrelated, stating,
``And along these lines, as the President said, that we're
going to have open and honest dialogue about defensive systems,
as well as reduction of offensive systems. The two go hand-in-
hand in order to set up a new strategic framework for
peace.''\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\``Joint Statement by President Bush and Russian President Putin
on Upcoming Consultations on Strategic Issues,'' July 22, 2001,
available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.
archives.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010722-6.html.
\10\``Press Conference by President Bush and President Putin,
Palasso Doria Spinola, Genoa, Italy,'' July 22, 2001, available at
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/07/
20010722-3.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The interrelationship between our strategic defensive arms
and other countries' strategic offensive arms is fundamental to
our current missile defense policy: the United States desires
that our capability to defend against limited attack will
render useless the initial strategic offensive capability that
certain countries are contemplating or developing. As the BMDR
Report notes, in addition to defeating a limited ICBM attack
should deterrence fail, our Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
system is designed to ``dissuade'' other states from developing
an ICBM capability and to ``deter'' those countries from using
an ICBM if they develop or acquire such a capability.\11\ The
United States is thus counting on the interrelationship between
strategic defensive and offensive arms to which the New START
preambular language alludes to undermine the threats posed by
countries capable of deploying only limited numbers of
strategic offensive arms against the United States, its forces,
its allies, and its partners.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\BMDR Report, p. 11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article V Ban on ICBM/SLBM Launcher Conversion to Missile Defense
Interceptors
Article V, paragraph 3 of the New START Treaty bars the
Parties from placing missile defense interceptors into ICBM
launchers and SLBM launchers. (The Parties also may not place
ICBMs and SLBMs in former launchers of missile defense
interceptors.) Paragraph 3 explicitly exempts from this
restriction those launchers that had been converted to
launchers of missile defense interceptors as of April 8, 2010,
the day the treaty was signed. This exemption thus permits the
five Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) launchers at Vandenberg Air
Force Base (VAFB) in California that had been converted from
ICBM launchers to remain outside of the treaty as missile
defense interceptors. Four of these launchers house deployed
GBIs, and one is dedicated for use as a GBI test launcher. The
Seventh Agreed Statement in Part Nine of the Protocol provides
for one exhibition, ``to demonstrate that these launchers are
no longer capable of launching ICBMs as well as to determine
the features that distinguish a converted silo launcher of
ICBMs from a silo launcher of ICBMs that has not been
converted.'' The agreed statement also provides for a second
exhibition, no later than 30 days after a request by the
Russian Federation, to confirm that Vandenberg missile defense
interceptor launchers have not been reconverted.
Because this provision, unlike the language in the preamble
regarding the interrelationship between strategic offensive
arms and strategic defensive arms, was not referenced by the
July 2009 joint presidential statement, the committee worked to
understand why the provision was included in the treaty and
what constraints, if any, it might place on U.S. missile
defense plans. (On August 3, 2010, Secretary of State Clinton
also provided to the committee a classified summary of
discussions in the New START Treaty negotiations on the issue
of missile defense.) An answer for the record by Secretary
Gates and Admiral Mullen summarizes the executive branch's
view: the provision ``does not constrain the Department's
current or future missile defense plans in any way.''
In testimony for the committee's hearing on June 16, 2010,
Lt. Gen. O'Reilly stated that he had ``frequently consulted''
with the treaty negotiating team on potential impacts to U.S.
missile defense plans, and provided additional information on
why he was comfortable with Article V:
MDA never had a plan to convert additional ICBM silos
at VAFB. In 2002, we began converting ICBM silos to
operational silos for launching GBIs because we had not
developed a silo specifically for GBIs at that time.
Since then, we have developed a GBI silo that costs
$20M less than converting ICBM silos and is easier to
protect and maintain.
Likewise, the conversion of Submarine Launched
Ballistic Missiles into missile defense interceptors,
or the modification of our submarines to carry missile
defense interceptors, would be very expensive and
impractical. Furthermore, submerged submarines are not
easily integrated into our missile defense command and
control network.
Lt. Gen. O'Reilly stated during the hearing that, ``for
many different reasons,'' he would ``never'' recommend either
converting existing ICBM silos or SLBM launchers into missile
defense interceptor launchers or converting. He explained:
[F]rom a technical basis and being responsible for
the development of our missile defenses, I would say
that either one of those approaches, of replacing ICBMs
with ground-based interceptors or adapting the
submarine-launched ballistic missiles to be an
interceptor, . . . would actually be . . . a major
setback to the development of our missile defenses;
one, because of the extensive amount of funding
required, and resources, to redesign both the fire-
control system, the communications system, but
especially the interceptors. They're of completely
different size and completely different functionality,
different fuels, so they are incompatible, our
interceptors are, with submarines. And also, the
submarine-launched ballistic missiles have a launch
environment which is significantly different than what
our interceptors have today. And the front end, the
most critical part of our interceptors, would have to
be completely redesigned in order to withstand the
shocks and the other launch environments.
So, in both cases, there would have to be an
extensive redesign of our systems, and some of the
basic, fundamental engineering that we've been doing
over the past decade would have to be redone in order
to adapt them for either one of those applications.
General Chilton further explained to the committee that,
from his perspective as the commander of U.S. strategic
offensive forces, he would have concerns with any plan to
remove strategic offensive missiles from launchers and replace
them with missile defense interceptors.
[T]he missile tubes that we have are valuable, in the
sense that they provide the strategic deterrent. And I
think the value of the nuclear deterrent far--per
missile--far outweighs the value of a single missile
defense interceptor. So, I would not want to trade
Trident D5, and how powerful it is and its ability to
deter, for a single missile defense interceptor.
He also raised a concern that launching missile defense
interceptors from existing ICBM silo launchers could cause
Russia to falsely identify a missile defense interceptor launch
as an ICBM launch. Specifically, General Chilton stated:
[F]rom an ICBM-field perspective . . . there would be
some issues that would be raised if you were to launch
a missile defense asset from an ICBM field, with regard
to the opposite side seeing a missile come off and
wondering, ``Well, was that a . . . defensive missile
or is that an offensive missile?'' So, just in my
opinion, I don't see . . . that . . . [that option]
would be particularly beneficial.
In an answer for the record, the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of Defense pointed out that, in addition to 30
operationally deployed Ground-Based Interceptors, the United
States plans to maintain a cushion of eight empty silos at Fort
Greely, Alaska, in which to deploy extra interceptors if they
are needed. That will provide a margin of over 25 percent
beyond the current number of deployed interceptors before any
new construction would need to be initiated. As noted in the
testimony above, even after filling those eight silos that will
sit empty under the current plan, building new silos for GBIs
would be cheaper, and easier to protect and maintain, than
trying to convert additional ICBMs silos.
Former Secretary of Defense Schlesinger speculated that the
negotiators saw this provision ``as a throw-away on their part
because we were not planning to use the Minuteman silos, et
cetera, for defensive missiles.'' Former Secretary of State
Baker said that he thought the provision could be regarded as
``tipping the hat, if you will, to [a Russian] concern, without
really giving them anything.'' It is also possible that the
real Russian concern was to bar the conversion of U.S. missile
defense silos in Europe for use as ICBM launchers.
Missile Defense and the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC)
Article XV, paragraph 1 provides that any amendments to the
main treaty text itself shall enter into force in accordance
with the procedures governing entry into force of the treaty
(for in the United States, this would entail the Senate advice
and consent process established by Article II, Section 2,
clause 2 of the Constitution). For those changes to the
Protocol (including its three integral Annexes) that do not
affect the substantive rights or obligations of the Parties
under the treaty, however, Article XV, paragraph 2 permits the
Parties to use the BCC to reach agreement on changes without
resorting to the procedures governing entry into force of the
treaty. Changes to the Protocol or the three integral Annexes
that do affect the substantive rights or obligations of the
Parties would only enter into force in accordance with the same
procedures that govern entry into force of the entire treaty.
As the executive branch stated in an answer for the record to
the committee, ``Any change that does affect substantive rights
or obligations would be an amendment and would require Senate
advice and consent.''
The START Treaty contained similar language in each of its
Protocols, under which the Parties used the JCIC to make
changes in the Protocols that did ``not affect substantive
rights or obligations under'' that treaty. Secretary Clinton
stated in an answer for the record that:
The experience of the START Treaty's Joint Compliance
and Inspection Commission (JCIC) provides some helpful
examples of the type of changes that might be agreed
upon within the framework of the New START Treaty's
Bilateral Consultative Commission. For example, the
JCIC agreed on the releasability of Treaty-related
data, as is also provided for under paragraph 5 of
Article VII of the New START Treaty, on specific
procedures for use of radiation detection equipment,
and on changes to types of inspection equipment.
A complete listing of agreements reached in the JCIC under
START is available at http://www.dod.gov/acq/acic/treaties/
start1/other/agreements/index.htm.
Article XV does not in any way enable the BCC to alter
substantive rights or obligations related to missile defense
under the treaty. The only restriction related to United States
missile defense activities is contained in Article V, paragraph
3, of the main Treaty text. Pursuant to Article XV, paragraph
1, any change to that paragraph would need to be submitted to
the Senate for its advice and consent before it could come into
force. In the Protocol, paragraph 44 of Part One of the
Protocol defines the term ``missile defense interceptor''\12\
and paragraph 40 of Part One of the Protocol defines the term
``launcher of missile defense interceptors.''\13\ Those terms
are used only in Article V, paragraph 3. (The Seventh Agreed
Statement does not use the term ``missile defense,'' but it
does establish the procedures governing exhibitions for the
five converted launchers of missile defense interceptors.) It
is difficult to imagine any changes to those definitions that
could alter the restriction in Article V.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\A ``missile defense interceptor'' is defined as a ``missile
that was developed, tested, and deployed in order to intercept ICBMs,
SLBMs, or their reentry vehicles.''
\13\A ``launcher of missile defense interceptor'' is defined as ``a
device intended or used to contain, prepare for launch, and launch
missile defense interceptors.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to questions for the record, the executive
branch provided further assurances regarding the role of the
BCC in missile defense. First, it assured the committee, ``The
Obama Administration does not intend to negotiate, as part of
its missile defense cooperation talks with Russia, agreements
similar to those agreed to in the Standing Consultative
Commission in September 1997.'' Then, it stated specifically
that ``the United States cannot agree to constrain or limit
U.S. [ballistic missile defense] capabilities numerically,
qualitatively, operationally, geographically, or in other
ways.''
Missile Defense and Telemetry Exchange
Article IX of the New START Treaty establishes that
telemetric information on launches of ICBMs and SLBMs (which
means, as defined in Part One of the Protocol, ``information
that originates on board a missile during its initial motion
and subsequent flight that is broadcast'') shall be exchanged
on a parity basis. The Parties are to agree on the amount of
exchange of such information. Part Seven of the Protocol states
that the exchange of telemetric information shall occur on an
equal number of launches, but on no more than five launches of
ICBMs or SLBMs each calendar year. In other words, within that
five-launch cap, the actual number of launches for which
telemetric information will be exchanged each year is by mutual
agreement of the Parties. If one side insists on providing
telemetric information on only three launches in a given year,
it may do so; it will simply have to live with the fact that in
return the other Party will provide telemetric information on
just three launches of its own. The Parties are to agree at the
beginning of the year on the specific number of launches in the
previous year for which telemetric information will be
provided. Paragraph 2 of Part Seven of the Protocol states that
the testing Party may decide for itself which launches it will
use to meet the agreed number. Thus, neither Party is required
to provide telemetric information on any given launch, although
nothing prevents the Parties from reaching a political
agreement that specifies specific launches when they discuss
the number of launches in the previous year for which
telemetric information will be shared. The conditions and
procedures governing the exchange of telemetric information are
set forth in the Protocol's Annex on Telemetric Information.
The original START Treaty contained a much more extensive
telemetry exchange regime than that of the New START Treaty
because a mechanism was needed to verify various START limits
on launch weight, throw weight and the attributed number of
warheads for each type of missile. For the large majority of
launches of treaty-limited items, the START Treaty barred the
Parties from encrypting broadcast telemetric information. It
also required the testing Party to provide data types
containing the telemetric information recorded during the
launch, to allow the observing Party to confirm the veracity of
the information broadcast from the launch. The Treaty required
the provision of telemetric information on launches of any
booster that included the first stage of a START-accountable
missile. START's far-sweeping telemetry regime required the
United States to share telemetric information on missile tests
related to development of U.S. missile defense technologies--in
particular, for certain satellite launches, missile defense
sensor targets, and missile defense interceptor targets. All
told, prior to the treaty's expiration on December 5, 2009, the
United States had been required to broadcast unencrypted
telemetric information and provide telemetry tapes on 17
launches of missile defense-related satellite launches, missile
defense sensor targets, and missile defense interceptor
targets. (Because no U.S. missile defense interceptor uses a
first stage from a START-accountable item, the United States
has never provided missile defense interceptor telemetry to the
Russian Federation.)
The New START Treaty thus provides greater flexibility than
the START Treaty did for the development of U.S. missile
defenses: the United States would not be required to share
information about the capabilities of target missiles, i.e.,
the missiles that it is working to ensure its missile defense
systems will defeat. With respect to missile defense
interceptors, the New START Treaty treats telemetric
information no differently than the START Treaty. As the
Secretary of Defense stated in answer to a question for the
record, the New START Treaty ``neither prohibits, nor does it
require, the provision of missile defense interceptor test
telemetry to Russia.'' To ensure that there is no question on
these points, the committee recommends including in the
Senate's resolution of advice and consent to ratification a
condition that, before ratifying the treaty, the President
certify to the Senate that the United States is indeed not
required to provide telemetric information regarding these
launches.
Benefits from the New START Treaty for U.S. Missile Defense Development
It is important to note that the New START Treaty, in
comparison to the START Treaty, will actually reduce
constraints on the development of U.S. missile defense in
several areas. Lt. Gen. O'Reilly pointed out one key reduced
constraint in his testimony before the committee:
For example, MDA's intermediate-range LV-2 target
booster system, used in key tests to demonstrate
homeland defense capabilities and components of the new
European Phased Adaptive Approach, was accountable
under the previous START Treaty because it employed the
first stage of the now-retired Trident I SLBM. Under
New START, this missile is not accountable, thus we
will have greater flexibility in conducting testing
with regard to launch locations, telemetry collection,
and processing, thus allowing more efficient test
architectures and operationally realistic intercept
geometries.
In an answer for the record, Secretary Gates and Admiral
Mullen added that the New START Treaty would not restrict the
production, testing, or deployment of air-to-surface ballistic
missiles, as the START Treaty had done. Using an air-to-surface
ballistic missile in missile defense tests, which would not
have been possible under the START Treaty, could provide new
information that would aid in improving our missile defense
capabilities:
Such launches provide the Missile Defense Agency with
greater flexibility to design tests that are more
operationally realistic by enabling them to launch
targets along any azimuth (or angle) in relation to the
interceptor missile.
Article V, paragraph 18(a) of the START Treaty also barred
the Parties from producing, testing, and deploying ballistic
missiles of ranges in excess of 600 kilometers on waterborne
vehicles other than submarines. The New START Treaty does not
contain this ban, so the United States will have the right, if
it chooses, to launch ballistic missiles of ranges greater than
600 kilometers from surface ships as part of a missile defense
testing program.
In an answer for the record, Secretary Gates and Admiral
Mullen explained the benefits that would result from these
changes:
The use of targets utilizing missiles not accountable
under the New START Treaty, launched from airplanes and
surface ships, which was prohibited by START but is not
prohibited by the New START Treaty, will support more
cost-effective testing of missile defense interceptors
against medium- and intermediate- range ballistic
missile threats in the Pacific region.
Additionally, Lt. Gen. O'Reilly stated that the New START
Treaty would lift a constraint put in place by the START Treaty
that had limited the Missile Defense Agency to the use of five
space launch facilities for launching targets to be used in
missile defense tests.\14\
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\14\Department of Defense, ``Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Request for Information,'' May 17, 2010, available at http://
lugar.senate.gov/issues/start/pdf/SFRCrequest.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unilateral Statements Regarding Missile Defense
On April 7, 2010, the Russian Federation issued a
unilateral statement concerning missile defense:
The Treaty between the Russian Federation and the
United States of America on Measures for the Further
Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms
signed at Prague on April 8, 2010, may be effective and
viable only in conditions where there is no qualitative
or quantitative build-up in the missile defense system
capabilities of the United States of America.
Consequently, the extraordinary events referred to in
Article XIV of the treaty also include a build-up in
the missile defense system capabilities of the United
States of America such that it would give rise to a
threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the
Russian Federation.
Pursuant to Article XIV, paragraph 3, each Party is
accorded the right to withdraw from the treaty if it ``decides
that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this
Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.'' In its
article-by-article analysis, the State Department noted that
this withdrawal standard is not new, and that the Russian
statement does not add or subtract from the treaty:
The withdrawal standard in Article XIV contains
language identical to the withdrawal provisions in many
arms control agreements, including the START Treaty,
the INF Treaty, and the NPT. The withdrawal provision
is self-judging in that each Party may decide when
extraordinary events related to the subject matter of
the treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.
Accordingly the Russian statement merely records that
the circumstances described in its statement would, in
its view, justify such a decision on its part. It does
not change the legal rights or obligations of the
Parties under the treaty.
The second sentence of the unilateral statement ties
Russian actions pursuant to Article XIV to a build-up in U.S.
missile defense capabilities ``such that it would give rise to
a threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the
Russian Federation.'' As discussed above, the United States is
so far away technically from developing a missile defense
capability that would threaten the Russian Federation's
strategic nuclear deterrent that the committee does not foresee
any possibility that the conditions outlined in the Russian
unilateral statement would obtain over the life of the treaty.
Secretary of State Clinton summarized the executive
branch's view of the Russian unilateral statement during the
committee's May 25, 2010, hearing: ``We have not agreed to this
view, and we are not bound by this unilateral statement.''
Secretary of Defense Gates emphasized the point: ``the Russians
can say what they want, but, as Secretary Clinton said, these
unilateral statements are totally outside the treaty, they have
no standing, they're not binding, never have been.''
In response to a question for the record, Secretary Clinton
further underlined that the unilateral statement will not
change U.S. ballistic missile defense plans:
The Russian unilateral statement does not change the
legal rights or obligations of the Parties under the
treaty and is not legally binding. The United States
will continue its missile defense programs and
policies, as outlined in the Ballistic Missile Defense
Review. Russia's unilateral statement has not changed
our course, as laid out in the Review, nor will it.
This statement for the record underscored what the United
States had already communicated to Russia in its own unilateral
statement, issued on April 7, 2010. In that statement, the
United States stated:
The United States missile defense systems are not
intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia.
The United States missile defense systems would be
employed to defend the United States against limited
missile launches, and to defend its deployed forces,
allies and partners against regional threats. The
United States intends to continue improving and
deploying its missile defense systems in order to
defend itself against limited attack and as part of our
collaborative approach to strengthening stability in
key regions.
The United States had, in fact, fully briefed responsible
Russian officials regarding U.S. missile defense plans well in
advance of the April 7, 2010, unilateral statement. The United
States focused its briefings on its Phased Adaptive Approach to
missile defense in Europe. (The committee notes that the
chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, Senator Carl
Levin, received from Admiral Mullen a letter concerning the New
START Treaty and the Phased Adaptive Approach; that letter is
appended to this report.) Some have raised the concern that,
while it may accept the current state of U.S. missile defenses,
Russia will object to the later phases of the Phased Adaptive
Approach, which is slated to include deployment in 2018 of the
Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor to defend Europe
against medium- and intermediate-range missiles, and in 2020 of
the Standard Missile-3 Block IIB to provide a capability
against an ICBM launched from the Middle East against the
United States. In the committee's June 16 hearing, Principal
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Miller, explained
that,
[B]oth General O'Reilly and I, along with others,
have briefed the Russians, at various times and in
various fora, on the Phased Adaptive Approach for
Europe. My first one was with Ambassador Kislyak the
day of the announcement, in September, of the Phased
Adaptive Approach. We've gone through each of the
phases, including, in detail, phases three and four.
Lt. Gen. O'Reilly made clear that Russian officials
understood the full breadth of U.S. plans, and that these plans
would not undermine Russia's strategic deterrent:
I also have briefed Russian officials in Moscow, a
rather large group of them in October of 2009. I went
through . . . all four phases of the Phased Adaptive
Approach, especially phase four. And while the missiles
that we have selected for--as interceptors in phase
four, as Dr. Miller says, provide a very effective
defense for a regional-type threat, they are not of the
size that have a long range to be able to reach . . .
strategic missile fields. And it's a very verifiable
property of these missiles, given their size and the
Russian expertise in understanding what the missiles'
capabilities will be, given the size of the missiles
that we're planning to deploy and develop. It was not a
very controversial topic of the fact that a missile,
given this size of a payload, could not reach their
strategic fields.
He went on to explain:
I have briefed the Russians, personally in Moscow, on
every aspect of our missile defense development. I
believe they understand what that is. And that--those
plans for development are not limited by this Treaty.
All of these briefings occurred before Russia signed the
treaty on April 8, 2010. The committee notes that the Russian
Government understands the United States' missile defense plans
for the ten-year life of the treaty, and it signed the treaty
anyway. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
reportedly stated later to a Russian parliamentary committee:
There has never been a goal to restrict the
development of either the U.S. or global missile-
defense system through this treaty. This treaty has no
such restrictions. Whether this treaty is ratified or
not, the United States under this administration will
act toward implementing the so-called Phased Adaptive
Approach to a four-stage process of creating a global
missile-defense system.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\``START Does Not Aim to Restrict Development of U.S. Missile-
defense System--Ministry,'' Moscow Interfax in English, 1100 GMT July
6, 2010.
Russian President Medvedev explained the Russian view
regarding the unilateral statement during a television
interview in April 2010. His statement makes clear that Russia
is going to continue to press its concerns about U.S. missile
defense plans and actions. But he also explained that the
unilateral statement was not intended to signal that the
Russian Federation intended to pull out of the treaty in short
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
order:
That does not mean that if the USA starts developing
missile defense the treaty would automatically be
invalidated, but it does create an additional argument
that binds us and that makes it possible for us to
raise the question of whether quantitative change to
missile defense systems would affect the fundamental
circumstances underlying the treaty. If we see that
developments do indeed represent a fundamental change
in circumstances, we would have to raise the issue with
our American partners. But I would not want to create
the impression that any changes would be construed as
grounds for suspending a treaty that we have only just
signed.
President Medvedev clearly did say, as the April 7
unilateral statement had stated, that Russia might need to
reconsider whether it would remain Party to the treaty if
fundamental changes in circumstances related to U.S. missile
defense activities arose that undermined Russia's strategic
nuclear deterrent. As discussed above, barring an unexpected
technological breakthrough, the committee does not foresee any
possibility that U.S. missile defense capabilities will in any
way threaten Russia's deterrent over the lifetime of the
treaty. Having said that, Russia is entitled to take advantage
of Article XIV's withdrawal clause if it determines that the
limitations the treaty places on the United States' strategic
offensive arms are not sufficient to offset threats to its
supreme interests that it perceives have developed. The
committee nevertheless supports the inclusion of withdrawal
clauses similar to that in Article XIV in this and future
strategic arms control treaties as a way to protect American
national security interests.
Lt. Gen. Scowcroft urged the committee to put Russian
statements about missile defense in perspective: ``I would say
that on both sides, this is an issue of domestic politics. The
Treaty is amply clear. It does not restrict us. Would the
Russians like it to restrict us? Yes, of course. I do not think
there is substance to this argument.''
Indeed, Russia has attempted to use previous arms control
treaties to get the United States to change course on missile
defense. At the time of the signing of the START Treaty, when
the ABM Treaty remained in force, the Soviet Union issued a
unilateral statement similar to that issued this year.
This Treaty may be effective and viable only under
conditions of compliance with the treaty between the
U.S. and the USSR on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic
Missile Systems, as signed on May 26, 1972.
The extraordinary events referred to in Article XVI
of this Treaty also include events related to
withdrawal by one of the Parties from the Treaty on the
Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, or
related to its material breach.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\The full text of the unilateral statement is available at:
http://www.dod.gov/acq/acic/treaties/start1/other/other--
statements.htm.
Despite this warning, the United States withdrew from the
ABM Treaty in 2002, and the Russian Federation continued to
fully implement the START Treaty until its expiration in
December 2009. Pursuant to the Russian law that approved the
START II Treaty, however, in 2002, after the United States
completed its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, Russia announced
that it would not bring the START II Treaty into force and
would no longer consider itself to be bound by its terms.
In the committee's May 25 hearing, Secretary of Defense
Gates offered a lengthy explanation of past Russian attitudes
on missile defense and why advocates of missile defenses should
not be concerned that this treaty somehow undercuts U.S.
missile defense efforts:
So, from the very beginning of this process, more
than 40 years ago, the Russians have hated missile
defense. They hated it even more in 1983, when Ronald
Reagan--when President Reagan made his speech, saying
we were going to do strategic missile defense. And so,
the notion that this Treaty has somehow focused this
antagonism on the part of the Russians, toward missile
defense, all I would say is, it's the latest chapter in
a long line of Russian objections to our proceeding
with missile defense. And, frankly, I think it's
because--particularly in the `70s and `80s, and
probably equally now, it's because we can afford it and
they can't. And we're going to be able to build a good
one, and are building a good one, and they probably
aren't. And they don't want to devote the resources to
it, so they try and stop us from doing it, through
political means. This Treaty doesn't accomplish that
for them.
U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Missile Defense
In June 1992, Presidents Bush and Yeltsin issued a joint
statement on a Global Protection System against ballistic
missiles; the two Presidents agreed ``that their two nations
should work together with allies and other interested states in
developing a concept for such a system.''\17\ In its resolution
providing its advice and consent to ratification of the START
II Treaty, the Senate stated that it was the sense of the
Senate that ``[d]efenses against ballistic missiles are
essential for new deterrent strategies and for new strategies
should deterrence fail.'' It further stated that it was the
sense of the Senate that the governments of the United States
and the Russian Federation should ``promptly undertake
discussions based on the Joint Statement to move forward
cooperatively in the development and deployment of defenses
against ballistic missiles.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\``Joint United States-Russian Statement on a Global Protection
System,'' Washington,
D.C., June 17, 1992; available at http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu /
research / publicpapers. php ? id = 4445 & year = 1992 & month = 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In July 2009, Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed ``to
continue the discussion concerning the establishment of
cooperation in responding to the challenge of ballistic missile
proliferation.''\18\ The February 2010 BMDR Report went on to
say that the executive branch was giving ``special emphasis to
renewing cooperation with Russia on missile defense.''\19\ At
the April 8, 2010, signing of the New START Treaty, President
Obama stated that President Medvedev and he:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\The White House, ``Joint Statement by Dmitry A. Medvedev,
President of the Russian Federation, and Barack Obama, President of the
United States of America, on Missile Defense Issues,'' July 6, 2009;
available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Joint-
Statement-by-Dmitry-A-Medvedev-President-of-the-Russian-Federation-and-
Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-on-Missile-
Defense-Issues/.
\19\BDMR Report, p. 34.
have also agreed to expand our discussions on missile
defense. This will include regular exchanges of
information about our threat assessments, as well as
the completion of a joint assessment of emerging
ballistic missiles. And as these assessments are
completed, I look forward to launching a serious
dialogue about Russian-American cooperation on missile
defense.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\The White House, ``Remarks by President Obama and President
Medvedev of Russia at New START Treaty Signing Ceremony and Press
Conference,'' Prague, Czech Republic, April 8, 2010; available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-
president-medvedev-russia-new-start-treaty-signing-cere.
The committee feels that there are indeed opportunities for
the United States and Russia to cooperate on missile defense.
Given Russia's proximity to Iran, that country's development of
medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles potentially
threatens Russia every bit as much as it does the United States
and its European allies. As noted in the BMDR Report, Russian
radars based in the south of that country could contribute
useful warning and tracking data to a European missile defense
system. Possibilities may well exist for the United States and
Russia to begin by discussing how their tracking systems might
communicate with one another. Defeating shorter range missiles,
a mission in which the United States has been particularly
active in recent years, might also prove a fruitful area in
which to pursue cooperation.
Recommendations to the Senate
In 1996, the Senate made clear in its resolution of advice
and consent to ratification of the START II Treaty that missile
defense would be an essential element of deterrence in the 21st
century. As noted above, Congress enacted the National Missile
Defense Act of 1999 to set U.S. missile defense policy. The
committee recommends that the resolution of advice and consent
to ratification of the New START Treaty similarly include
provisions regarding missile defense. The committee recommends
that the Senate's resolution of advice and consent include an
understanding, to be included in the United States' instrument
of ratification, that:
The New START Treaty does not impose any limitations
on the deployment of missile defenses other than the
requirements of paragraph 3 of Article V of the New
START Treaty, which states, ``Each Party shall not
convert and shall not use ICBM launchers and SLBM
launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors
therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall
not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for
placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision
shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted
prior to signature of this Treaty for placement of
missile defense interceptors therein.'';
Any additional New START Treaty limitations on the
deployment of missile defenses beyond those contained
in paragraph 3 of Article V, including any limitations
agreed under the auspices of the Bilateral Consultative
Commission, would require an amendment to the New START
Treaty which may enter into force for the United States
only with the advice and consent of the Senate, as set
forth in Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the
Constitution of the United States; and
The April 7, 2010, unilateral statement by the
Russian Federation on missile defense does not impose a
legal obligation on the United States.
Given the reported testimony of Russia's deputy foreign
minister on this aspect of the treaty, the committee believes
that the Government of the Russian Federation has a similar
understanding.
The committee recommends that the resolution also declare
that further limitations on the missile defense capabilities of
the United States are not in the national security interest of
the United States, and that it call for regular briefings from
the executive branch on missile defense issues related to the
treaty and on U.S.-Russia missile defense dialogue and
cooperation. To help ensure that the BCC is not used in a
manner that would undermine U.S. missile defense options, the
committee recommends that the resolution also call for
briefings before and after each BCC meeting.
As noted above, the committee recommends that the
resolution of advice and consent include a condition requiring
the President to certify that provision of telemetric
information to the Russian Federation is not required by the
treaty for the launch of a missile defense interceptor,
satellite launches, launches of missile defense sensor or
intercept targets, or any missile described in clause (a) of
paragraph 7 of Article III of the treaty.
CONVENTIONAL PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE SYSTEMS
The United States is currently exploring a range of options
for CPGS capability to strike targets anywhere in the world in
an hour or less. The Department of Defense is examining CPGS
within the context of its portfolio of all non-nuclear long-
range strike capabilities, including land-based and sea-based
systems as well as standoff and/or penetrating bombers.
According to the Department of State, investment
recommendations stemming from this study will be reflected in
the FY 2012 budget submission.\21\
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\21\Department of State, Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and
Implementation, ``Conventional Prompt Global Strike,'' April 8, 2010,
available at http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/139913.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The United States entered into negotiations on a
replacement for the original START Treaty with a goal of
ensuring that it maintains the ability to deploy conventional
strategic-range systems. The chief U.S. negotiator of the New
START Treaty, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and
Compliance Rose Gottemoeller, told the committee at its hearing
on June 15, 2010:
We were firm during the negotiations that the treaty
must allow for strategic missiles [of] conventional
configuration and also that future non-nuclear systems
of strategic range that do not otherwise meet the
definitions of the treaty should not be considered new
kinds of strategic offensive arms for the purposes of
this treaty.
The Secretary of Defense's Representative to the Post-START
Negotiations, Dr. Edward L. Warner III, explained that, with
this goal in mind, the United States ``agreed to a permit-and-
count regime whereby conventionally armed ICBMs or SLBMs would
be permitted but counted under the strategic delivery vehicle
and strategic warhead ceilings.'' Thus, the New START Treaty
makes no distinction between those ICBMs and SLBMs--as those
terms are defined by the treaty--that carry nuclear warheads
and those that carry non-nuclear warheads. Non-nuclear
strategic delivery systems that otherwise satisfy the defined
range criteria would count toward the treaty's limits on
deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers; their associated
warheads; and deployed and non-deployed launchers and heavy
bombers.
This approach largely matches that taken by the START
Treaty. It is important to note, however, that START
attributed, for each ICBM and SLBM, a total number of warheads
against the warhead limit, often based on the total number of
warheads--non-nuclear or nuclear--such ICBM or SLBM had been
shown to be capable of fielding. Thus, an ICBM or SLBM armed
with a single conventional warhead under the original START
Treaty would have counted as having the attributable number of
warheads assigned to that particular ICBM or SLBM even if that
attribution number was far greater than the actual number of
conventional warheads deployed on the missile. By contrast,
only the number of conventional warheads actually deployed on
each ICBM or SLBM--which may well be just one, for CPGS
systems--would count toward the limits under the New START
Treaty. (In addition, beyond its limitation on strategic
delivery vehicles, START also explicitly barred the Parties
from deploying ballistic missiles with a range greater than 600
kilometers on surface ships; New START contains no such
prohibition.)
There are reasons for limiting ICBMs and SLBMs in the same
way whether they carry nuclear or conventional warheads. It
would be extremely difficult to verify compliance with a treaty
that attempted to count conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs
differently than nuclear-tipped ICBMs and SLBMs that otherwise
shared the same physical characteristics. A ballistic missile
capable of carrying a conventional warhead over 5,500
kilometers, or capable of being launched from a submarine and
travelling over 600 kilometers, would be equally capable of
delivering a nuclear payload. It is not possible to use
national technical means of verification to determine from a
distance whether a given missile holds nuclear or non-nuclear
payloads under its nose cone. It is therefore not reasonable to
expect one country to accept mutual limits to nuclear-armed
missiles, while tolerating the other country's unlimited
deployment of the same kinds of long-range missiles based only
on the promise that those latter missiles are carrying non-
nuclear warheads. It would be too easy in that situation for
the second country to use its conventionally armed missiles as
a mask for covertly-deployed nuclear ones, or for a nuclear
breakout capability, and thus acquire superiority over the
other side's strategic forces. By basing treaty limits on the
properties of the delivery vehicle, parties to a treaty can be
more confident that the other side is not gaining an advantage
by cheating on the treaty's limits in plain sight.
The preamble to the New START Treaty contains a statement
that both sides are ``[m]indful of the impact of conventionally
armed ICBMs and SLBMs on strategic stability.'' The language
does not impose a binding obligation on the Parties. In an
answer for the record, Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller and Dr.
Warner offered some explanation of Russian concerns regarding
non-nuclear strategic-range options:
It appears that Russia believes the deployment of
conventionally-armed ICBMs and SLBMs would have an
impact on strategic stability, if they were accurate
and numerous enough to hold at risk a significant
portion of Russia's deployed strategic deterrent
systems. Russian commentators have raised the concern
that the threshold for launching conventionally-armed
ICBMs and SLBMs might be lower than that for launching
a nuclear-armed missile, and that this would be
destabilizing. Finally, Russian observers have also
expressed concerns about the possibility that one would
not be able to determine whether a conventionally-armed
ICBM or SLBM in flight was, in fact, conventionally-
armed, and whether it was being targeted on a third
country or on Russia.
Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller and Dr. Warner added that
Russia did not have any reason to fear U.S. CPGS capabilities
over the life of this treaty, because those systems would not
be aimed at Russia and would be deployed in insufficient
numbers to threaten Russia's strategic offensive capabilities:
If the United States chooses to acquire conventional
prompt global strike systems, such systems would not be
acquired for use against Russia. Moreover, because any
U.S. plans for acquiring conventional prompt global
strike systems would be limited to [a] small number of
such systems, Russia could be assured that they would
not pose a threat to the survivability of the Russian
nuclear deterrent.
The committee agrees that the conventionally armed
strategic-range systems that the United States might deploy
over the life of the treaty will not undermine strategic
stability between the United States and the Russian Federation,
and it recommends that the Senate's resolution of advice and
consent to ratification of the treaty include a declaration to
this effect. Most such systems are still only in the early
stages of research and development, and the treaty-limited
systems that might be available for deployment within a few
years (e.g., ICBMs or SLBMs with a conventional payload) would
be so expensive as to warrant use only against the highest
priority time-sensitive targets.
Pursuant to the Eighth Agreed Statement in Part Nine of the
Protocol, the Parties also agreed that, considering military
utility, they will simultaneously place only non-nuclear
objects other than reentry vehicles and nuclear-armed reentry
vehicles on a front section of an ICBM or SLBM. Thus, ICBMs and
SLBMs would not be deployed with both nuclear and non-nuclear
reentry vehicles at the same time. The State Department's
article-by-article analysis explains that ``[t]his statement is
premised on the shared assumption that there is no military
utility in carrying nuclear-armed and conventionally-armed
reentry vehicles on the same ICBM or SLBM.'' One effect of this
agreement is to remove one possible reason for Russian concern
regarding U.S. CPGS programs.
The committee examined extensively whether the treaty's
limits on strategic offensive arms would allow the United
States to deploy simultaneously a sufficiently robust CPGS
capability and an appropriately sized nuclear deterrent. The
executive branch made clear that it believed that the treaty's
limits were certainly sufficient to accommodate the level of
CPGS deployments that is foreseeable over the lifetime of the
treaty. In an answer for the record, the Secretary of Defense
stated:
As envisaged by our military planners, the number of
such conventionally armed delivery vehicles and the
warheads they carry would be very small when measured
against the overall levels of strategic delivery
systems and strategic warheads. Should we decide to
deploy them, counting this small number of conventional
strategic systems and their warheads toward the treaty
limits will not prevent the United States from
maintaining a robust nuclear deterrent.
Admiral Mullen concurred, stating on March 26, 2010, that
the treaty ``protects our ability to develop a conventional
global strike capability should that be required.'' When he
testified before the committee on June 16, 2010, Principal
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Miller went on to
explain:
While our analysis of non-nuclear prompt global
strike is still underway, DOD has concluded that any
deployment of conventionally armed ICBMs or SLBMs with
a traditional trajectory, which would count under the
treaty limits, should be limited to a niche capability.
That's based on military considerations. The required
number could easily be accounted for under the treaty's
limits while still retaining a robust nuclear triad.
[Emphasis added.]
The committee sees no reason to doubt statements by the
cognizant civilian and uniformed military officials that, at
least over the ten-year duration of the treaty, the treaty's
limits provide sufficient room to accommodate both the
strategic nuclear forces and the limited number of CPGS weapons
the United States is likely to deploy. The committee concurs
that the New START Treaty's limits appear to provide, over at
least the treaty's ten-year duration, sufficient margins in
which to deploy those CPGS systems that would meet the treaty's
definitions and therefore are subject to Article II's limits.
Moreover, the United States is also exploring CPGS
capabilities that would not meet the definitions of ICBMs,
SLBMs, or heavy bombers in the treaty, and which therefore
would not count toward the treaty's limits. At the committee's
hearing on June 16, 2010, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy Miller stated:
DOD is also exploring the potential of conventionally
armed long-range systems that fly a non-ballistic
trajectory; for example, boost-glide systems. We are
confident that such non-nuclear systems, which do not
otherwise meet the definitions for the New START
Treaty, would not be accountable as, ``new kinds of
strategic offensive arms,'' for the purposes of the
treaty.
To be counted under the treaty's limits as a deployed ICBM,
the weapon-delivery vehicle must be a land-based ballistic
missile--that is, ``a weapon-delivery vehicle that has a
ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path,'' pursuant
to the definition contained in paragraph 6 of Part One of the
Protocol--with a range in excess of 5,500 kilometers. To be
counted as a deployed SLBM, the weapon-delivery vehicle must be
``a ballistic missile with a range in excess of 600 kilometers
of a type, any one of which has been contained in, or launched
from, a submarine.'' Thus, a land-based weapon-delivery vehicle
that had a range in excess of 5,500 kilometers but that did not
have a ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path would
not count as an ICBM; similarly, a weapon-delivery vehicle of a
type, any one of which has been contained in, or launched from,
a submarine, that had a range in excess of 600 kilometers, but
that did not have a ballistic trajectory over most of its
flight path would not count as an SLBM.
The treaty contemplates that strategic offensive arms may
emerge that do not meet the definitions of the items limited by
Article II, and provides a mechanism for discussing the
situation. Specifically, Article V, paragraph 2 of the treaty
states that ``When a Party believes that a new kind of
strategic offensive arm is emerging, that Party shall have the
right to raise the question of such a strategic offensive arm
for consideration in the Bilateral Consultative Commission.''
In its article-by-article analysis, the Department of State
explained its position with respect to counting strategic-range
non-nuclear weapons that do not otherwise meet the definitions
in the treaty:
The Parties understand that they may use the BCC to
discuss whether new kinds of arms are subject to the
treaty. The United States stated that it would not
consider future, strategic range non-nuclear systems
that do not otherwise meet the definitions of this
treaty to be ``new kinds of strategic offensive arms''
for purposes of the treaty. The Parties understand
that, if one Party deploys a new kind of strategic
range arm for delivering non-nuclear weapons that it
asserts is not a ``new kind of strategic offensive
arm'' subject to the treaty, and the other Party
challenges that assertion, the deploying Party would be
obligated to attempt to resolve the issue within the
framework of the BCC. There is no requirement in the
treaty for the deploying Party to delay deployment of
the new system pending such resolution. [Emphasis
added.]
Assistant Secretary Gottemoeller informed the committee, in
response to a question for the record, that the United States
expressed a similar view during negotiations for the original
START Treaty regarding whether it was necessary to delay
deployment of new kinds of strategic offensive arms while the
Parties discussed how they might be handled under that treaty.
When asked whether Russia agreed with the U.S. approach
regarding the treatment of strategic-range non-nuclear systems
that do not meet the definitions of the treaty, Assistant
Secretary Gottemoeller and Dr. Warner stated for the record:
``The Russian Federation did not make a definitive statement
regarding this matter.''
The committee agrees that the United States need not delay,
in any way, the research, development, testing, evaluation, and
deployment of strategic-range non-nuclear weapons systems that
do not otherwise meet the definitions of the treaty while a
question is discussed in the BCC concerning whether such a
system is a new kind of strategic offensive arm. The committee
notes that the Department of Defense has instructed personnel
that New START will not impede U.S. research and development of
CPGS systems. A September 3, 2010, memorandum from the Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,
provided in a letter of September 13, 2010, from the Secretary
of Defense to the ranking member of the committee, states:
The New START Treaty does not in any way limit or
constrain research, development, testing, and
evaluation (RDT&E) of any strategic concepts or
systems, including prompt global strike capabilities.
It is essential that the Department continue to conduct
RDT&E on a wide range of advanced strategic concepts
and systems, irrespective of whether or not such
systems, if procured, would be accountable under the
New START Treaty.
The committee recommends that the Senate's resolution of
advice and consent to ratification of the New START Treaty
contain an understanding, which would be included in the
instrument of ratification provided to the Government of the
Russian Federation, that parallels the statements on this point
that were made by the United States in the negotiations.
As the United States proceeds with its development of CPGS
systems, however, it would be wise to consider, inter alia, how
each proposed system might be affected by New START and how
each system could be deployed so as to minimize the risk that
it would be mistaken for a nuclear-armed weapons system. The
committee recommends that the Senate's resolution of advice and
consent to ratification of the New START Treaty include a
requirement that the President submit a report to the Armed
Services and Foreign Relations Committees of the Senate that
will address these issues regarding the CPGS systems that are
currently under development. The committee further recommends
that the President be required to consult with the Senate if
the President ever concludes that the needed number of
conventional warheads on ICBMs or SLBMs cannot be accommodated
within the New START limits while sustaining a robust nuclear
triad.
Some have questioned whether it was wise not to
specifically exclude tests of CPGS systems from the telemetric
information exchange provisions of Article IX of the New START
Treaty. The committee notes that some such systems would be
excluded from the treaty in any event, because they will not
meet any of the definitions of systems covered by the treaty.
In any case, the telemetric information exchange provision does
not require the exchange of telemetry on any given test; it
merely provides a framework within which the Parties might
agree to exchange such telemetry. One reason why the United
States might find it in our national security interest to
exchange such telemetry would be for the purpose of
demonstrating that the system in question did not qualify as a
strategic offensive arm under the treaty (e.g., that its range
was too low or that the weapon-delivery vehicle did not have a
ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path). Another
reason might be that the Russian Federation was prepared to
exchange telemetry from an especially interesting Russian test
in return for this U.S. telemetry.
The committee believes that it would be prudent to require
that the President, before agreeing to exchange telemetry on a
test launch of a conventional prompt global strike system,
certify to the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed
Services in the Senate that the provision of such information
is either to demonstrate that such system is not limited by
Article II of the New START Treaty or to receive in return
significant telemetric information of a system deployed by the
Russian Federation prior to December 5, 2009. The committee
further recommends that the President be required to certify
that such telemetry exchange is in the national security
interest of the United States and that it will not undermine
the effectiveness of the system being tested.
NON-STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The United States has sought for at least two decades to
limit and secure shorter-range, non-strategic nuclear weapons
(also known as ``tactical'' or ``theater'' nuclear weapons).
These weapons threaten to blur the distinction in
decisionmakers' minds between conventional and nuclear war,
even though the actual use of ``non-strategic'' nuclear weapons
in war should be expected to produce physical effects--and
international political consequences--much closer to those of
``strategic'' nuclear systems than to any conventional weapon.
By virtue of their small size, mobility, and potential for
widely dispersed deployment, numerous concerns have also been
expressed about the possibility that non-strategic weapons
could be stolen and used by a terrorist group.
Russia provides extremely little transparency regarding the
number, location, and deployment status of its non-strategic
nuclear weapons. (The United States does not publicly disclose
information about the size of its non-strategic deployments.)
Russia's lack of transparency contributes to widely varying
estimates of the number of non-strategic weapons that it
deploys or has stockpiled. One open source estimate concludes
that Russia deploys about 2,000 non-strategic weapons.\22\ The
Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United
States cited unnamed ``senior Russian experts'' who have
estimated that Russia possesses some 3,800 non-strategic
operational warheads.\23\ Despite the uncertainty surrounding
the size of Russia's operational non-strategic arsenal, there
is wide agreement that the United States, in partnership with
its NATO allies, deploys far fewer non-strategic weapons in
Europe than Russia does in its territory.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, ``Russian Nuclear
Forces,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 2010;
available at http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/4337066824700113/
fulltext.pdf.
\23\William J. Perry, Chairman and James R. Schlesinger, Vice-
Chairman, America's Strategic Posture, The Final Report of the
Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States,
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2009 (available at http://www.usip.org/files/
America's_Strategic_Posture_Auth_Ed.pdf), p. 13.
\24\Russia is not believed to deploy non-strategic nuclear forces
outside its national territory.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Strategic Posture Commission concluded that, ``As part
of its effort to compensate for weaknesses in its conventional
forces, Russia's military leaders are putting more emphasis on
non-strategic nuclear forces . . ..'' Russia, in the
Commission's view, ``no longer sees itself as capable of
defending its vast territory and nearby interests with
conventional forces.''\25\ As Russia reduces the number of
warheads deployed on strategic delivery systems, the relative
importance of its non-strategic arsenal will increase. (The
Strategic Posture Commission argued, however, that, while the
size of Russia's non-strategic nuclear arsenal must be a
consideration for the United States in its nuclear force
planning, the United States need not seek numerical equality to
Russia in non-strategic nuclear forces.) The Commission also
noted that the current imbalance between U.S. and Russian non-
strategic nuclear warheads is ``worrisome to some U.S. allies
in Central Europe,'' an analysis that Secretary Gates echoed in
his testimony before the committee.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\Perry and Schlesinger, America's Strategic Posture, p. 12.
\26\Ibid, p. 21
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite its concerns about Russia's non-strategic nuclear
forces, the Strategic Posture Commission concluded in early
2009 that the next step in U.S.-Russian arms control should be
to ensure that there is a successor to the START Treaty. It
cautioned against over-reaching for innovative approaches in
the negotiations on that successor treaty, and instead
envisioned discussing non-strategic nuclear forces in a follow-
on to START-replacement negotiations.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\Ibid, pp. 66-68.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The administration followed this recommendation: like the
START Treaty, the START II Treaty, and the Moscow Treaty, the
New START Treaty does not address non-strategic nuclear
weapons. Presidents Obama and Medvedev in their April 2009
joint statement and their July 2009 joint understanding made
clear from the outset that the purpose of the treaty was to
replace the START Treaty and further reduce and limit
``strategic offensive arms,'' thus excluding non-strategic
nuclear weapons from the negotiations. Article I of the New
START Treaty therefore requires the Parties to reduce and limit
their strategic offensive arms. As noted in the State
Department's article-by-article analysis, the term ``strategic
offensive arms'' is not defined in the New START Treaty--as was
the case in the preceding START Treaty. ``Strategic,''
according to the State Department, indicates that, in general,
the forces covered are those of intercontinental range, while
``offensive'' is in contrast to defensive strategic arms, such
as ballistic missile defense systems. Articles II and III
establish that the term ``strategic offensive arms'' applies in
this treaty to: deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers; their
associated warheads; and deployed and non-deployed ICBM
launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers. Part One of the
Protocol defines each of these terms based on the range of the
systems, and on other criteria.
Ballistic missiles and bombers that do not satisfy the
range and other criteria established for ICBMs, SLBMs, and
heavy bombers are not limited by the treaty, even if they are
capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. (The INF Treaty, which
remains in force for the United States and the Russian
Federation, does prohibit either side from possessing ground-
launched ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles
with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.) Similarly, cruise
missiles, long-range missiles that do not have a ballistic
trajectory over most of their flight path, and aircraft that
are capable of delivering a nuclear gravity bomb, but that do
not meet the heavy bomber range criteria, are not limited by
the New START Treaty.
In its consideration of the New START Treaty, the committee
focused much attention on the continued lack of a formal
bilateral arms control agreement, other than the INF Treaty,
governing non-strategic nuclear weapons. Secretary Schlesinger
called the issue of Russia's deployment of relatively numerous
non-strategic nuclear forces ``frustrating, vexatious, and
increasingly worrisome,'' although he did note that he had not
anticipated that the New START negotiations would address the
issue, and that he saw the New START Treaty as a precursor to
negotiations on non-strategic nuclear weapons. Secretaries
Perry and Kissinger, as well as Lt. Gen. Scowcroft, all
concurred with Secretary Schlesinger that, in Secretary
Kissinger's words, non-strategic nuclear weapons ``will have to
be included in any further deliberations.'' Indeed, Secretary
Kissinger argued that the New START Treaty was ``probably the
last agreement on strategic arms that can be made without
taking tactical nuclear weapons into account.''
In an answer for the record to a question, the Secretary of
State explained why the administration did not seek to include
limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons in the New START
Treaty:
A more ambitious treaty that addressed tactical
nuclear weapons would have taken much longer to
complete, adding significantly to the time before a
successor agreement, including verification measures,
could enter into force following START's expiration in
December 2009.
Beyond the issue of timing, the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of Defense, in an answer for the record, offered a
rationale for not addressing non-strategic nuclear weapons in
these negotiations:
Because of their limited range and very different
roles from those played by strategic nuclear forces,
the vast majority of Russian tactical nuclear weapons
could not directly influence the strategic nuclear
balance between the United States and Russia. [For
example] Russian nuclear-armed sea launched cruise
missiles, which could be launched from attack
submarines deployed off U.S. coasts, hold locations in
the United States at risk, but could not threaten
deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (which
will comprise a significant fraction of U.S. strategic
forces under New START), and would pose a very limited
threat to the hundreds of silo-based ICBMs that the
United States will retain under New START. Because the
United States will retain a robust strategic force
structure under New START, Russia's tactical nuclear
weapons will have little or no impact on strategic
stability.
In response to another question for the record, the
Secretaries pointed out, ``We did not make this [i.e., reducing
non-strategic nuclear weapons] an objective for this agreement,
because from the outset the New START Treaty was intended to
replace the START Treaty, which was about strategic offensive
forces.''
General Chilton stated in response to a question for the
record that there remain important differences between
strategic and non-strategic nuclear systems, and that the
United States could call upon capabilities other than non-
strategic nuclear weapons to address Russian capabilities:
Under the assumptions of limited range and different
roles, Russian tactical nuclear weapons do not directly
influence the strategic balance between the US and
Russia. Though numerical asymmetry exists in the
numbers of tactical nuclear weapons the [United States]
has and we estimate Russia possesses, when considered
within the context of our total capability and given
force levels as structured in New START, this asymmetry
is not assessed to substantially affect the strategic
stability between the [United States] and Russia.
Furthermore, within the regional context, the [United
States] relies on multiple capabilities, including its
superior conventional force capabilities, tactical
nuclear capabilities, U.S. strategic nuclear
capabilities, ballistic missile defenses, and allied
capabilities, to support extended deterrence and power
projection.
Nevertheless, in its Nuclear Posture Review report, the
administration stated that it was a goal to: ``Engage Russia,
after ratification and entry into force of New START, in
negotiations aimed at achieving substantial further nuclear
force reductions and transparency that would cover all nuclear
weapons--deployed and non-deployed, strategic and
nonstrategic.''\28\ The Secretary of State elaborated in an
answer to a question for the record:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010; available at http://
www.defense.gov/npr/docs/
2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf.
It is the U.S. view that in any future reductions,
our aim should be to seek Russian agreement to increase
transparency on non-strategic nuclear weapons in
Europe, relocate these weapons away from the territory
of NATO members, and include non-strategic nuclear
weapons in the next round of U.S.-Russian arms control
discussions alongside strategic and non-deployed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
nuclear weapons.
The Secretary of State stated in an answer to another
question for the record that ``President Medvedev has expressed
interest in further discussions on measures to further reduce
both nations' nuclear arsenals.'' Nevertheless, former
Secretaries Perry and Schlesinger argued that such a next step,
while necessary, will likely prove to be exceedingly difficult
to negotiate. Critics argue that this difficulty will be all
the greater because the United States has given up so much that
there is nothing left to offer in return for Russian
willingness to reduce non-strategic nuclear weapons. Former
Secretary of Defense Perry noted in a committee hearing,
however, that Russia still has deep concerns regarding the
United States' capacity to upload nuclear bombs and warheads
from its significant reserve stockpile on its existing heavy
bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs. The Secretary of State's answer for
the record suggests that the executive branch, at least,
believes that each side will have something to gain in follow-
on negotiations.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the New
START Treaty a declaration calling upon the President to begin
discussions with Russia as soon as possible on tactical nuclear
weapons. It will be ever more difficult, if not impossible, to
make additional progress on measures to limit or reduce
strategic offensive arms if tactical nuclear weapons are not
also addressed. An early priority in such efforts should be
enhancing the transparency each side is willing to offer to the
other regarding the size, location, deployment status, and
security of these forces.
NEGOTIATING RECORD
As part of the committee's consideration of the treaty, and
in particular in its evaluation of any effect the treaty might
have on current and future U.S. missile defense efforts,
several Members of the committee requested that the executive
branch provide the ``full negotiating record'' of the treaty,
which was to include all draft versions of the treaty, all
memoranda and notes relating to the negotiating history of the
treaty, and any and all other relevant documents or records,
such as drafts, memoranda, notes, statements, records of
meetings, working papers, transcriptions, correspondence,
letters, electronic mail, or any other form of communication
between representatives of the United States and the Russian
Federation. The executive branch declined to provide this
extensive collection of information. Instead, on August 3,
2010, the State Department provided a classified summary of
discussions in the treaty negotiations on the issue of missile
defense. Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs
Richard R. Verma wrote to the committee that the summary
[P]rovides a detailed account of the negotiations,
starting in April 2009 through to the conclusion in
March 2010, including Russian proposals regarding
missile defense, the negotiations in Geneva between the
parties as this issue evolved, and the U.S. responses
and counterproposals regarding the language in the
treaty.
The full text of Assistant Secretary Verma's letter is
appended to this report.
The classified document was made available to Members of
the committee and their appropriately cleared staff for their
review.
There is little precedent for the Senate to undertake a
review of the complete negotiating record for treaties pending
its advice and consent. When the President submits a treaty to
the Senate for its advice and consent, he typically provides a
detailed written analysis of the treaty's provisions. In
addition, executive branch officials testify and respond to
questions for the record on the treaty, including addressing
questions about the executive branch's understanding of the
meaning of particular treaty provisions. The Senate relies on
these materials and testimony as representing authoritative
statements about the treaty's meaning and effect. Consistent
with this approach, the Senate did not review the negotiating
record to the committee in connection with either the original
START Treaty or the START II Treaty. Cable traffic from some
arms control negotiations may have been provided to the Senate
Arms Control Working Group while those negotiations progressed,
but that accommodation to Senate interest was separate from the
formal consideration of those treaties by the committee of
jurisdiction.
The one recent exception to this practice arose in
connection with the Senate's consideration of the INF Treaty.
In that case, in response to a request from several Senators,
the executive branch provided access to records of the INF
negotiations conducted in the Geneva Nuclear and Space Talks
and in ministerial and summit meetings. The documents involved
were only those that were exchanged with Soviet negotiators.
Then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz explained that the
executive branch would not provide internal executive branch
deliberative material that was not provided to the other side
because ``such material does not reflect mutual intent of the
parties, and therefore, cannot be used as a basis for
interpretation of obligations.''
The circumstances that led Senators to request to review
materials for the INF Treaty negotiating record were unusual.
At the time the INF Treaty was pending before the Senate, a
debate was underway between the Reagan Administration and some
Members of the Senate over the proper interpretation of the ABM
Treaty, to which the United States was a party at the time. In
connection with that debate, the State Department Legal
Adviser, Abraham Sofaer, suggested that statements made by the
executive branch to the Senate during the ratification process
for the ABM Treaty did not represent authoritative statements
about the treaty's meaning and interpretation. In testimony to
the Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Sofaer stated that,
``When the Senate gives its advice and consent to the treaty,
it is [only] to the treaty that is made, irrespective of the
explanation [that the Senate] was provided.''\29\ This proposed
doctrine regarding treaty consideration caused great concern
within the committee and the Senate, and in response, several
Senators demanded that the negotiating record for the INF
Treaty be provided when the President submitted it for Senate
consideration early in 1988. In the words of the committee's
report at the time, these Senators were ``underscoring the
point that the Administration's assertions about the role of
the Senate in treaty-making had destroyed any basis on which
the Senate could operate in confidence of Executive good
faith.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\Committee on Foreign Relations, ``The INF Treaty,'' Executive
Report 100-15, April 14, 1988, p. 88. The discussion that follows draws
extensively from that report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To respond to this erosion of trust between the Senate and
the executive, then-Senator Biden proposed conditioning the
Senate's advice and consent to ratification of the INF Treaty
on the statement of certain principles, ``which derive, as a
necessary implication, from the provisions of the
Constitution.'' The committee recommended the condition in
order to
``Avoid the need for other conditions pertaining to
specific interpretations of the INF Treaty,''
To ``repudiate a pernicious doctrine that was
asserted solely for a specific purpose,'' and
To ``establish a position with regard to future
treaties such that the Senate can avoid repeating the
inclusion of a formal condition.''
The Senate adopted a modified version of this condition in
the final resolution of advice and consent to ratification. As
discussed later in this report, in the section-by-section
analysis of the proposed resolution of advice and consent to
ratification to the New START Treaty, the committee recommends
citing by reference this condition as adopted by the full
Senate.
Having responded to the ABM Treaty interpretation
controversy with this condition on the INF Treaty's
ratification, the committee turned its attention to what it
called ``the task of ensuring that Senate review of
`negotiating records' does not become an institutionalized
procedure.'' The rationale that the committee offered in 1988
for recommending that the Senate not seek, as a matter of
routine, the negotiating record in its consideration of
treaties is worth reprinting in full today:
First, a systematic expectation of Senate perusal of
every key treaty's ``negotiating record'' could be
expected to inhibit candor during future negotiations
and induce posturing on the part of U.S. negotiators
and their counterparts during sensitive discussions.
Second, by seeking possession of the myriad internal
Executive memoranda comprising the ``negotiating
record,'' the Senate would impose upon itself a
considerable task with no clear purpose. Because this
``record'' does not constitute an agreed account of the
negotiations, such documents have no formal standing.
Accordingly, regularized efforts to reconcile these
``snapshots'' of the negotiation process with the
resulting treaty text as explained by the Executive
would serve only to divert the Senate's attention from
the central aim of the ratification process--which is
to build, between the Executive and the Senate, a clear
``shared understanding'' of the treaty text and the
obligations which that text entails.
The overall effect--of fully exposed negotiations
followed by a far more complicated Senate review--would
be to weaken the treaty-making process and thereby to
damage American diplomacy.
The traditional approach does not, of course,
preclude references to the ``record'' where such
reference can be useful in explaining the effect of
treaty provisions which may appear ambiguous or about
which questions may arise. The Executive may sometimes
wish to initiate such reference to the ``record''; on
some occasions the Senate may request a detailed
account of the interchange which resulted in a
particular treaty provision. But this case-by-case
approach is far superior to a systematic submission of
the ``negotiating record,'' which implies either that
treaties tend to be replete with ambiguity or that the
Executive cannot be trusted to present an accurate
account of the obligations to be assumed by the United
States. Neither assumption should be allowed to govern
the basic Executive-Senate interaction in the treaty-
making process.
Now that the INF Treaty ``negotiating record'' has
been made available to the Senate, the status of these
documents requires resolution. In the Committee's view,
that resolution would not have been satisfactorily
achieved by any stipulation in the resolution of
ratification declaring that the Senate had scrutinized
the ``record'' and satisfied itself that the ``record''
was in harmony with the formal Executive branch
presentation of the treaty. Such an approach could
entail three significant problems:
(a) institutionally, it could imply that such
scrutiny is important to the Senate's
examination of treaties and thus should be
institutionalized;
(b) retroactively, it could imply that such
scrutiny should have been exercised in the
past; and
(c) specifically, with regard to the INF
Treaty, it could leave open the question of
what is to be done if, in the future, there is
an assertion--for example, by a subsequent
Administration--that notwithstanding the
Senate's perception of harmony there was an
inconsistency between the ``record'' and the
Executive presentation.
Accordingly, the Committee believes that no formal
finding concerning the contents of the INF Treaty
``negotiating record'' would be wise. In the
Committee's judgment, the status of this ``record'' is
established by the basic principles affirmed in the
Biden Condition. If U.S. treaty interpretation is to be
based upon the shared understanding of the Senate and
the Executive branch at the time of ratification, and
if the common understanding is reflected in
authoritative Executive branch statements made in
seeking Senate consent to ratification, then sources of
interpretation which appear at variance must be
subordinated to those authoritative statements.
In sum, although internal Executive memoranda and
other negotiating materials may have been available to
members of the Senate, some of whom have sought to
assure themselves that this ``record'' is consistent
with the Administration's formal presentation, the
clear corollary of the constitutional principles cited
in the Biden Condition is that such documents need not
have been examined for consistency and should not be
deemed material to U.S. interpretation of the INF
Treaty insofar as they are inconsistent with the
Executive branch's formal presentation of the INF
Treaty.
The committee believes this analysis remains correct today.
III. Views of the Committee on Armed Services
Between June and August of this year, the Committee on
Armed Services reports that it held five hearings and three
briefings on the New START Treaty and related issues. On
September 14, 2010, Senator Carl Levin, the committee's
chairman, and Senator John McCain, its ranking member, each
submitted a letter to the Foreign Relations Committee outlining
their views on the treaty.
SENATOR LEVIN'S VIEWS
Senator Levin wrote that he supported the treaty because,
``[a]s a verifiable treaty with enduring limitations,
ratification of the New START Treaty will provide
predictability, confidence, transparency, and stability in the
U.S.-Russian relationship.'' Senator Levin noted in particular
that the treaty would restore visibility into Russia's nuclear
arsenal that disappeared with the expiration of the START
Treaty in December 2009, that it provides sufficient
flexibility for the United States to meet unexpected technical
or political developments, and that it will lead to greater
cooperation with Russia. Senator Levin also recommended four
points for inclusion in the resolution of ratification, all of
which are addressed in the resolution that the committee
recommends to the Senate.
First, Senator Levin--noting that the only limitation on
missile defense in the New START Treaty is the prohibition
contained in Article V Paragraph 3 on the conversion of ICBM
and SLBM launchers to missile defense interceptor launchers and
vice versa--recommended that the resolution include an
understanding explicitly stating that the New START Treaty does
not constrain U.S. missile defense plans or programs in any
other way. Understanding 1(A) in the resolution recommended by
the committee does precisely this.
Second, Senator Levin wrote that the Senate should ``urge
the President to discuss with NATO and Russia the establishment
of limitations on non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons
with the goal of reaching an agreement on reducing such
weapons.'' Declaration 11 in the resolution recommended by the
Committee on Foreign Relations:
[C]alls upon the President to pursue, following
consultation with allies, an agreement with the Russian
Federation that would address the disparity between the
tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian
Federation and of the United States and would secure
and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable
manner.
Third, Senator Levin--noting his committee's concern about
the ability to maintain without testing the safety, security,
and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile--wrote that
the Senate:
[S]hould urge the President to establish clear,
realistic requirements for the modernization of the
nuclear weapons complex, the life extension programs,
and the scientific, experimental, and analytical tools
needed by the laboratories to ensure a continued safe,
secure, and reliable stockpile, and to request funds as
needed on an annual basis to support these
requirements.
Condition 9 of the resolution recommended by the Committee
on Foreign Relations addresses this issue. It states that,
because the United States is committed to proceeding with a
robust stockpile stewardship program and to modernizing nuclear
weapons production capabilities, the United States is committed
to providing the nuclear weapons labs with, at a minimum, the
funds called for in the President's 1251 report. If
appropriations fail to meet those levels--or if at any time
more resources are required--the resolution requires the
President to submit a report detailing the impact of the
shortfall and how the President proposes to remedy it.
Finally, Senator Levin suggested that:
[G]iven the concern that the absence of telemetric
information will reduce the confidence that the United
States will have in the overall capabilities of the
Russian strategic offensive systems, the Senate should
require submission of an annual report for the first 5
years of the New START Treaty that will assess the
overall adequacy of the verification and inspection
provisions to monitor compliance with the treaty, and
their ability to provide adequate information on the
overall capabilities of Russian strategic offensive
systems.
The resolution recommended by the Committee on Foreign
Relations addresses this concern in Condition 2(A), which
requires the President, prior to entry into force and annually
thereafter, to certify that U.S. NTM, combined with the
verification activities provided for in New START, provide
effective monitoring of Russian compliance with the treaty.
Moreover, Condition 10 requires the President to submit to the
Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed Services an annual
report certifying Russian compliance with the treaty or
detailing its noncompliance, and assessing the operation of New
START's transparency measures, including the exchange of
telemetric data. Also, Declaration 6(B) states that, given its
concerns about compliance issues, the Senate expects the
executive branch to brief the Committees on Foreign Relations
and Armed Services at least four times a year on any compliance
issues that have arisen in the course of implementing the
treaty.
SENATOR MCCAIN'S VIEWS
In his letter, Senator McCain wrote, ``The New START Treaty
represents the continuation of decades-long efforts to promote
strategic stability with Russia through the bilateral
reductions of our nuclear weapons arsenals.'' He added, ``I
support many of the New START Treaty's goals,'' but he also
said that ``a number of significant flaws must be addressed by
the Senate prior to ratification.'' The resolution of advice
and consent to ratification recommended by the Foreign
Relations Committee addresses many of the issues raised by
Senator McCain.
First, Senator McCain wrote, ``I am strongly opposed to the
New START Treaty's references and legally-binding limitations
on ballistic missile defense.'' He added, ``I . . . strongly
believe that the Resolution of Ratification must make it clear
that any limitations on the development or deployment of
missile defenses designed to protect the United States, its
allies, and deployed forces will be prohibited.'' As cited
above, Understanding 1(A) in the resolution recommended by the
Committee on Foreign Relations says that ``the New START Treaty
does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missile
defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3 of Article
V,'' which prohibits the conversion of ICBM and SLBM launchers
for missile defense interceptor launchers and vice versa.
Declaration 1(A)(iii) in the recommended resolution notes that
``further limitations on the missile defense capabilities of
the United States are not in the national interest of the
United States.'' Declaration 1(B) states:
The New START Treaty and the April 7, 2010,
unilateral statement of the Russian Federation on
missile defense do not limit in any way, and shall not
be interpreted as limiting, activities that the United
States Government currently plans or that might be
required over the duration of the New START Treaty to
protect the United States pursuant to the National
Missile Defense Act of 1999, or to protect United
States Armed Forces and United States allies from
limited ballistic missile attack . . ..
Second, Senator McCain wrote:
The resolution of ratification should address the
modernization of both the weapons complex and the
nuclear triad. At a minimum, the resolution should
signal that a failure to adequately modernize could
jeopardize U.S. national security and, in an extreme
circumstance, could even constitute grounds for
withdrawing from the treaty.
As noted above, Condition 9 in the resolution recommended
by the Committee on Foreign Relations states the U.S.
commitment to providing the nuclear weapons labs with, at a
minimum, the funds called for in the President's 1251 report.
If appropriations fail to meet those levels--or if at any time
more resources are required--the resolution requires the
President to submit a report detailing the implications of the
shortfall and how he proposes to remedy it. Concerning the
triad, Declaration 13 of the recommended resolution says:
[I]t is the sense of the Senate that United States
deterrence and flexibility is assured by a robust triad
of strategic delivery vehicles. To this end, the United
States is committed to accomplishing the modernization
and replacement of its strategic nuclear delivery
vehicles, and to ensuring the continued flexibility of
United States conventional and nuclear delivery
systems.
Third, Senator McCain voiced concern about the powers of
the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC): ``The resolution
of ratification must establish limitations for the BCC and
prohibit any role for this Commission that risk[s] impinging on
the Senate's Constitutional responsibilities.'' The resolution
recommended by the Committee on Foreign Relations addresses the
limits of the BCC in a number of places. Condition 8 provides
close oversight, requiring the President to consult with the
Foreign Relations Committee 15 days before any meeting of the
BCC to consider additional measures to improve the viability or
effectiveness of the treaty or to determine whether the treaty
applies to a new kind of strategic offensive arm; the
consultation will address whether any resulting proposal, if
adopted, would require the advice and consent of the Senate.
Declaration 6(B) states that the Senate expects the executive
branch to provide briefings on all compliance issues addressed
at the BCC. Understanding 1(B) indicates that any additional
limitation on missile defense beyond that in paragraph 3 of
Article V, including any agreed to at the BCC, would be subject
to the advice and consent of the Senate. And Understanding
3(D)(ii) indicates that any prohibition on the deployment of
future strategic-range, non-nuclear weapons systems, including
any agreed to at the BCC, would require the Senate's advice and
consent.
Fourth, Senator McCain wrote that, ``the Resolution of
Ratification should assert that any future arms control
negotiations with Russia must address reductions in Russian
tactical nuclear weapons.'' As noted above, Declaration 11 in
the resolution recommended by the Committee on Foreign
Relations:
[C]alls upon the President to pursue, following
consultation with allies, an agreement with the Russian
Federation that would address the disparity between the
tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian
Federation and of the United States and would secure
and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable
manner.
Fifth, Senator McCain wrote that, ``the Resolution of
Ratification should require that the President provide a plan
for funding, developing, and deploying future CPGS capabilities
as well as an assessment of whether such capabilities would be
accountable under the New START Treaty.'' Condition 6 in the
resolution recommended by the Committee on Foreign Relations
requires the President to submit such a report to the
Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations prior to
entry into force of the New START Treaty.
Finally, articulating concerns about the treaty's
provisions on verification and telemetry, Senator McCain wrote:
[T]he Resolution of Ratification should require the
President to report annually on the level of national
confidence in Russian compliance with the treaty.
Additionally . . . the United States [should] insist
that Russia share telemetric data on any of those new
strategic offensive systems developed over the duration
of the treaty.''
As noted above, Condition 2(A) in the resolution
recommended by the Committee on Foreign Relations requires the
President, prior to entry into force and annually thereafter,
to certify that U.S. NTM, combined with the verification
activities provided for in New START, provide effective
monitoring of Russian compliance with the treaty. Moreover,
Condition 10 requires the President to submit to the Committees
on Foreign Relations and Armed Services an annual report
certifying Russian compliance with the treaty and assessing the
operation of New START's transparency measures, including the
exchange of telemetric data. Finally, Condition 7 sets up a
framework for seeking significant Russian telemetry in return
for any telemetry the United States provides on CPGS systems.
The letters from Senator Levin and Senator McCain are
reprinted below:
September 14, 2010.
Hon. John Kerry,
Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Richard Lugar,
Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Lugar: The Committee
on Armed Services has completed its review of the military
implications of The Treaty between the United States and the
Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, (the New START Treaty),
signed on April 8, 2010. As requested, this letter is to
provide you with my views on the New START Treaty and to offer
my suggestions for issues the Foreign Relations Committee
should consider in preparing a resolution of ratification for
the treaty.
The committee held 5 hearings and 3 briefings on the treaty
and related issues between June 17, 2010 and August 6, 2010.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's hearings allowed
members to consider a broad range of issues associated with the
treaty. On June 17, 2010, the Committee convened in open
session to receive testimony on the New START Treaty and
implications for national security from Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Secretary of State; Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense; Dr.
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy; and Admiral Michael G. Mullen,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On July 15, 2010, the
Committee received testimony in both open and closed session on
sustaining nuclear weapons under the New START Treaty.
Witnesses at this hearing included Dr. Michael R. Anastasio,
Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Dr. George H.
Miller, Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Dr.
Paul J. Hommert, Director of Sandia National Laboratories; and
Dr. Roy F. Schwitters, Chairman of the JASON Defense Advisory
Group. The Committee met in open session on July 20, 2010, to
receive testimony on implementation of the New START Treaty.
Appearing as witnesses at this hearing were Dr. James N.
Miller, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy;
Thomas D'Agostino, Administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration; and General Kevin P. Chilton,
Commander of U.S. Strategic Command. The Committee met in open
session on July 27, 2010, to receive independent analyses of
the New START Treaty from Ambassador Stephen Pifer, Director of
the Arms Control Initiative at the Brookings Institution;
Franklin C. Miller, Independent Consultant; Dr. John S. Foster,
Jr., Independent Consultant; and Dr. Keith B. Payne, Professor
and Head of the Graduate Department of Defense and Strategic
Studies at Missouri State University (Washington Campus). The
Committee held its final open hearing on July 29, 2010, during
which Senators continued to receive testimony on the New START
Treaty from Rose E. Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State
for the Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation;
and Dr. Edward L. Warner III, Secretary of Defense
Representative to Post-START Negotiations.
The Committee also held three closed briefings to review
the New START Treaty. The first of the Committee's closed
sessions focused on the Intelligence Community's judgment of
its ability to monitor compliance with the New START Treaty,
while the remaining two sessions examined strategic force
structure options for the United States and Russia,
respectively, under the New START Treaty. The Committee
convened on July 14, 2010, to consider the National
Intelligence Estimate on the verifiability of the New START
Treaty with Andrew M. Gibb, National Intelligence Officer for
Weapons of Mass Destruction on the National Intelligence
Council, as the witness before the Committee. The Committee met
again on July 29, 2010, to receive a briefing on the Department
of Defense strategic force structure options under the New
START Treaty with Dr. Edward L. Warner III, Secretary of
Defense Representative to Post-START Negotiations on behalf of
the Department of Defense, and Mr. Michael S. Elliott, Deputy
Director for Plans and Policy at the U.S. Strategic Command, as
witnesses. On August 5, 2010, the Committee met in a final
closed session to receive a briefing on Russian strategic force
structure under the New START Treaty. Mr. Robert D. Walpole,
Principal Deputy Director of the National Counterproliferation
Center, and Mr. Charles F. Monson, Deputy National Intelligence
Officer for Weapons of Mass Destruction (Ballistic and Land-
Attack Cruise Missiles) for the National Intelligence Council,
appeared as witnesses. During these three closed-session
meetings, the witnesses appearing before the Committee were
accompanied by, and the Committee was able to hear from,
representatives from the broader Intelligence Community,
including representatives from the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (ODNI), National Intelligence Council
(NIC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), State Department
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and the Department
of Energy (DOE).
I support the New START Treaty and the limitations on
strategic offensives arms, including ballistic missiles,
ballistic missile launchers, heavy bombers, and nuclear
warheads that it contains. Since the expiration of the START I
Treaty on December 4, 2009, the United States has not had
visibility into Russian strategic offensive nuclear arms. This
lack of transparency as well as the lack of limitations on the
numbers of delivery systems, if not addressed through a New
START Treaty, will lead to increasing uncertainty by each
country in the makeup of the other country's forces, which in
turn could prove destabilizing in the long term. While the
Moscow Treaty established a limit of 1,700 to 2,200
operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads by December
31, 2012, that treaty contains no verification or inspection
provisions, no definition of ``operationally deployed,'' and
because it is not enduring, the day after the limitation must
be achieved, it will no longer be in force.
I believe that the Senate should grant its consent to
ratification of the New START Treaty because ratification of
this treaty is in the national security interest of the United
States for many reasons. One strong reason is that we again
will have visibility into Russian nuclear arms. As a verifiable
treaty with enduring limitations, ratification of the New START
Treaty will provide predictability, confidence, transparency,
and stability in the U.S.-Russian relationship.
As the Committee heard from Secretary of Defense Gates and
the senior military commanders, the number of strategic
ballistic missiles, ballistic missile launchers, heavy bombers,
and nuclear warheads permitted under the treaty, was derived as
a result of careful analysis of the capabilities needed to meet
the deterrence requirements of the United States for the
foreseeable future. The limitations in the treaty provide
sufficient flexibility for the United States to address any
unforeseen situation, including technical or political issues,
through a robust nuclear triad. The limitations in the New
START Treaty are 74 percent lower than the limitations in the
Cold War era START I Treaty. That reflects the reality of the
significant reductions in both warheads and delivery systems
that both Russia and the United States have made in the 20
years since the end of the Cold War.
Previous treaties included prescriptive provisions,
including provisions limiting the specific capabilities of
specific strategic delivery systems, and the numbers of
specific types of delivery systems that either the United
States or Russia could possess. The New START Treaty limits the
total numbers of deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM
launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments to
800; the total number of deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and
deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments to 700;
and the total number of warheads on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs to
1550 warheads, with each deployed heavy bomber equipped for
nuclear armaments counting as one warhead. These broad limits
allow each side to balance their respective forces as they see
fit. For the United States, the majority of the nuclear
warheads will be deployed at sea on SLBMs, but the flexible
limits will also allow the United States to retain a large
number of single warhead ICBMs and heavy bombers equipped for
nuclear armaments. Retention of unlimited numbers of non-
deployed nuclear warheads will preserve the U.S. ability to
upload additional warheads on the ICBMs if circumstances should
require. In addition, this treaty will also allow the United
States to maintain a large fleet of heavy bombers for
conventional use only, as the treaty places no limits on heavy
bombers that have been converted to non-nuclear use. The B-1
bomber will no longer be counted as a heavy bomber equipped for
nuclear armaments, once their conversion has been completed,
and many of the B-52H bombers will also be converted to non-
nuclear capability.
During the course of the hearings and briefings conducted
by the Armed Services Committee on the New START Treaty, there
was considerable discussion on whether the treaty limits U.S.
ballistic missile defenses. The testimony was clear: the treaty
does not contain provisions that constrain the development or
deployment of effective or planned U.S. missile defenses. The
only limitation in the treaty itself dealing with missile
defense is the provision (Article V, paragraph 3) that
prohibits the conversion of ICBM and SLBM launchers for
ballistic missile defense use. The United States has no plan or
need to convert additional ICBM silos for missile defense use.
Indeed, it would be dangerous for either side to convert silos
because such action would cause ambiguity and uncertainty as to
what was being launched.
A statement in the treaty preamble that recognizes the
interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and
strategic defensive arms does not limit U.S. missile defenses,
but states a fact that the United States has recognized since
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972.
A Russian unilateral statement on U.S. ballistic missile
defense programs is not a part of the treaty and does not limit
or constrain the development or deployment of effective or
planned U.S. missile defenses. Our own unilateral statement
says that U.S. missile defenses are not intended to affect the
strategic balance with Russia and that we will continue to
improve and deploy missile defense systems. The Russian
unilateral statement that Russia could withdraw from the treaty
if the United States builds up missile defense system
capabilities that threaten Russian strategic forces is nothing
more than a recognition that either side could withdraw from
the treaty if its supreme national interest is jeopardized. It
is not a limitation on U.S. missile defenses.
The New START Treaty recognizes and adopts the reductions
in strategic offensive systems that have been made by the
United States and Russia, including nuclear warheads, since the
end of the Cold War by establishing new lower limits for both
deployed and non-deployed strategic offensive delivery systems
and for deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The treaty will
reinstate inspection and verification regimes lost with
expiration of the START I Treaty and will re-establish the
practice of having and complying with legally binding,
verifiable arms control agreements.
Ratification will also lead to greater cooperation with
Russia in other important areas. Failure to ratify this treaty,
in the words of Secretary of State Clinton before our Committee
on July 15, 2010, would have the opposite effect. She stated
that ``The consequences of not ratifying this treaty would have
very serious impacts on our relationship with Russia and would
frankly give aid and comfort to a lot of the adversaries we
face around the world . . . It [failure to ratify] would very
much undermine the relationship that President Obama has been
leading us to establish to provide more confidence between the
United States and Russia so that together we can tackle the
threats posed by Iran, North Korea, and networks of
terrorists.'' The New START Treaty will hopefully lead to
discussions with Russia in the future to address non-strategic
nuclear weapons and to ballistic missile defense cooperation.
I recommend a number of items be considered for inclusion
in the resolution of ratification, as follows:
1. The prohibition in the New START Treaty on
converting ICBM silos for missile defense purposes, and
vice versa, does not place constraints on U.S. missile
defense plans or programs because there are no plans or
any programmatic reason to convert additional ICBM
silos to missile defense uses. Indeed, it would be
dangerous to allow such conversion because of the
ambiguity and uncertainty that such conversions could
generate. There are no other provisions in the New
START Treaty that would limit U.S. missile defense
programs. To make that conclusion abundantly clear, it
would be useful for the Senate to include an
understanding in its resolution of ratification that
the New START Treaty and its accompanying documents,
including the provision with respect to silo
conversion, do not constrain U.S. missile defense plans
or programs to develop or deploy ballistic missile
defenses.
2. Many of the members of the Armed Services
Committee have expressed concern that the New START
Treaty is limited to strategic offensive arms only.
While non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons are
clearly an important issue for the United States and
Russia to address, this is not an issue that can be
addressed in bilateral treaty negotiations. NATO is an
indispensible party to any future discussions for a
treaty that would include resolutions or limitations on
non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, it is important to take steps that could
lead to future agreements limiting non-strategic or
tactical nuclear weapons. The Senate should urge the
President to discuss with NATO and Russia the
establishment of limitations on non-strategic or
tactical nuclear weapons with the goal of reaching an
agreement reducing such weapons.
3. During the Armed Services Committee hearings,
considerable attention was paid to the ability of the
Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) to maintain, without testing, the
safety, security, and reliability of a smaller
stockpile of nuclear weapons. While not an element of
the New START Treaty, funding for modernization of the
nuclear weapons complex and the Stockpile Stewardship
Program, including the stockpile management and life
extension programs, has become a significant topic of
discussion. The committee heard from the directors of
the three NNSA laboratories with responsibility for
maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile and discussed
their concerns about both the financial and technical
future of the laboratories, particularly their ability
to maintain the scientific skills necessary to maintain
a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile. The directors
support ratification of the treaty because of their
concern about the uncertainty that would result in the
nuclear weapons program if the treaty were not
ratified.
The committee also heard testimony from the Secretary
of Defense, Secretary of Energy, and the Administrator
of the NNSA discussing their commitment to reverse the
downward budgetary trend in previous years and to make
sure that the entire nuclear weapons complex is
modernized so that a smaller stockpile will be safe,
secure, and reliable into the future. While the
modernization effort at the laboratories has been
substantial, there has been a downward trend in the
facility modernization efforts and the budget since
2005 that is reversed with the substantial increases in
the fiscal year 2011 budget request and projected
budgets for the out years. A portion of the increase
will also support two major production facilities that
are old and will have to be replaced. Each of these new
facilities will be multi-billion dollar facilities and
each is in the early phases of design. As a result, the
specific design, technology, cost, and construction
schedule all still need to be established. As more
detail becomes available for the new facilities, and as
each of the life extension programs for specific
nuclear weapons is defined, the exact amount needed for
each year will have to be adjusted as part of the
annual authorization and appropriation process.
Some members have expressed concern that financial
support for modernization will not be sustained and
that because the costs of the new buildings are not yet
known the projected out-years funding is not enough.
The Senate should urge the President to establish
clear, realistic requirements for the modernization of
the nuclear weapons complex, the life extension
programs, and the scientific, experimental, and
analytical tools needed by the laboratories to ensure a
continued safe, secure, and reliable stockpile, and to
request funds as needed on an annual basis to support
these requirements.
4. The verification, inspection, and transparency
provisions in the START I Treaty expired in December
2009, and the Moscow Treaty has no such provisions. As
a result, there are currently no such provisions in
effect that can provide insight into the respective
strategic forces of each party. The New START Treaty
includes a number of verification, inspection, and
transparency provisions and protocols designed to
provide information about each party's strategic
offensive arms, and to ensure that each side is in
compliance with the limitations and obligations
contained in the treaty. The New START Treaty does not
include the same level of exchange of telemetric data
as the START I Treaty, primarily because the
prohibitions and limitations in the New START Treaty do
not need telemetric data to monitor and verify treaty
compliance. Arms control treaties generally include
mechanisms adequate to monitor, demonstrate, and ensure
compliance with the limitations and obligations
specific to the individual treaty. The extensive data
exchanges and on-site inspections provided for in the
New START Treaty are adequate to monitor compliance
with the terms of the treaty. Nevertheless, the New
START Treaty has been criticized because it does not
include START I requirements for the exchange of
telemetric information, although the extensive data
exchange provided for, together with the on-site
inspections of the New START Treaty, provide comparable
information on new systems and will also provide
substantially more information on the overall nature of
the deployed and non-deployed systems of each country.
However, given the concern that the absence of
telemetric information will reduce the confidence that
the United States will have in the overall capabilities
of the Russian strategic offensive systems, the Senate
should require submission of an annual report for the
first 5 years of the New START Treaty that will assess
the overall adequacy of the verification and inspection
provisions to monitor compliance with the treaty, and
their ability to provide adequate information on the
overall capabilities of Russian strategic offensive
systems.
I hope you find these recommendations useful as you prepare
to mark up the resolution of ratification for the New START
Treaty. I appreciate the opportunity to share my views with
you.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin,
Chairman.
September 14, 2010.
Hon. John Kerry,
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Hon. Richard Lugar,
Ranking Member, Committee on Foreign Relations,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Lugar: The purpose
of this letter is to provide my views, as Ranking Member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, on the national security
implications of the Treaty with Russia on Measures for Further
Reduction and Limitation of the Strategic Offensive Arms (``the
New START Treaty''), based on numerous hearings and briefings
in the Committee with administration officials and independent
expert witnesses, as well as the administration's responses to
numerous questions for the record concerning all aspect of the
treaty. The New START Treaty represents the continuation of
decades-long efforts to promote strategic stability with Russia
through the bilateral reductions of our nuclear weapons
arsenals. While I support many of the New START Treaty's goals,
a number of significant flaws must be addressed by the Senate
prior to endorsing ratification. If the New START Treaty is to
be in the national security interests of the United States, the
Senate's Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification must
at a minimum establish binding prohibitions against constraints
on ballistic missile defense; a long term commitment to the
modernization of the nuclear weapons complex and the nuclear
triad; limitations on the authority of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission (BCC); and assurances that future arms
control negotiations with Russia address reductions in tactical
nuclear weapons.
Missile Defense
I am strongly opposed to the New START Treaty's references
and legally-binding limitations on ballistic missile defense.
Unlike arms control treaties of the past, the New START Treaty
explicitly asserts the existence of an interrelationship
between offensive and defensive strategic weapons. Such a
linkage not only diverts attention from the more significant
interrelationship between strategic and tactical offensive
weapons but affords the Russian government the opportunity they
so desire to draw unfounded linkages between strategic nuclear
weapons and defensive arms. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov has already done so, stating, ``linkage to missile
defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally
binding.''
Prior to treaty negotiations, the administration told the
Senate that the treaty would not reference missile defense, and
no linkages would be drawn between offensive and defensive
weapons. Then the Senate was informed that there would be such
a reference, but only in the preamble of the treaty, which is
not legally binding. However, in the final treaty text--not
just in the preamble, but Article 5 of the treaty itself--there
is a clear, legally-binding limitation on our missile defense
options. While this limitation may not be a meaningful one, it
is a limitation, and it sets a troubling precedent. I remain
significantly concerned that the administration agreed to this
language in the treaty text and strongly believe that the
Resolution of Ratification must make it clear that any
limitations on the development or deployment of missile
defenses designed to protect the United States, its allies, and
deployed forces will be prohibited.
Modernization of the Nuclear Weapons Complex and the Triad of Nuclear
Delivery Vehicles
The resolution of ratification should address the
modernization of both the weapons complex and the nuclear
triad. At a minimum, the resolution should signal that a
failure to adequately modernize could jeopardize U.S. national
security and, in an extreme circumstance, could even constitute
grounds for withdrawing from the treaty.
The May 2009 report by the bipartisan Perry-Schlesinger
Strategic Posture Commission articulated to Congress the dire
need for modernization of the nuclear weapons complex. At that
time, the Commission stated that, while the National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA) has a reasonable plan, they
lacked the necessary funding to implement it properly. The
administration's ten-year modernization plan that accompanied
the New START Treaty--also referred to as the 1251 report--was
expected to address these funding concerns. However, testimony
before the Committee has made it increasingly clear that the
President's plan may not meet our full recapitalization and
modernization needs.
By combining funds already planned for sustainment with
those for the modernization effort, the 1251 report painted a
misleading picture. Estimates suggest that $70 billion, or
almost 90 percent of the $80 billion allocated over the next
ten years, will be required to simply sustain the complex at
today's level. That leaves less than $10 billion for the design
and construction of two major facilities that could alone cost
more than $10 billion, as well as at least two and perhaps
three multibillion dollar life extension programs. Indeed, the
director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory testified this
year that there is ``already a gap emerging between
expectations and fiscal realities,'' and that ``much of the
[administration's] planned funding increase for weapons
activities do not come to fruition until the second half of the
ten-year period.''
The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) endorsed retaining a
smaller nuclear triad. However, with the exception of the next
generation ballistic missile submarine, the NPR and the 1251
report provided little detail about long-term modernization
efforts or the projected cost. The NPR recognized that
decisions need to be made on the next generation ICBM, the next
generation bomber, and the next air-launched cruise missile but
incorrectly cited little urgency in making those decisions. The
cost alone for modernizing both the nuclear weapons complex and
the triad are substantial, and as we move to reduce the size of
our nuclear stockpile, this modernization effort becomes all
the more important. Factoring in the cost of missile defense
and conventional prompt global strike--both essential and
critical, but also costly, programs--the overall funding
requirements could grow much larger than the administration has
suggested. It is not clear how such funding requirements would
be met, especially as pressure builds in the administration and
Congress to reduce the growth of discretionary spending.
Recognizing that many questions remain concerning the cost
of implementing the vision set forth in the NPR, the funding
thus far outlined by the administration indicates significant
uncertainty for the future of the nuclear weapons complex and
the nuclear triad. I therefore urge the administration either
to clarify its commitment to modernizing the weapons complex,
to revise its plan for modernizing the national nuclear
enterprise, or to clarify the risks entailed by a failure to
fund adequately the priorities and programs identified in the
1251 report and the NPR.
Bilateral Consultative Commission
I have concerns with the New START Treaty's establishment
of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), a body
empowered to make unilateral modifications regarding undefined
treaty implementation and technical issues. If left unchecked,
the BCC risks undermining the Constitutional responsibilities
of the Senate. The resolution of ratification must establish
limitations for the BCC and prohibit any role for this
Commission that risk impinging on the Senate's Constitutional
responsibilities.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons
With respect to Russian Tactical Nuclear weapons, I remain
concerned by the treaty's failure to address or at a minimum
establish a framework for addressing the significant Russian
disparity. Russia's non-strategic arsenal outnumbers that of
the United States by a factor of ten-to-one and presents an
immediate concern that must be addressed in the context of
strategic reductions. As former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger has stated during testimony before the Committee on
Foreign Relations, the distinction between strategic and non-
strategic weapons is ``bound to erode'' as strategic arsenals
are reduced, resulting in an imbalance which could, in
Kissinger's words, ``threaten [our] ability to undertake
extended deterrence.'' To rectify these concerns, the
Resolution of Ratification should assert that any future arms
control negotiations with Russia must address reductions in
Russian tactical nuclear weapons.
Conventional Prompt Global Strike
Significant uncertainty exists concerning the future of
Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) if the New START
Treaty were to enter into force. To date, the administration
has failed to articulate its CPGS development and deployment
strategy and it remains unclear if future capabilities would be
subject to the limits in Article II of the treaty. Absent
further clarification, the Resolution of Ratification should
require that the President provide a plan for funding,
developing, and deploying future CPGS capabilities as well as
an assessment of whether such capabilities would be accountable
under the New START Treaty.
Verification and Telemetry
The administration has argued that the same level of
telemetry exchanges and on-site inspections required under the
original START Treaty are no longer needed to verify the terms
of the New START Treaty. While this may be true, the New START
Treaty's permissive approach to verification will result in
less transparency and create additional challenges for our
ability to monitor Russia's current and future capabilities.
Near-term assessments of the Russian nuclear force will benefit
from the visibility gained through the legacy START
verification protocols. However, the reduction of on-site
inspections and the lack of meaningful telemetry data exchanges
under the new treaty will greatly diminish our ability to
assess and evaluate future Russian capabilities and may lead to
increasing uncertainty. To address these concerns, the
Resolution of Ratification should require the President to
report annually on the level of national confidence in Russian
compliance with the treaty. Additionally, as Russia continues
to develop and deploy new strategic offensive capabilities over
the years ahead, I believe it is in the national security
interest of the United States to use the framework provided
within the New START Treaty to insist that Russia share
telemetric data on any of those new strategic offensive systems
developed over the duration of the treaty.
Sincerely,
John McCain,
Ranking Member.
IV. Views of the Select Committee on Intelligence
The committee received classified letters from Senator
Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Select Committee on
Intelligence, and Senator Christopher S. Bond, vice chairman of
the Select Committee on Intelligence, expressing their views on
the New START Treaty. These letters may be reviewed by all
Senators in the Office of Senate Security.
V. Committee Action
Committee action on the New START Treaty began during the
negotiations of the treaty: on June 18, August 5, October 8,
November 4, and December 3, 2009, the Committee on Foreign
Relations, along with the Committee on Armed Services and the
Senate National Security Working Group, received closed
briefings on the progress of negotiations from relevant
executive branch officials, including the Honorable Rose
Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and
Compliance and Chief U.S. Negotiator in Post-START
Negotiations.
In addition, the committee conducted 12 hearings on the
treaty.
On April 29, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The
Historical and Modern Context for U.S.- Russian Arms Control.''
The witnesses were the Honorable James R. Schlesinger, Chairman
of the Board of the MITRE Corporation and former Secretary of
Defense, Secretary of Energy, and Director of Central
Intelligence, and the Honorable William J. Perry, Michael and
Barbara Berberian Professor, Center for International Security
and Cooperation, Stanford University, and former Secretary of
Defense. Senator Kerry chaired the hearing.
On May 18, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The New
START Treaty.'' The witnesses were the Honorable Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Secretary of State; the Honorable Robert M. Gates,
Secretary of Defense; and Admiral Michael G. Mullen, USN,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senator Kerry chaired
the hearing.
On May 19, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The
History and Lessons of START.'' The witness was the Honorable
James A. Baker III, Senior Partner, Baker Botts L.L.P., and
former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury.
Senator Kerry chaired the hearing.
On May 25, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The Role
of Strategic Arms Control in a Post-Cold War World.'' The
witness was the Honorable Henry Kissinger, Chairman of
Kissinger McLarty Associates, and former National Security
Advisor and Secretary of State. Senator Kerry chaired the
hearing.
On June 8, 2010, the committee held a closed hearing on the
negotiation of the treaty. The witnesses were the Honorable
Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for
Verification and Compliance and Chief U.S. Negotiator at the
Post-START Negotiations, and the Honorable Edward L. Warner
III, Secretary of Defense Representative to Post-START
Negotiations. Senator Kerry chaired the hearing.
On June 10, 2010, the committee held a hearing on
``Strategic Arms Control and National Security.'' The witnesses
were Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.), President
of the Scowcroft Group and former National Security Advisor,
and the Honorable Stephen J. Hadley, Senior Adviser for
International Affairs at the United States Institute of Peace
and former National Security Advisor. Senator Kerry chaired the
hearing.
On June 15, 2010, the committee held a hearing on the
negotiation of the New START Treaty. The witnesses were the
Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for
Verification and Compliance and Chief U.S. Negotiator in Post-
START Negotiations, and the Honorable Edward L. Warner III,
Secretary of Defense Representative to Post-START Negotiations.
Senator Kaufman chaired the hearing.
On June 16, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The New
START Treaty: Views from the Pentagon.'' The witnesses were the
Honorable James N. Miller, Jr., Principal Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy, General Kevin P. Chilton,
USAF, Commander of United States Strategic Command, and
Lieutenant General Patrick J. O'Reilly, USA, Director of the
Missile Defense Agency. Senator Kerry chaired the hearing.
On June 24, 2010, the committee held a hearing on ``The New
START Treaty: Implementation--Inspections and Assistance.'' The
witnesses were the Honorable James N. Miller, Jr., Principal
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Kenneth A.
Myers III, Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and
the U.S. Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass
Destruction. Senator Casey chaired the hearing.
On June 24, 2010, the committee held a hearing on benefits
and risks related to the treaty. The witnesses were the
Honorable Robert G. Joseph, Senior Scholar at the National
Institute for Public Policy and former Under Secretary of State
for Arms Control and International Security, the Honorable Eric
S. Edelman, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments and Visiting Scholar at the Philip
Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced and International Studies, and
former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Dr. Morton H.
Halperin, Senior Advisor at the Open Society Institute and
former Director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.
Senator Shaheen chaired the hearing.
On July 14, 2010, the committee held a closed hearing on
monitoring and verification of treaty compliance with
Intelligence Community officials and the Honorable Rose
Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and
Compliance. Senator Kerry chaired the hearing.
On July 15, 2010, the committee held a hearing on
``Maintaining a Safe, Secure and Effective Nuclear Arsenal.''
The witnesses were Dr. Michael R. Anastasio, Director of Los
Alamos National Laboratory; Dr. George H. Miller, Director of
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Dr. Paul J.
Hommert, Director of Sandia National Laboratories. Senator
Kerry chaired the hearing.
At a business meeting on September 16, 2010, the committee
met to consider the treaty and a draft resolution of advice and
consent to ratification.
The committee first adopted by voice vote an amendment, in
the form of a substitute, to the draft resolution, which was
offered by Senator Lugar.
An amendment to the treaty offered by Senator Barrasso, to
strike certain language in the treaty's preamble, was rejected,
by a vote of 6 to 13. Ayes: Senators Isakson, Risch, DeMint,
Barrasso, Wicker, and Inhofe; Nays: Senators Kerry, Dodd,
Feingold, Boxer, Menendez, Cardin, Casey, Webb, Shaheen,
Kaufman, Gillibrand, Lugar, and Corker.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Risch, to
include in the resolution a declaration on the modernization
and replacement of strategic delivery vehicles, was adopted, by
voice vote.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Risch, to
require certain missile defense activities, was rejected, by a
vote of 7 to 12. Ayes: Senators Corker, Isakson, Risch, DeMint,
Barrasso, Wicker, and Inhofe; Nays: Senators Kerry, Dodd,
Feingold, Boxer, Menendez, Cardin, Casey, Webb, Shaheen,
Kaufman, Gillibrand, and Lugar.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Risch, to
strike a declaration in the resolution on tactical nuclear
weapons and to replace it with a new declaration on tactical
nuclear weapons, was rejected, by a vote of 7 to 12. Ayes:
Senators Corker, Isakson, Risch, DeMint, Barrasso, Wicker, and
Inhofe; Nays: Senators Kerry, Dodd, Feingold, Boxer, Menendez,
Cardin, Casey, Webb, Shaheen, Kaufman, Gillibrand, and Lugar.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Inhofe,
as modified, to include in the resolution a declaration on the
deployment of a missile defense capability to ensure a shoot-
look-shoot missile defense on both the east and west coasts of
the United States by 2015, was rejected, by a vote of 5 to 14.
Ayes: Senators Risch, DeMint, Barrasso, Wicker, and Inhofe;
Nays: Senators Kerry, Dodd, Feingold, Boxer, Menendez, Cardin,
Casey, Webb, Shaheen, Kaufman, Gillibrand, Lugar, Corker, and
Isakson.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator DeMint,
as modified, to include in the resolution a declaration
concerning the defense of the United States and Allies against
strategic attack, was adopted, by voice vote.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Barrasso,
to condition the Senate's advice and consent to ratification on
a certification by the President that the President will not
deploy fewer than 450 ICBMs, was rejected, by voice vote.
An amendment to the resolution offered by Senator Inhofe,
as modified, to include in the resolution a declaration
concerning missile modernization, was rejected, by a vote of 5-
14. Ayes: Senators Risch, DeMint, Barrasso, Wicker, and Inhofe;
Nays: Senators Kerry, Dodd, Feingold, Boxer, Menendez, Cardin,
Casey, Webb, Shaheen, Kaufman, Gillibrand, Lugar, Corker, and
Isakson.
The committee agreed by a vote of 14 to 4 to report the New
START Treaty to the Senate, and to recommend to the Senate the
resolution of advice and consent to ratification contained in
this report, which includes 10 conditions, 3 understandings,
and 13 declarations. Ayes: Senators Kerry, Dodd, Feingold,
Boxer, Menendez, Cardin, Casey, Webb, Shaheen, Kaufman,
Gillibrand, Lugar, Corker, and Isakson; Nays: Senators Risch,
Barrasso, Wicker, and Inhofe. Senator DeMint was not present
during this vote, but later wrote to the chairman of the
committee to indicate that he would have voted against the
resolution if he had been present.
VI. Committee Recommendation and Comments
The committee believes that the New START Treaty will
contribute to the security of the United States by limiting
Russian strategic offensive arms while re-establishing an
intrusive verification and transparency regime. It will give
the United States flexibility in how it meets the treaty's
limits. The treaty's verification provisions will deepen U.S.
understanding of Russia's nuclear forces, and bringing it into
force will contribute to U.S. efforts to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons to rogue states and terrorists. Even though
America's relationship with Russia is now strong enough that
neither side fears an attack from the other, it still makes
sense for the nuclear superpowers--our two countries possess
some 90 percent of the world's atomic weaponry--to establish
clear limits on their arsenals. The predictability that stems
from having such limits, along with the transparency provided
by the monitoring and verification provisions contained in New
START, produces stability that will make it less likely that a
crisis would arise and would help make any such crisis less
dangerous.
Accordingly, the committee urges the Senate to act promptly
to give its advice and consent to ratification of the treaty,
as set forth in this report and the accompanying resolution of
advice and consent. The committee has included in the
resolution of advice and consent 10 conditions, 3
understandings, and 13 declarations.
CONDITION (1). GENERAL COMPLIANCE
The committee recommends that the Senate condition its
advice and consent to ratification by requiring that the
President take several steps if the President determines that
the Russian Federation is acting or has acted in a manner that
is inconsistent with the object and purpose of the New START
Treaty, or is in violation of the treaty, to such an extent as
to threaten the national security interests of the United
States. In such a case, the President shall consult with the
Senate regarding the implications of such actions by the
Russian Federation. The President shall also urgently seek a
meeting with the Russian Federation at the highest level with
the objective of bringing the Russian Federation into full
compliance with its obligations. Finally, the President shall
then promptly submit a report to the Senate detailing: (a)
whether adherence to the New START Treaty remains in the
national security interest of the United States; and (b) how
the United States will redress the impact of Russian actions on
the national security interests of the United States.
Strategic arms control succeeds only when all parties to an
agreement abide by its terms, and the Senate will keep a
watchful eye on the implementation of such a sensitive
agreement as the New START Treaty. This condition is modeled on
the Senate's resolution of advice and consent to ratification
of the START II Treaty (the Treaty Between the United States of
America and the Russian Federation on Further Reduction and
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed at Moscow on
January 3, 1993, including the following documents, which are
integral parts thereof: the Elimination and Conversion
Protocol; the Exhibitions and Inspections Protocol; and the
Memorandum of Attribution; Treaty Doc. 103-1), which was agreed
to in the Senate on January 26, 1996. As discussed earlier, in
the section on treaty compliance and verification, the
committee does not anticipate that the Russian Federation will
pursue actions that are inconsistent with the object and
purpose of the treaty, or will violate the treaty, in ways that
threaten the national security interests of the United States.
The committee nevertheless feels it is important, as a
condition of advice and consent to ratification, to establish
what steps the President must take in case that expectation is
not fulfilled.
CONDITION (2). PRESIDENTIAL CERTIFICATIONS AND REPORTS ON NATIONAL
TECHNICAL MEANS.
Through its regime of notifications, inspections, and
exhibitions, the New START Treaty will provide important
information about Russian strategic offensive arms that United
States National Technical Means of verification (NTM) are not
able to provide on their own. At the same time, the United
States will rely upon NTM, in addition to the treaty's
verification and transparency mechanisms, to independently
confirm that the Russian Federation is in compliance with the
provisions of the treaty. The committee therefore recommends
that, as a condition of its advice and consent to ratification,
the Senate require that, prior to the treaty's entry into force
pursuant to Article XIV, paragraph 1 of the treaty, and
annually thereafter, the President certify that United States
NTM, in conjunction with the verification activities provided
for in the treaty, are sufficient to ensure effective
monitoring of Russian compliance with the provisions of the
treaty. Each certification subsequent to the initial
certification is to be accompanied by a report to the Senate,
in unclassified or classified form, indicating how such NTM,
including collection, processing, and analytic resources, will
be utilized to ensure effective monitoring of Russian
compliance. Subsequent reports shall update the long-term plan
to maintain New START Treaty monitoring. This condition is
modeled on a condition that the Senate placed on its advice and
consent to ratification of the START II Treaty.
CONDITION (3). REDUCTIONS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include a
condition in its resolution of advice and consent to
ratification that would require that, if, prior to entry into
force of the New START Treaty, the President plans to implement
reductions of United States nuclear forces below the levels
currently planned and consistent with the Moscow Treaty, the
President will consult with the Senate prior to implementing
such reductions. The condition further states that the
President shall not implement any such reductions until the
President submits to the Senate a determination that such
reductions are in the national security interest of the United
States.
This condition is modeled on a condition that the Senate
placed on its advice and consent to ratification of the START
II Treaty. The committee includes this condition to make clear
that the Senate will closely examine any proposed reductions in
our nation's strategic nuclear forces that are not matched by
reductions in Russia's forces and enshrined in arms control
treaties that have been considered and approved by the Senate.
CONDITION (4). TIMELY WARNING OF BREAKOUT.
The committee recommends that the Senate condition its
advice and consent to ratification of the treaty with a
requirement that if the President, in consultation with the
Director of National Intelligence, determines that the Russian
Federation intends to break out of the limits on strategic
offensive arms specified in Article II of the treaty, then the
President shall immediately consult with the Senate with a view
to determining whether adherence to the treaty remains in the
national interest of the United States.
As discussed earlier, in the section on treaty compliance
and verification, the committee considers it unlikely that the
Russian Federation would pursue such a breakout capability,
given economic constraints and the costs and consequences of
detection and a resulting competition with the United States in
an overt race to produce extra warheads and the missiles or
bombers and associated armaments to carry them. Nevertheless,
the committee feels that it is important for the Senate to
require the President to take the actions required by this
condition if the President determines that the Russian
Federation is going down such a path.
CONDITION (5). UNITED STATES MISSILE DEFENSE TEST TELEMETRY.
In light of the discussion in the section of this report on
missile defense and telemetry exchange, the committee
recommends including in the resolution of advice and consent to
ratification a condition that, before ratifying the treaty, the
President certify to the Senate that the United States is
indeed not required to provide telemetric information on the
launch of any satellite launches, missile defense sensor
targets, or missile defense intercept targets, even when such
launches use the first stage of an ICBM or SLBM limited by the
treaty.
With respect to missile defense interceptors, the New START
Treaty treats telemetric information no differently than the
START Treaty. As the Secretary of Defense stated in answer to a
question for the record, the New START Treaty ``neither
prohibits, nor does it require, the provision of missile
defense interceptor test telemetry to Russia.'' In order to be
absolutely clear on this point, the committee recommends that
the Senate condition its advice and consent to ratification on
a requirement that the President certify that the provision of
telemetric information to the Russian Federation is not
required for the launch of any missile defense interceptors. It
also recommends conditioning ratification on the President's
making a similar certification with respect to the provision of
telemetric information for any missile (as described in Article
III, paragraph 7(a)) of a type developed and tested solely to
intercept and counter objects not located on the surface of the
Earth; such a missile is not treated as a ballistic missile,
and is therefore not limited by the treaty.
CONDITION (6). CONVENTIONAL PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE.
The committee recommends that the Senate include a
condition in its resolution of advice and consent to
ratification that would require the President to submit, prior
to the entry into force of the New START Treaty, a report to
the Committees on Armed Services and Foreign Relations of the
Senate containing several items related to United States
development and deployment of conventional prompt global strike
systems. Specifically, the report, which may be supplemented by
a classified annex, shall contain: a list of all conventionally
armed, strategic-range weapon systems that are currently under
development; an analysis of the expected capabilities of each
such system; a statement for each such system as to whether any
of the limits in Article II of the treaty would apply to such
system; an assessment of the costs, risks, and benefits of each
non-nuclear prompt global strike capability; a discussion of
alternative deployment options and scenarios for each weapon
system; and a summary of the measures that would be used with
respect to each such system to help distinguish non-nuclear
from nuclear systems and thereby reduce the risks of
misinterpretation and a resulting claim that such systems might
alter strategic stability.\30\
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\30\The information, reports, and other relevant materials
generated under the resolution of advice and consent will go to the
committees of the Senate named in the relevant provisions. Such
information is also relevant to the interests of members of the
National Security Working Group (NSWG), a large portion of whom also
sit on the same committees. Accordingly, the committee will work to
ensure that all such information is shared with the NSWG, to the extent
possible.
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The condition would further require that if, at any time
after the New START Treaty enters into force, the President
concludes that the deployment of conventional warheads on ICBMs
or SLBMs is required at levels that cannot be accommodated
within the limits specified in Article II of the treaty while
sustaining a robust United States nuclear triad, then the
President shall consult immediately with the Senate regarding
the reasons for such determination. The Senate has been assured
by the executive branch that conventional prompt global strike
will be pursued during the life of the treaty with very little
impact on U.S. nuclear forces. If that should change, this
condition is intended to result in prompt consultation with the
Senate.
CONDITION (7). UNITED STATES TELEMETRIC INFORMATION.
As noted in the section of this report on missile defense
and telemetry exchange and in the section on conventional
prompt global strike systems, after the two sides agree on the
number of test launches on which to exchange telemetric
information, each Party gets to decide for itself which
particular launches it will use to meet its quota. There is no
treaty obligation, therefore, to provide telemetry on the test
of a conventional prompt global strike system. There could be
cases, however, in which that would be in the national security
interest of the United States. The committee recommends that
the Senate include in its resolution of advice and consent to
ratification a condition that, prior to agreeing to provide to
the Russian Federation any amount of telemetric information for
a U.S. test launch of a prompt global strike system, the
President shall certify to the Committees on Foreign Relations
and Armed Services in the Senate that the provision of such
information is either to demonstrate that such system is not
limited by Article II of the New START Treaty or to receive in
return significant telemetric information on a system not
deployed by the Russian Federation prior to December 5, 2009.
The President must also certify that providing the telemetric
information is in the national security interest of the United
States and will not undermine the effectiveness of the system
in question.
CONDITION (8). BILATERAL CONSULTATIVE COMMISSION.
Article XII establishes a Bilateral Consultative Commission
(BCC) in order ``[t]o promote the objectives and
implementation'' of the treaty. Article XV, paragraph 2 states
that, under the auspices of the BCC, the Parties may, without
resorting to the procedures required to bring the full
agreement into force in the first place, reach agreement on
changes only to the Protocol and its integral Annexes (and not
to main treaty text), and only provided that such changes do
not affect substantive rights or obligations under the treaty.
(The BCC can be a forum for discussing changes to the main
treaty text and changes to the Protocol and its integral
Annexes that do affect substantive rights or obligations under
the treaty, but any such changes take effect only pursuant to
the procedures required to bring the agreement into force in
the first place; in the United States, the President would need
the advice and consent of the Senate to ratify such changes, as
set forth in Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the
Constitution of the United States.) Within these parameters,
Section I of Part Six of the Protocol authorizes the BCC, among
other things, to resolve questions relating to compliance with
the Parties' obligations under the treaty, to agree upon such
additional measures as may be necessary to improve the
viability and effectiveness of the treaty, and to resolve
questions related to the applicability of provisions of the
treaty to a new kind of strategic offensive arm.
The committee recommends that the Senate condition its
advice and consent to ratification on a requirement that,
before any meeting of the BCC to consider a proposal for
additional measures to improve the viability and effectiveness
of the treaty or to resolve questions related to the
applicability of provisions of the treaty to a new kind of
strategic offensive arm, the President consult with the
committee with regard to whether the proposal would constitute
an amendment to the treaty requiring the advice and consent of
the Senate pursuant to Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the
Constitution. This requirement is designed to ensure that the
Senate has the opportunity to participate fully in decisions
about any use of the BCC's procedures to make changes to the
treaty's protocol or annexes, and to ensure that the Senate's
role in the treaty making process will be respected.
CONDITION (9). UNITED STATES COMMITMENTS ENSURING THE SAFETY, SECURITY,
AND PERFORMANCE OF ITS NUCLEAR FORCES.
The New START Treaty places no limitation on the management
of either deployed or non-deployed warheads, and its terms do
not affect the investments that the United States will make to
ensure that its nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure, and
reliable. In fact, Article V, paragraph 1 of the treaty
explicitly states that ``modernization and replacement of
strategic offensive arms may be carried out.'' The treaty will
not by itself affect how the United States maintains its
nuclear weapons stockpile. Dr. Paul Hommert, Director of Sandia
National Laboratories, which among other things is responsible
for the design, development, and qualification of non-nuclear
components of nuclear weapons and for the systems engineering
and integration of the nuclear weapons in the stockpile,
emphasized this point in his testimony before the committee:
The New START Treaty, if ratified and entered into
force, would not constrain or interfere with the
upcoming stockpile life extension imperatives. It would
not change our planned approach or the tools we will
apply. It would not limit the required introduction of
modern technologies into existing warhead designs and
the realization of the attendant benefits.
The committee felt, however, that the treaty should be
viewed within the context of our nation's overall nuclear
weapons policy, including by better understanding the results
to date of the ongoing nuclear stockpile stewardship program
and by examining the future resources that might be needed to
sustain and modernize the nuclear infrastructure. This was an
unusual departure for the committee, and it reflected the
unusual extent to which the issue of stockpile stewardship has
been raised regarding a treaty that does not limit the
development, testing, or production of nuclear weapons. The
committee explored these questions in part by conducting
hearings that included General Chilton and the directors of the
Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national nuclear
weapons laboratories.
The committee concludes that reductions in strategic
offensive arms and continued support for our nation's nuclear
weapons stockpile and supporting infrastructure should move
forward together. In its proposed resolution of advice and
consent to ratification, the committee therefore recommends
that the Senate declare its commitment to proceeding with a
robust stockpile stewardship program and to maintaining nuclear
weapons production capabilities and capacities, in order to
ensure the safety, reliability, and performance of the United
States nuclear arsenal at the New START Treaty levels. This
provision closely parallels a provision included in the Senate-
approved START II resolution of advice and consent. The
committee further recommends that the Senate declare the United
States' commitment to maintaining United States nuclear weapons
laboratories and protecting the core nuclear weapons
competencies therein.
In the committee's hearing on June 16, 2010, General
Chilton testified that
[T]he [Nuclear Posture Review] and the President's
Budget recognize the need to improve, sustain, and
ensure all necessary elements of a safe, secure, and
effective deterrence enterprise, including weapons,
delivery systems, warning and communication
capabilities, and their supporting human capital and
technological infrastructures, and to make sustained
investments to adequately preserve these capabilities
for their foreseeable future. These investments are
required in order to confidently reduce the overall
U.S. stockpile while sustaining the credibility of our
nuclear stockpile, which is fundamental to effective
deterrence. Investments that revitalize [the National
Nuclear Security Administration's] aging infrastructure
and intellectual capital strengthen our security with
the facilities and people needed to address
technological surprises, geopolitical change, and a
range of cutting-edge national security challenges.
He further stated for the record that ``sustained funding
will be required to ensure our continued confidence in our
strategic deterrent. If increases contained in the FY11 budget
submission do not materialize, we will experience delays in
addressing aging concerns with our systems.''
Dr. Michael Anastasio, Director of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, testified that he viewed the administration's FY
2011 budget request for defense activities of the National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) ``as a positive first
step,'' and he urged its approval by Congress. At the same
time, he noted his concern that
. . . some may perceive that the FY11 budget request
meets all of the necessary budget commitments for the
program; however, there are still significant financial
uncertainties, for example, the design of the UPF [the
Uranium Processing Facility] and CMRR [the Chemistry
and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility]
are not complete and the final costs remain uncertain.
As noted above, in section 1251 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law 111-84),
Congress required that, not later than 30 days after the later
of the date of the enactment of that act or the date the
President submitted a follow-on treaty to the START Treaty to
the Senate for its advice and consent, the President submit to
the congressional defense committees, the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the Senate, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs
of the House of Representatives a report on the plan to (a)
enhance the safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear
weapons stockpile of the United States; (b) modernize the
nuclear weapons complex; and (c) maintain the delivery
platforms for nuclear weapons. The report was required to
include an estimate of the budget requirements to carry out the
plan over a 10-year period. The Administration submitted the
classified 1251 report on May 13, 2010, the date on which the
President submitted the New START Treaty to the Senate.\31\
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\31\A public fact sheet on the plan outlined in the report, titled
``The New START Treaty--Maintaining a Strong Nuclear Deterrent,'' is
available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
New%20START%20section%201251%20fact%20sheet.pdf. It is also appended to
this report.
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Pursuant to sections 4203 and 4204 of the Atomic Energy
Defense Act (50 U.S.C. 2523 and 2524), the Secretary of Energy
is required to submit an annual update of the plan for
maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile, as well as the long-
term plan to extend the effective life of the weapons in the
nuclear weapons stockpile without the use of nuclear weapons
testing. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu submitted the ``FY 2011
Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan'' in May 2010. The
plan was aligned with Nuclear Posture Review Report and the
plan contained in the 1251 report.
The 10-year plan would provide approximately $80 billion
from FY 2011 through FY 2020 for NNSA's Weapons Activities
account to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile
and supporting infrastructure, starting with a request of
approximately $7 billion for FY 2011, an increase of $624
million over the FY 2010 level. The plan provides for increases
each year until FY 2018, reaching a height of $9.0 billion
before falling back to $8.8 billion in FY 2020. To be sure,
because the plan in the 1251 report is presented in current
year, or nominal, funding, some of the increased funding is
necessary simply to keep up with inflation. But even after
accounting for inflation, the administration has calculated
that in constant FY 2010 dollars the plan would be worth $73.16
billion; thus, the plan would generate an extra $9.16 billion,
in FY 2010 dollars, over the next ten years, an increase of
over 14 percent above the baseline level of activity.
Through FY 2015, the administration has listed as its
priorities under the plan the following:
Complete the ongoing Life Extension Program (LEP)
for the W76 warhead and full nuclear scope life
extension program study and follow-on activities for
the B61 bomb to ensure first production begins in FY
2017.
Begin an LEP study in FY 2011 to explore the life
extension options for the W78 system.
Increase pit manufacturing capacity and capability
at the Plutonium Facility (PF)-4 (part of the main
plutonium facility) at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Complete the design and begin construction of the
Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility Replacement
Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory. Plan and program to complete construction
by 2020, followed by full operations by 2022.
Complete the design and begin construction of the
Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National
Security Complex. Plan and program to complete
construction by 2020, followed by full operations by
2022.
Increase warhead surveillance and essential science,
technology, and engineering (ST&E) investments to
support stockpile assessment and certification in the
absence of underground nuclear testing.
According to the ``FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and
Management Plan,'' funding for the W76-1 LEP would continue at
relatively steady levels from FY 2011 through FY 2017, funding
for the B61 LEP would increase from FY 2011 to FY 2018 before
beginning to tail off, and funding for a W78 LEP would increase
from FY 2011 until FY 2021, with a substantial increase from FY
2013 to FY 2014. Planning for the UPF, which would replace five
old production buildings, and the CMRR-NF is not yet complete.
According to the ``FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management
Plan,'' the plan reflected in the 1251 report includes $8
billion to accommodate possible future changes in planning
estimates for these two facilities. Additionally, the ten-year
plan includes an estimated increase of approximately $100
million per year starting in FY 2016 for ST&E campaigns within
the nuclear weapons complex.
Ten-year funding plans are unique. Even within existing
five-year plans, such as the Future-Years Nuclear Security Plan
(FYNSP), there is a possibility that new information will
produce new estimates for how much a given program of work will
cost. Such is the case with the plan contained in the 1251
report and the ``FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management
Plan.'' The committee therefore recommends that the Senate
include a condition that the United States is committed to
providing the resources needed to achieve objectives related to
ensuring the safety, reliability, and performance of the United
States nuclear arsenal, at a minimum at the levels set forth in
the 1251 report. The committee further recommends that the
Senate require that if appropriations are enacted that fail to
meet the resource requirements set forth in 1251 report, the
President submit to Congress, within 60 days of such enactment,
a report detailing: (a) how the President proposes to remedy
the resource shortfall; (b) if additional resources are
required, the proposed level of funding required and an
identification of the activity for which additional funds are
required; (c) the impact of the resource shortfall on the
safety, reliability, and performance of United States nuclear
forces; and (d) whether and why, in the changed circumstances
brought about by the resource shortfall, it remains in the
national interest of the United States to remain a Party to the
New START Treaty. In this regard, the committee notes that in a
letter to the committee on September 15, 2010, Vice President
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., stated, ``Later this fall, the
Administration will provide the Congress with information that
updates the Section 1251 report. At that time, and in our
future budgets, we will address any deficiencies in the Future
Years National Security Program.'' The full letter from the
Vice President is reprinted at the end of this report.
CONDITION (10). ANNUAL REPORT.
The committee's proposed resolution would require the
executive branch to submit a report to the Committees on
Foreign Relations and Armed Services not later than January 31,
2012, and each year thereafter, which would provide information
on several matters. The report is to include details on each
Party's reductions in strategic offensive arms during the
previous calendar year (though the first report should cover
the full time prior to December 31, 2011, that the treaty was
in force).
In keeping with recommended Declaration 6 regarding the
importance of compliance with the treaty, the report is also to
provide a certification that the Russian Federation is in full
compliance with the terms of the treaty; if that cannot be
provided, the report shall have a detailed discussion of any
noncompliance by the Russian Federation.
Article VI of the treaty and Part Three of the Protocol
establish the parameters for permissible methods to convert or
eliminate treaty-accountable items. To eliminate an item from
treaty accountability, it must be rendered inoperable, pursuant
to Part Three of the Protocol, section I, paragraph 2. To meet
this standard, Part Three of the Protocol permits the Parties
to develop new procedures for elimination of ICBM launchers,
SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers. The United States sought
flexibility in the treaty's elimination procedures to ease the
burdens and costs imposed on the Parties in eliminating items
from treaty accountability. If the other Party has a question
about the new procedures, the question will be discussed in the
framework of the BCC. While the new procedures must be
discussed and demonstrated within the framework of the BCC as
requested by the other Party, the possessing Party would not be
obligated to delay the use of the new procedures. The committee
believes that, on balance, the treaty's flexibility on
developing new procedures to eliminate treaty-limited items may
prove to be a reasonable approach for reducing costs while
still resulting in verifiable arms reductions. The committee
nevertheless thinks that the Senate will need to watch very
closely to understand how this new approach works in practice.
It therefore recommends that the Senate include as part of this
annual report a certification by the President that any
conversion or elimination procedures that have been adopted do
not result in ambiguities that could defeat the object and
purpose of the treaty. If such a certification cannot be made,
then the report shall include a list of any cases in which a
conversion or elimination procedure that Russia has
demonstrated nevertheless remains ambiguous or otherwise does
not satisfy the criteria established in Part Three of the
Protocol, as well as a summary of the steps the United States
has taken in light of the situation.
The committee also recommends that this annual report
include an assessment of the treaty's transparency mechanisms,
including the extent to which either Party has encrypted or
otherwise impeded the collection of telemetric information, and
the extent and usefulness of exchanges of telemetric
information. Finally, the committee recommends that this annual
report include an assessment of the whether a strategic
imbalance exists that endangers the national security interests
of the United States.
UNDERSTANDING (1). MISSILE DEFENSE.
As discussed in the sections of this report on missile
defense, the committee focused extensive attention on whether
the New START Treaty would prevent the United States from
effectively defending itself and its allies against ballistic
missile attack and, if so, how. In multiple hearings and
numerous questions for the record, the committee sought
information on this question from executive branch witnesses
including the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency,
and the Secretary of Defense's Representative to the Post-START
Negotiations.
To reflect what the committee has learned in its
examination of this matter, the committee recommends that the
Senate include in its resolution of advice and consent to
ratification an understanding of the United States, which shall
be included in the instrument of ratification that the United
States provides to the Russian Federation, in accordance with
Article XIV, paragraph 1, to bring the treaty into force. The
provision states that it is the understanding that the New
START Treaty does not impose any limitations on the deployment
of missile defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3
of Article V, which states:
Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM
launchers and SLBM launchers for placement of missile
defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall
not convert and shall not use launchers of missile
defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs
therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM
launchers that were converted prior to signature of
this treaty for placement of missile defense
interceptors therein.
It is also the understanding of the United States that any
additional New START Treaty limitations on the deployment of
missile defenses beyond those contained in paragraph 3, Article
V of the treaty, including any changes agreed to under the
auspices of the BCC, may enter into force for the United States
only with the advice and consent of the Senate as set forth in
Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution of the
United States. Finally, the provision notes that it is the
understanding of the United States that the April 7, 2010,
unilateral statement by the Russian Federation does not impose
a legal obligation on the United States.
UNDERSTANDING (2). RAIL-MOBILE ICBMS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification an
understanding of the United States, which shall be included in
the instrument of ratification that the United States provides
to the Russian Federation, regarding rail-mobile ICBMs. This
provision states that it is the understanding of the United
States that any rail-mobile-launched ballistic missile with a
range in excess of 5,500 kilometers would be an ICBM, as the
term is defined in paragraph 37 of Part One of the Protocol (in
the English-language numbering), for the purposes of the New
START Treaty, specifically including the limits in Article II
of the treaty. It is the understanding of the United States
also that an erector-launcher mechanism for launching an ICBM
and the railcar or flatcar on which it is mounted would be a
launcher of ICBMs, as the term is defined in paragraph 28 (in
the English-language numbering) of Part One of the Protocol,
for the purposes of the treaty, including Article II. It is
also the understanding of the United States that if either
Party should produce a rail-mobile ICBM system, the BCC would
address the application of other parts of the treaty to that
system, including Articles III, IV, VI, VII, and XI of the
treaty and relevant portions of the Protocol and the Annexes to
the Protocol. It is the understanding of the United States that
any such agreement is subject to the requirements of Article XV
(regarding how such changes can brought into effect), and that
if such agreement creates substantive rights or obligations
that differ significantly from those in the New START Treaty
regarding a ``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' as defined in Part One
of the Protocol, then such an amendment would need to be
considered an amendment to the treaty to which the procedures
established by Article XV, paragraph 1 apply.
As discussed in the section of this report on rail-mobile
launchers of ICBMs, the text of the treaty leads the committee
to conclude that, if the Russian Federation were to again build
and deploy ICBMs launched from rail-mobile launchers, those
ICBMs would count as deployed ICBMs, and their launchers would
count as ICBM launchers. The executive branch shares this
conclusion. The committee has no reason to think that there is
any dispute with Russia about this matter. The committee
believes that it is unlikely that either the United States or
the Russian Federation will produce rail-mobile ICBM launchers
or deploy rail-mobile ICBMs for the duration of the treaty. The
committee proposes this provision so that the United States
will fully communicate its understanding regarding the treaty's
language and effect regarding rail-mobile ICBMs to the Russian
Federation.
UNDERSTANDING (3). STRATEGIC-RANGE, NON-NUCLEAR WEAPON SYSTEMS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification an
understanding of the United States regarding strategic-range
non-nuclear weapon systems, which shall be communicated to the
Russian Federation. This provision states that it is the
understanding of the United States that the United States will
not consider future, strategic-range non-nuclear weapon systems
that do not otherwise meet the definitions of the New START
Treaty to be ``new kinds of strategic offensive arms'' subject
to the treaty; that nothing in the treaty restricts United
States research, development, testing, and evaluation of
strategic-range, non-nuclear weapons, including any weapon that
is capable of boosted aerodynamic flight; and that nothing in
the treaty prohibits deployments of strategic-range non-nuclear
weapon systems.
The purpose of the treaty is to reduce and limit strategic
offensive arms. Article II of the treaty establishes specific
limits on certain strategic offensive arms, namely, ICBMs and
ICBM launchers, SLBMs and SLBM launchers, heavy bombers, ICBM
warheads, SLBM warheads, and nuclear warheads counted for
deployed heavy bombers. Definitions for these terms are
provided in Part One of the Protocol. Article V, paragraph 2
states that when a Party believes that a new kind of strategic
offensive arm is emerging, that Party shall have the right to
raise the question of such a strategic offensive arm for
consideration in the BCC. In the State Department article-by-
article analysis that was included the President's message to
the Senate transmitting the New START Treaty, the executive
branch informed the Senate that, ``the United States stated
[during the negotiations] that it would not consider future,
strategic range non-nuclear systems that do not otherwise meet
the definitions of this treaty to be ``new kinds of strategic
offensive arms' for purposes of the treaty.'' The committee's
recommendation would ensure that the United States formally
communicate this understanding to the Russian Federation, thus
making clear that this position was understood and endorsed by
the Senate when it considered the treaty.
DECLARATION (1). MISSILE DEFENSE.
In addition to above conditions and understandings, the
committee recommends that the Senate include in its resolution
of advice and consent to ratification 13 declarations, which
express the intent of the Senate. The first two of these
declarations concerns missile defense.
In 1996, the Senate made clear in its resolution of advice
and consent to ratification of the START II Treaty that missile
defense would be an essential element of 21st century
deterrence. Similarly, the committee recommends that the Senate
declare that it is the sense of the Senate:
That it is the policy of the United States, pursuant
to the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (Public Law
106-38), ``to deploy as soon as is technologically
possible an effective National Missile Defense system
capable of defending the territory of the United States
against limited ballistic missile attack (whether
accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate)'';
That defenses against ballistic missiles are
essential for new deterrent strategies and for new
strategies should deterrence fail; and
That further limitations on the missile defense
capabilities of the United States are not in the
national security interest of the United States.
The committee further recommends that the Senate declare
that the New START Treaty and the statement made by the Russian
Federation on April 7, 2010, do not limit in any way, and must
not be interpreted as limiting, activities that the United
States Government currently plans or that might be required
over the duration of the treaty to protect the United States
pursuant to the National Missile Defense Act of 1999, or to
protect United States Armed Forces and United States allies
from limited ballistic missile attack, including further
planned enhancements to the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
system and all phases of the Phased Adaptive Approach to
missile defense in Europe.
The committee recommends further that the resolution state
the Senate's expectation that the executive branch will provide
regular briefings on missile defense issues related to the
treaty and on U.S.-Russia missile defense dialogue and
cooperation. To help ensure that the BCC is not used in a
manner that would undermine U.S. missile defense options, the
committee recommends that the resolution also call for
briefings before and after each BCC meeting. The committee has
been assured that the briefings and reports that this and other
declarations expect from the executive branch will indeed be
provided by the executive branch, as has been the case with
similarly-worded declarations in the resolutions of advice and
consent to ratification of past strategic arms control
treaties.
DECLARATION (2). DEFENDING THE UNITED STATES AND ALLIES AGAINST
STRATEGIC ATTACK.
The committee recommends the Senate note that it is a
paramount obligation of the United States to defend its people,
armed forces, and allies against nuclear attack to the best of
its ability. Because of the vulnerabilities inherent in the
condition of mutual assured destruction, which depends upon two
nuclear-armed powers fearing each other's nuclear retaliatory
capabilities, the committee recommends the Senate express its
hope that the United States and the Russian Federation can move
cooperatively to a less risky strategic relationship, in which
case the United States is ready to cooperate with the Russian
Federation on strategic defenses. Noting the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, the declaration states that
strategic stability can be enhanced by strategic defenses and
that the United States remains free to construct a layered
missile defense system. Finally, it states that the United
States remains committed to improving its strategic defensive
capabilities, as is allowed by the treaty.
DECLARATION (3). CONVENTIONALLY ARMED, STRATEGIC-RANGE WEAPON SYSTEMS.
As discussed earlier, in the section on conventional prompt
global strike systems, the United States does not intend to use
against Russia any conventional prompt global strike systems it
may acquire. Furthermore, over the duration of the treaty, any
such systems that the United States may deploy will be in
numbers far too limited to pose any threat to the survivability
of the Russian nuclear deterrent. Consistent with these facts,
the committee recommends that the Senate include a declaration
that conventionally armed weapon systems not co-located with
nuclear-armed systems do not affect strategic stability between
the United States and the Russian Federation.
DECLARATION (4). NUNN-LUGAR COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION.
Congress first approved a program of Cooperative Threat
Reduction (CTR) in November 1991 legislation offered by
Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, after a failed coup in
Moscow and the disintegration of the Soviet Union threatened
the safety and security of Soviet nuclear forces and
facilities. In addition, the START Treaty, which had been
signed earlier that year, mandated steep reductions in the
Soviet arsenal, and the Lisbon Protocol called for the return
to Russia of all Soviet nuclear warheads based in the newly
independent states of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The
linkage between the START Treaty and Nunn-Lugar was made plain
by former Secretary Baker, who stated in testimony before the
Committee on May 19, 2010, that:
START also enabled our diplomatic, scientific, and
military establishments to form deeper levels of trust
and collaboration. And as [Senator Lugar] knows very
well, a direct result of that was the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which
immeasurably improved our security by helping keep
nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. I
really don't think Nunn-Lugar would have been nearly as
successful as it was if the Russians had lacked the
legally binding assurance of parallel U.S. reductions
through the START Treaty.
The committee strongly believes that the CTR Program has
played a major role in the elimination of strategic offensive
arms that were taken out of service due to implementation of
the START Treaty, and has played, in concert with the non-
proliferation programs of the Department of Energy, a very
significant role in securing Russian nuclear weapons and stocks
of fissile materials. The committee believes that the CTR
Program can facilitate Russian implementation of its
obligations under the New START Treaty. Even if Russian
elimination of certain ICBMs, SLBMs, ICBM launchers, SLBM
launchers, and heavy bombers is not required to keep Russian
forces within the limits of the treaty, continuing CTR Program
assistance to eliminations enables the Russian Government to
eliminate old, destabilizing systems. The committee recommends
that in the resolution of advice and consent to ratification,
the Senate state that it is its sense that the CTR Program has
made an invaluable contribution to the safety and security of
weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons and
materials in Russia and elsewhere, and that the President
should continue the global CTR Program and CTR assistance to
Russia, including for the purpose of facilitating
implementation of the New START Treaty.
DECLARATION (5). ASYMMETRY IN REDUCTIONS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification a declaration
that it is the sense of the Senate that the President should
regulate reductions in United States strategic nuclear forces
so that the number of strategic offensive arms accountable
under the New START Treaty that are possessed by the Russian
Federation does not exceed the comparable number of accountable
strategic offensive arms possessed by the United States to such
an extent that a strategic imbalance endangers the national
security interests of the United States. The Senate included
similar language in a declaration in its resolution of advice
and consent to ratification of the START II Treaty. At that
time, there was greater concern that the United States might be
financially capable of carrying out the reductions required to
comply with the limits and schedules for reductions under the
START and START II treaties more quickly than the Russian
Federation could, even with assistance under the Nunn-Lugar CTR
Program. The Senate wanted to make clear that it did not want
the United States to move too quickly in its reductions.
In the case of the New START Treaty, the Parties are given
seven years after the treaty's entry into force to comply with
the limits established by Article II. The size of the Russian
Federation's strategic offensive arsenal has already been
limited in recent years due to economic constraints and, as
Admiral Mullen testified to the committee, the Russian
Federation is already below the treaty's limits on strategic
delivery vehicles. Nevertheless, Russia and the United States
will need to comply with all of the treaty's limits within
seven years. The committee believes that this provision is
needed in order to make clear that, in meeting its obligations
under the treaty, the United States should not move so quickly
in its reductions that a significant strategic imbalance with
Russia's strategic forces is created.
DECLARATION (6). COMPLIANCE
In addition to the compliance condition that the committee
has recommended, the committee also recommends that the
Senate's resolution of advice and consent to ratification
include a declaration regarding compliance. The committee
recommends that the Senate declare that the New START Treaty
will remain in the interests of the United States only to the
extent that the Russian Federation is in strict compliance with
its obligations under the treaty.
The declaration recommended by the committee would call for
the executive branch to offer briefings regarding compliance
issues to the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees
before and after each meeting of the BCC, to keep those
committees informed especially of compliance issues that are to
be raised in that forum and of the results of such efforts.
DECLARATION (7). EXPANSION OF STRATEGIC ARSENALS IN COUNTRIES OTHER
THAN RUSSIA.
The committee recommends that the resolution of advice and
consent to ratification include a declaration that if, during
the time the treaty remains in force, the President determines
that there has been an expansion of the strategic arsenal of
any country not party to the treaty so as to jeopardize the
supreme interests of the United States, then the President
should consult immediately with the Senate to determine whether
adherence to the treaty remains in the national interest of the
United States. The Senate included a similar declaration in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the START
II Treaty.
General Chilton stated, in an answer to a question for the
record, that:
Our nuclear forces are postured today to deter other
nuclear capable nations from attacking the U.S. and to
also assure allies to whom the U.S. has extended an
umbrella of strategic deterrence. . . . New START's
lower strategic force levels are based on force
analyses conducted during the Nuclear Posture Review. .
. . In reaching these conclusions, the analyses
conducted during the Nuclear Posture Review took into
account the nuclear arsenals of other declared nuclear
weapon states, as well as the nuclear programs of
proliferant states.
The committee accepts that the analysis regarding the level
of strategic offensive arms to be limited in this bilateral
treaty accounted for our current understanding and projections
of the size of nuclear arsenals other than those of the Russian
Federation. And the committee does not at this time expect that
an expansion of another strategic arsenal would occur during
the duration of this treaty that would force the United States
to withdraw from the treaty. The committee recommends this
declaration, however, to make clear that the Senate will remain
watchful for this possibility. This declaration will further
ensure that, if unanticipated changes in those arsenals should
occur, the executive branch and the Senate will work together
to evaluate whether the New START Treaty poses an unacceptable
constraint in responding to those changes.
DECLARATION (8). TREATY INTERPRETATION.
The Committee on Foreign Relations has taken pains to
maintain the constitutional role of the United States Senate in
the treatymaking process. To that end, the resolution of advice
and consent to ratification of the INF Treaty, approved by the
Senate on May 27, 1988, included an important condition (1)
that has been cited by reference in every subsequent resolution
of advice and consent to ratification of an arms control
treaty:
(A) the United States shall interpret a treaty in
accordance with the common understanding of the treaty
shared by the President and the Senate at the time the
Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification;
(B) Such common understanding is based on:
(i) first, the text of the treaty and the
provisions of this resolution of ratification;
and
(ii) second, the authoritative
representations which were provided by the
President and his representatives to the Senate
and its Committees, in seeking Senate consent
to ratification, insofar as such
representations were directed to the meaning
and legal effect of the text of the treaty;
(C) the United States shall not agree to or adopt an
interpretation different from that common understanding
except pursuant to Senate advice and consent to a
subsequent treaty or protocol, or the enactment of a
statute; and
(D) if, subsequent to ratification of the treaty, a
question arises as to the interpretation of a provision
of the treaty on which no common understanding was
reached in accordance with paragraph (B), that
provision shall be interpreted in accordance with
applicable United States law.
In 1997, a similarly important condition was added to the
resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) Flank
Document, which condition has also been cited by reference in
subsequent resolutions of advice and consent to ratification
for arms control treaties:
Nothing in condition (1) of the resolution of
ratification of the INF Treaty, approved by the Senate
on May 27, 1988, shall be construed as authorizing the
President to obtain legislative approval for
modifications or amendments to treaties through
majority approval of both Houses.
Each of these conditions applies to all treaties. For this
reason, the Senate has not needed to restate them as conditions
in subsequent resolutions of advice and consent to
ratification. Rather, it has cited them by reference in
declarations of its intent, as this declaration does, so as to
remind subsequent administrations of the continuing obligations
imposed by the Senate's treaty-making role under the United
States Constitution.
DECLARATION (9). TREATY MODIFICATION OR REINTERPRETATION.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification a declaration
that any agreement or understanding which in any material way
modifies, amends, or reinterprets United States or Russian
obligations under the New START Treaty, including the time
frame for implementation of the New START Treaty, should be
submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to
ratification, in accordance with Article II, section 2, clause
2 of the Constitution of the United States. The recommended
declaration matches one that the Senate included in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the START
II Treaty. This limitation on treaty reinterpretation by the
executive branch should not be read as undermining Article XV,
paragraphs 1 and 2 of the treaty; pursuant to those paragraphs,
any change to the main treaty text and any change to the
Protocol that affects substantive rights or obligations of the
Parties under the treaty may enter into force only in
accordance with the procedures governing entry into force of
the treaty, which preserves the role of the Senate.
DECLARATION (10). CONSULTATIONS.
To provide a formal expression of the Senate's concerns and
expectations regarding action to extend, supersede, or withdraw
from the treaty, the committee recommends that the resolution
of advice and consent to ratification contain a declaration of
the Senate's expectation that the President will consult with
the Senate prior to actions relevant to paragraphs 2 or 3 of
Article XIV. This declaration is similar to one the Senate
included in its resolution of advice and consent to
ratification of the Moscow Treaty.
The Senate and this committee have an institutional
interest in the close observation of arms control negotiations
and the successful implementation of resulting agreements. Past
administrations have recognized that consultation with the
Senate prior to taking actions relating to signing, amending,
or withdrawing from such agreements may avert serious
disagreements. The committee recognizes that this declaration
cannot affect any authority the Constitution grants in this
regard.
Should it become necessary for a Party to withdraw from the
treaty, Article XIV provides for three months' notice of such a
decision. Should a circumstance arise in which prior
consultation with the Senate on a decision to supersede,
extend, or withdraw from the treaty is not feasible, notably if
the Senate were out of session, the committee expects that the
President, to the extent that it is feasible, will consult the
leadership of the Senate and the committee. This declaration is
a formal request that the executive branch maintain the
consultation policy to which past administrations have
committed.
DECLARATION (11). TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
As noted earlier, in the section on non-strategic nuclear
weapons, the United States followed the recommendation of the
Strategic Posture Review Commission and did not seek to limit
tactical nuclear weapons (sometimes referred to as ``non-
strategic nuclear weapons'' or ``theater nuclear weapons'') in
its negotiations to replace the expiring START Treaty, which
similarly did not limit tactical nuclear weapons. The committee
accepts the Secretary of State's conclusion that ``[a] more
ambitious treaty that addressed tactical nuclear weapons would
have taken much longer to complete, adding significantly to the
time before a successor agreement, including verification
measures, could enter into force following START's expiration
in December 2009.'' The committee therefore urges the
administration to begin discussions with Russia as soon as
possible on tactical nuclear weapons. To this end, the
committee recommends that the Senate include in its resolution
of advice and consent to ratification a provision calling upon
the President to pursue, following consultation with allies, an
agreement with the Russian Federation that would address the
disparity between the tactical nuclear weapons stockpiles of
the United States and the Russian Federation, and would secure
and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.
Given the concerns, as discussed above, concerning the
security of tactical nuclear weapons, the committee also
recommends that, as part of this declaration, the Senate urge
the President to engage the Russian Federation with the
objective of establishing cooperative measures to give each
Party to the New START Treaty improved confidence regarding the
accurate accounting and security of non-strategic nuclear
weapons maintained by the other Party. The Senate should also
urge the President to provide United States or other
international assistance to help the Russian Federation ensure
the accurate accounting and security of its tactical nuclear
weapons. These provisions are modeled on a declaration
contained in the Senate's resolution of advice and consent to
ratification of the Moscow Treaty.
DECLARATION (12). FURTHER STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTIONS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification a declaration
that recognizes the obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty ``to pursue negotiations in good faith
on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms
race at any early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a
treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and
effective international control,'' and that calls upon the
other nuclear weapons states to give careful and early
consideration to corresponding reductions of their own nuclear
arsenals. Upon the entry into force of the New START Treaty,
the United States and the Russian Federation will accept a
limit on the size of their nuclear arsenals (which will come
into effect seven years later) at levels lower than they have
fielded in decades. The committee believes that it is important
to stress to other nuclear weapons states that they also have
an obligation under the NPT, toward which those states should
take similarly concrete steps.
The committee also recommends that the Senate include a
declaration that further arms reduction agreements obligating
the United States to reduce or limit the Armed Forces or
armaments of the United States in any militarily significant
manner may be made only pursuant to the treaty-making power of
the President as set forth in Article II, section 2, clause 2
of the Constitution of the United States. This declaration
states nothing more than what is already established law,
contained in section 303(b) of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Act, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2573(b)).
DECLARATION (13). MODERNIZATION AND REPLACEMENT OF UNITED STATES
STRATEGIC DELIVERY SYSTEMS.
The committee recommends that the Senate include in its
resolution of advice and consent to ratification a declaration
of the importance to the U.S. nuclear deterrent of the triad of
delivery vehicles--ICBMS, SLBMs, and bombers--and that it state
the U.S. commitment to modernizing and replacing those delivery
vehicles.
VII. Text of Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification
Resolved, (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring
therein), That the Senate advises and consents to the
ratification of the Treaty between the United States of America
and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further
Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed in
Prague on April 8, 2010, with Protocol, including Annex on
Inspection Activities to the Protocol, Annex on Notifications
to the Protocol, and Annex on Telemetric Information to the
Protocol, all such documents being integral parts of and
collectively referred to in this resolution as the ``New START
Treaty'' (Treaty Document 111-5), subject to the conditions of
subsection (a), the understandings of subsection (b), and the
declarations of subsection (c).
(a) CONDITIONS.--The advice and consent of the Senate to
the ratification of the New START Treaty is subject to the
following conditions, which shall be binding upon the
President:
(1) General Compliance.--If the President determines
that the Russian Federation is acting or has acted in a
manner that is inconsistent with the object and purpose
of the New START Treaty, or is in violation of the New
START Treaty, so as to threaten the national security
interests of the United States, then the President
shall--
(A) consult with the Senate regarding the
implications of such actions for the viability
of the New START Treaty and for the national
security interests of the United States;
(B) seek on an urgent basis a meeting with
the Russian Federation at the highest
diplomatic level with the objective of bringing
the Russian Federation into full compliance
with its obligations under the New START
Treaty; and
(C) submit a report to the Senate promptly
thereafter, detailing--
(i) whether adherence to the New
START Treaty remains in the national
security interests of the United
States; and
(ii) how the United States will
redress the impact of Russian actions
on the national security interests of
the United States.
(2) Presidential certifications and reports on
national technical means.--(A) Prior to the entry into
force of the New START Treaty, and annually thereafter,
the President shall certify to the Senate that United
States National Technical Means, in conjunction with
the verification activities provided for in the New
START Treaty, are sufficient to ensure effective
monitoring of Russian compliance with the provisions of
the New START Treaty and timely warning of any Russian
preparation to break out of the limits in Article II of
the New START Treaty. Following submission of the first
such certification, each subsequent certification shall
be accompanied by a report to the Senate indicating how
United States National Technical Means, including
collection, processing, and analytic resources, will be
utilized to ensure effective monitoring. The first such
report shall include a long-term plan for the
maintenance of New START Treaty monitoring. Each
subsequent report shall include an update of the long-
term plan. Each such report may be submitted in either
classified or unclassified form.
(B) It is the sense of the Senate that
monitoring Russian Federation compliance with
the New START Treaty is a high priority and
that the inability to do so would constitute a
threat to United States national security
interests.
(3) Reductions.--(A) The New START Treaty shall not
enter into force until instruments of ratification have
been exchanged in accordance with Article XIV of the
New START Treaty.
(B) If, prior to the entry into force of the New
START Treaty, the President plans to implement
reductions of United States strategic nuclear forces
below those currently planned and consistent with the
Treaty Between the United States of America and the
Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions,
signed at Moscow on May 24, 2002 (commonly referred to
as ``the Moscow Treaty''), then the President shall--
(i) consult with the Senate regarding the
effect of such reductions on the national
security of the United States; and
(ii) take no such reductions until the
President submits to the Senate the President's
determination that such reductions are in the
national security interest of the United
States.
(4) Timely warning of breakout.--If the President
determines, after consultation with the Director of
National Intelligence, that the Russian Federation
intends to break out of the limits in Article II of the
New START Treaty, the President shall immediately
inform the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed
Services of the Senate, with a view to determining
whether circumstances exist that jeopardize the supreme
interests of the United States, such that withdrawal
from the New START Treaty may be warranted pursuant to
paragraph 3 of Article XIV of the New START Treaty.
(5) United states missile defense test telemetry.--
Prior to entry into force of the New START Treaty, the
President shall certify to the Senate that the New
START Treaty does not require, at any point during
which it will be in force, the United States to provide
to the Russian Federation telemetric information under
Article IX of the New START Treaty, Part Seven of the
Protocol, and the Annex on Telemetric Information to
the Protocol for the launch of--
(A) any missile defense interceptor, as
defined in paragraph 44 of Part One of the
Protocol to the New START Treaty;
(B) any satellite launches, missile defense
sensor targets, and missile defense intercept
targets, the launch of which uses the first
stage of an existing type of United States ICBM
or SLBM listed in paragraph 8 of Article III of
the New START Treaty; or
(C) any missile described in clause (a) of
paragraph 7 of Article III of the New START
Treaty.
(6) Conventional Prompt global strike.--(A) The
Senate calls on the executive branch to clarify its
planning and intent in developing future conventionally
armed, strategic-range weapon systems. To this end,
prior to the entry into force of the New START Treaty,
the President shall provide a report to the Committees
on Armed Services and Foreign Relations of the Senate
containing the following:
(i) A list of all conventionally
armed, strategic-range weapon systems
that are currently under development.
(ii) An analysis of the expected
capabilities of each system listed
under clause (i).
(iii) A statement with respect to
each system listed under clause (i) as
to whether any of the limits in Article
II of the New START Treaty apply to
such system.
(iv) An assessment of the costs,
risks, and benefits of each system.
(v) A discussion of alternative
deployment options and scenarios for
each system.
(vi) A summary of the measures that
could help to distinguish each system
listed under clause (i) from nuclear
systems and reduce the risks of
misinterpretation and of a resulting
claim that such systems might alter
strategic stability.
(B) The report under subparagraph (A) may be
supplemented by a classified annex.
(C) If, at any time after the New START
Treaty enters into force, the President
determines that deployment of conventional
warheads on ICBMs or SLBMs is required at
levels that cannot be accommodated within the
limits in Article II of the New START Treaty
while sustaining a robust United States nuclear
triad, then the President shall immediately
consult with the Senate regarding the reasons
for such determination.
(7) United states telemetric information.--In
implementing Article IX of the New START Treaty, Part
Seven of the Protocol, and the Annex on Telemetric
Information to the Protocol, prior to agreeing to
provide to the Russian Federation any amount of
telemetric information on a United States test launch
of a conventionally armed prompt global strike system,
the President shall certify to the Committees on
Foreign Relations and Armed Services of the Senate
that--
(A) the provision of United States telemetric
information--
(i) consists of data that demonstrate
that such system is not subject to the
limits in Article II of the New START
Treaty; or
(ii) would be provided in exchange
for significant telemetric information
regarding a weapon system not listed in
paragraph 8 of Article III of the New
START Treaty, or a system not deployed
by the Russian Federation prior to
December 5, 2009;
(B) it is in the national security interest
of the United States to provide such telemetric
information; and
(C) provision of such telemetric information
will not undermine the effectiveness of such
system.
(8) Bilateral consultative commission.--Not later
than 15 days before any meeting of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission to consider a proposal for
additional measures to improve the viability or
effectiveness of the New START Treaty or to resolve a
question related to the applicability of provisions of
the New START Treaty to a new kind of strategic
offensive arm, the President shall consult with the
Chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee
on Foreign Relations of the Senate with regard to
whether the proposal, if adopted, would constitute an
amendment to the New START Treaty requiring the advice
and consent of the Senate, as set forth in Article II,
section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution of the United
States.
(9) United states commitments ensuring the safety,
reliability, and performance of its nuclear forces.--
(A) The United States is committed to
ensuring the safety, reliability, and
performance of its nuclear forces. It is the
sense of the Senate that--
(i) the United States is committed to
proceeding with a robust stockpile
stewardship program, and to maintaining
and modernizing the nuclear weapons
production capabilities and capacities,
that will ensure the safety,
reliability, and performance of the
United States nuclear arsenal at the
New START Treaty levels and meet
requirements for hedging against
possible international developments or
technical problems, in conformance with
United States policies and to underpin
deterrence;
(ii) to that end, the United States
is committed to maintaining United
States nuclear weapons laboratories and
preserving the core nuclear weapons
competencies therein; and
(iii) the United States is committed
to providing the resources needed to
achieve these objectives, at a minimum
at the levels set forth in the
President's 10-year plan provided to
the Congress pursuant to section 1251
of the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law
111-84).
(B) If appropriations are enacted that fail
to meet the resource requirements set forth in
the President's 10-year plan, or if at any time
more resources are required than estimated in
the President's 10-year plan, the President
shall submit to Congress, within 60 days of
such enactment or the identification of the
requirement for such additional resources, as
appropriate, a report detailing--
(i) how the President proposes to
remedy the resource shortfall;
(ii) if additional resources are
required, the proposed level of funding
required and an identification of the
stockpile work, campaign, facility,
site, asset, program, operation,
activity, construction, or project for
which additional funds are required;
(iii) the impact of the resource
shortfall on the safety, reliability,
and performance of United States
nuclear forces; and
(iv) whether and why, in the changed
circumstances brought about by the
resource shortfall, it remains in the
national interest of the United States
to remain a Party to the New START
Treaty.
(10) Annual report.--As full and faithful
implementation is key to realizing the benefits of the
New START Treaty, the President shall submit a report
to the Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed
Services of the Senate not later than January 31 of
each year beginning with January 31, 2012, which will
provide--
(A) details on each Party's reductions in
strategic offensive arms between the date the
New START Treaty entered into force and
December 31, 2011, or, in subsequent reports,
during the previous year;
(B) a certification that the Russian
Federation is in compliance with the terms of
the New START Treaty, or a detailed discussion
of any noncompliance by the Russian Federation;
(C) a certification that any conversion and
elimination procedures adopted pursuant to
Article VI of the New START Treaty and Part
Three of the Protocol have not resulted in
ambiguities that could defeat the object and
purpose of the New START Treaty, or--
(i) a list of any cases in which a
conversion or elimination procedure
that has been demonstrated by Russia
within the framework of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission remains
ambiguous or does not achieve the goals
set forth in paragraph 2 or 3 of
Section I of Part Three of the
Protocol; and
(ii) a comprehensive explanation of
steps the United States has taken with
respect to each such case;
(D) an assessment of the operation of the New
START Treaty's transparency mechanisms,
including--
(i) the extent to which either Party
encrypted or otherwise impeded the
collection of telemetric information;
and
(ii) the extent and usefulness of
exchanges of telemetric information;
and
(E) an assessment of whether a strategic
imbalance exists that endangers the national
security interests of the United States.
(b) UNDERSTANDINGS.--The advice and consent of the Senate
to the ratification of the New START Treaty is subject to the
following understandings, which shall be included in the
instrument of ratification:
(1) Missile defense.--It is the understanding of the
United States that--
(A) the New START Treaty does not impose any
limitations on the deployment of missile
defenses other than the requirements of
paragraph 3 of Article V of the New START
Treaty, which states, ``Each Party shall not
convert and shall not use ICBM launchers and
SLBM launchers for placement of missile defense
interceptors therein. Each Party further shall
not convert and shall not use launchers of
missile defense interceptors for placement of
ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall
not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted
prior to signature of this treaty for placement
of missile defense interceptors therein.'';
(B) any additional New START Treaty
limitations on the deployment of missile
defenses beyond those contained in paragraph 3
of Article V, including any limitations agreed
under the auspices of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission, would require an
amendment to the New START Treaty which may
enter into force for the United States only
with the advice and consent of the Senate, as
set forth in Article II, section 2, clause 2 of
the Constitution of the United States; and
(C) the April 7, 2010, unilateral statement
by the Russian Federation on missile defense
does not impose a legal obligation on the
United States.
(2) Rail-mobile icbms.--It is the understanding of
the United States that--
(A) any rail-mobile-launched ballistic
missile with a range in excess of 5,500
kilometers would be an ICBM, as the term is
defined in paragraph 37 of Part One of the
Protocol (in the English-language numbering),
for the purposes of the New START Treaty,
specifically including the limits in Article II
of the New START Treaty;
(B) an erector-launcher mechanism for
launching an ICBM and the railcar or flatcar on
which it is mounted would be an ICBM launcher,
as the term is defined in paragraph 28 of Part
One of the Protocol (in the English-language
numbering), for the purposes of the New START
Treaty, specifically including the limits in
Article II of the New START Treaty;
(C) if either Party should produce a rail-
mobile ICBM system, the Bilateral Consultative
Commission would address the application of
other parts of the New START Treaty to that
system, including Articles III, IV, VI, VII,
and XI of the New START Treaty and relevant
portions of the Protocol and the Annexes to the
Protocol; and
(D) an agreement reached pursuant to
subparagraph (C) is subject to the requirements
of Article XV of the New START Treaty and,
specifically, if an agreement pursuant to
subparagraph (C) creates substantive rights or
obligations that differ significantly from
those in the New START Treaty regarding a
``mobile launcher of ICBMs'' as defined in Part
One of the Protocol to the New START Treaty,
such agreement will be considered an amendment
to the New START Treaty pursuant to Paragraph 1
of Article XV of the New START Treaty and will
be submitted to the Senate for its advice and
consent to ratification.
(3) Strategic-range, non-nuclear weapon systems.--It
is the understanding of the United States that--
(A) future, strategic-range non-nuclear
weapon systems that do not otherwise meet the
definitions of the New START Treaty will not be
``new kinds of strategic offensive arms''
subject to the New START Treaty;
(B) nothing in the New START Treaty restricts
United States research, development, testing,
and evaluation of strategic-range, non-nuclear
weapons, including any weapon that is capable
of boosted aerodynamic flight;
(C) nothing in the New START Treaty prohibits
deployments of strategic-range non-nuclear
weapon systems; and
(D) the addition to the New START Treaty of--
(i) any limitations on United States
research, development, testing, and
evaluation of strategic-range, non-
nuclear weapon systems, including any
weapon that is capable of boosted
aerodynamic flight; or
(ii) any prohibition on the
deployment of such systems, including
any such limitations or prohibitions
agreed under the auspices of the
Bilateral Consultative Commission,
would require an amendment to the New START
Treaty which may enter into force for the
United States only with the advice and consent
of the Senate, as set forth in Article II,
section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution of the
United States.
(c) DECLARATIONS.--The advice and consent of the Senate to
the ratification of the New START Treaty is subject to the
following declarations, which express the intent of the Senate:
(1) Missile defense.--(A) It is the sense of the
Senate that--
(i) pursuant to the National Missile
Defense Act of 1999 (Public Law 106-
38), it is the policy of the United
States ``to deploy as soon as is
technologically possible an effective
National Missile Defense system capable
of defending the territory of the
United States against limited ballistic
missile attack (whether accidental,
unauthorized, or deliberate)'';
(ii) defenses against ballistic
missiles are essential for new
deterrent strategies and for new
strategies should deterrence fail; and
(iii) further limitations on the
missile defense capabilities of the
United States are not in the national
security interest of the United States.
(B) The New START Treaty and the April 7,
2010, unilateral statement of the Russian
Federation on missile defense do not limit in
any way, and shall not be interpreted as
limiting, activities that the United States
Government currently plans or that might be
required over the duration of the New START
Treaty to protect the United States pursuant to
the National Missile Defense Act of 1999, or to
protect United States Armed Forces and United
States allies from limited ballistic missile
attack, including further planned enhancements
to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system
and all phases of the Phased Adaptive Approach
to missile defense in Europe.
(C) Given its concern about missile defense
issues, the Senate expects the executive branch
to offer regular briefings, not less than twice
each year, to the Committees on Foreign
Relations and Armed Services of the Senate on
all missile defense issues related to the New
START Treaty and on the progress of United
States-Russia dialogue and cooperation
regarding missile defense.
(2) Defending the united states and allies against
strategic attack.--It is the sense of the Senate that--
(A) a paramount obligation of the United
States Government is to provide for the defense
of the American people, deployed members of the
United States Armed Forces, and United States
allies against nuclear attacks to the best of
its ability;
(B) policies based on ``mutual assured
destruction'' or intentional vulnerability can
be contrary to the safety and security of both
countries, and the United States and the
Russian Federation share a common interest in
moving cooperatively as soon as possible away
from a strategic relationship based on mutual
assured destruction;
(C) in a world where biological, chemical,
and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver
them are proliferating, strategic stability can
be enhanced by strategic defensive measures;
(D) accordingly, the United States is and
will remain free to reduce the vulnerability to
attack by constructing a layered missile
defense system capable of countering missiles
of all ranges;
(E) the United States will welcome steps by
the Russian Federation also to adopt a
fundamentally defensive strategic posture that
no longer views robust strategic defensive
capabilities as undermining the overall
strategic balance, and stands ready to
cooperate with the Russian Federation on
strategic defensive capabilities, as long as
such cooperation is aimed at fostering and in
no way constrains the defensive capabilities of
both sides; and
(F) the United States is committed to
improving United States strategic defensive
capabilities both quantitatively and
qualitatively during the period that the New
START Treaty is in effect, and such
improvements are consistent with the treaty.
(3) Conventionally armed, strategic-range weapon
systems.--Consistent with statements made by the United
States that such systems are not intended to affect
strategic stability with respect to the Russian
Federation, the Senate finds that conventionally armed,
strategic-range weapon systems not co-located with
nuclear-armed systems do not affect strategic stability
between the United States and the Russian Federation.
(4) Nunn-lugar cooperative threat reduction.--It is
the sense of the Senate that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction (CTR) Program has made an invaluable
contribution to the security and elimination of weapons
of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons and
materials in Russia and elsewhere, and that the
President should continue the global CTR Program and
CTR assistance to Russia, including for the purpose of
facilitating implementation of the New START Treaty.
(5) Asymmetry in reductions.--It is the sense of the
Senate that, in conducting the reductions mandated by
the New START Treaty, the President should regulate
reductions in United States strategic offensive arms so
that the number of accountable strategic offensive arms
under the New START Treaty possessed by the Russian
Federation in no case exceeds the comparable number of
accountable strategic offensive arms possessed by the
United States to such an extent that a strategic
imbalance endangers the national security interests of
the United States.
(6) Compliance.--(A) The New START Treaty will remain
in the interests of the United States only to the
extent that the Russian Federation is in strict
compliance with its obligations under the New START
Treaty.
(B) Given its concern about compliance
issues, the Senate expects the executive branch
to offer regular briefings, not less than four
times each year, to the Committees on Foreign
Relations and Armed Services of the Senate on
compliance issues related to the New START
Treaty. Such briefings shall include a
description of all United States efforts in
United States-Russian diplomatic channels and
bilateral fora to resolve any compliance issues
and shall include, but would not necessarily be
limited to, a description of--
(i) any compliance issues the United
States plans to raise with the Russian
Federation at the Bilateral
Consultative Commission, in advance of
such meetings; and
(ii) any compliance issues raised at
the Bilateral Consultative Commission,
within thirty days of such meetings.
(7) Expansion of strategic arsenals in countries
other than russia.--It is the sense of the Senate that
if, during the time the New START Treaty remains in
force, the President determines that there has been an
expansion of the strategic arsenal of any country not
party to the New START Treaty so as to jeopardize the
supreme interests of the United States, then the
President should consult on an urgent basis with the
Senate to determine whether adherence to the New START
Treaty remains in the national interest of the United
States.
(8) Treaty interpretation.--The Senate affirms the
applicability to all treaties of the constitutionally
based principles of treaty interpretation set forth in
condition (1) of the resolution of advice and consent
to the ratification of the Treaty Between the United
States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-
Range and Shorter Range Missiles, together with the
related memorandum of understanding and protocols
(commonly referred to as the ``INF Treaty''), approved
by the Senate on May 27, 1988, and condition (8) of the
resolution of advice and consent to the ratification of
the Document Agreed Among the States Parties to the
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) of
November 19, 1990 (commonly referred to as the ``CFE
Flank Document''), approved by the Senate on May 14,
1997.
(9) Treaty modification or reinterpretation.--The
Senate declares that any agreement or understanding
which in any material way modifies, amends, or
reinterprets United States or Russian obligations under
the New START Treaty, including the time frame for
implementation of the New START Treaty, should be
submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to
ratification.
(10) Consultations.--Given the continuing interest of
the Senate in the New START Treaty and in strategic
offensive reductions to the lowest possible levels
consistent with national security requirements and
alliance obligations of the United States, the Senate
expects the President to consult with the Senate prior
to taking actions relevant to paragraphs 2 or 3 of
Article XIV of the New START Treaty.
(11) Tactical nuclear weapons.--(A) The Senate calls
upon the President to pursue, following consultation
with allies, an agreement with the Russian Federation
that would address the disparity between the tactical
nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation
and of the United States and would secure and reduce
tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.
(B) Recognizing the difficulty the United
States has faced in ascertaining with
confidence the number of tactical nuclear
weapons maintained by the Russian Federation
and the security of those weapons, the Senate
urges the President to engage the Russian
Federation with the objectives of--
(i) establishing cooperative measures
to give each Party to the New START
Treaty improved confidence regarding
the accurate accounting and security of
tactical nuclear weapons maintained by
the other Party; and
(ii) providing United States or other
international assistance to help the
Russian Federation ensure the accurate
accounting and security of its tactical
nuclear weapons.
(12) Further strategic arms reductions.--(A)
Recognizing the obligation under Article VI of the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
done at Washington, London, and Moscow on July 1, 1968,
``to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective
measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race
at any early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a
treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict
and effective international control,'' and in
anticipation of the ratification and entry into force
of the New START Treaty, the Senate calls upon the
other nuclear weapon states to give careful and early
consideration to corresponding reductions of their own
nuclear arsenals.
(B) The Senate declares that further arms
reduction agreements obligating the United
States to reduce or limit the Armed Forces or
armaments of the United States in any
militarily significant manner may be made only
pursuant to the treaty-making power of the
President as set forth in Article II, section
2, clause 2 of the Constitution of the United
States.
(13) Modernization and replacement of united states
strategic delivery vehicles.--In accordance with
paragraph 1 of Article V of the New START Treaty, which
states that, ``Subject to the provisions of this
treaty, modernization and replacement of strategic
offensive arms may be carried out,'' it is the sense of
the Senate that United States deterrence and
flexibility is assured by a robust triad of strategic
delivery vehicles. To this end, the United States is
committed to accomplishing the modernization and
replacement of its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles,
and to ensuring the continued flexibility of United
States conventional and nuclear delivery systems.
VIII. Minority Views of Senators Risch, DeMint, Barrasso, Wicker, and
Inhofe
In the 18 years since the original START Treaty was
ratified, a lot has changed for U.S. national security, our
global interests, and those of our allies. During the Cold War,
the United States and NATO had to rely on nuclear weapons as a
deterrent to a numerically superior Soviet conventional force.
Today the world is much different. Russia relies on nuclear
weapons--mostly tactical nuclear weapons--to counter superior
conventional U.S. and NATO forces while threatening new NATO
members near its borders. Meanwhile, the United States must
balance a rising China--and its growing conventional and
nuclear arsenals--with security commitments to protect more
than 30 nations that make up the pledge of U.S. extended
deterrence. Further, countries like Iran and North Korea pose
potentially severe risks to U.S. forces abroad, U.S. allies,
and global stability with their chemical, biological, and
nuclear weapons programs as well as their growing ballistic
missile capabilities. This is in addition to a number of other
countries with ballistic missile and nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons programs.
These new actors increase the spectrum of threats we and
our allies must face, and this uncertainty places a larger
burden on the U.S. nuclear umbrella to assure our allies. Our
nuclear and conventional forces must be strong enough to deter
any aggressor or combination of aggressors for the foreseeable
future.
However, we believe the Obama administration was narrowly
centered on the issue of ``resetting'' U.S. relations with
Russia which focused almost exclusively on bilateral nuclear
stability between the United States and Russia in these
negotiations and paid little attention to the question of
maintaining multilateral nuclear stability in an uncertain and
proliferated world.
New START supposedly establishes a ceiling of 1,550
warheads on strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. Yet, due to
the porous limitations and permissive bomber and other counting
rules, that would allow unlimited air-launched cruise missiles
and could include other uncounted options like sea-launched
cruise missiles, there is a distinct possibility that by the
end of the ten-year life of this treaty Russia will easily have
well over 2,000 real--as opposed to accountable--deployed
strategic nuclear warheads and thousands of tactical nuclear
warheads. At the same time, China could have on the order of
500 to 1,000 warheads, Pakistan and India could have roughly
150 each, and Iran and North Korea could have roughly 50 each.
This, of course, excludes the weapons that may be retained by
our allies including France and Great Britain.
Thus, the United States may need to address the
requirements for deterrence with a force of 1,550 deployed
strategic warheads in a world where cumulatively the rest of
the world could retain more than double this number, and in the
context of an unpredictable coalition dynamic.
Yet, as Secretary of Defense Gates answered, the Department
of Defense's ``Office of Net Assessment was not tasked to
provide a net assessment of the New START Treaty's numerical
limitations.'' Before New START was signed, the Office of the
Net Assessment should have been directed to study the
appropriateness of the numerical limitations imposed by New
START, the qualitative structure of the U.S. strategic nuclear
forces under the treaty, and how the United States would
attempt to maintain deterrence and assurance in this
proliferated environment. And Senators should have been given
access to the analysis U.S. Strategic Command provided to the
Department of Defense before they were asked to vote on the
Resolution of Ratification.
U.S. military leaders have testified that New START allows
the U.S. forces necessary for deterrence. However, there are
also three fundamental assumptions underlying this conclusion;
each of which is optimistic in the extreme--(1) U.S. planning
guidance for strategic forces would remain the same; (2) there
would be no requests for an increase in forces; and (3) Russia
would be compliant with New START. Assuming Russian treaty
compliance violates the historical record, and it ignores the
very real evidence of renewed Russian nuclear threats to U.S.
allies and friends.
In addition, there are many plausible threat scenarios,
including many not involving Russia, that could emerge during
the tenure of New START that would demand significant changes
in current planning and new deterrence requirements. Would New
START provide the necessary forces and flexibility if the
administration's three optimistic assumptions do not hold? We
do not believe it does.
Instead of looking at the new and shifting 21st century
challenges, New START embraces the paradigm of the Cold War by
focusing only on Russia with its porous limits on nuclear
warheads, delivery vehicles, and inspection regimes. As
Secretary of State Clinton stated, ``the New START Treaty is
needed in order to provide a critical framework for the
strategic nuclear relationship between the United States and
Russia.'' Secretary Clinton's comment by definition ignores the
nuclear forces that exist or will exist shortly in other
countries. And the lack of precise definitions and inclusion of
other provisions in New START means that U.S. offensive and
defensive conventional forces could be substantially
constrained.
Already, Russia is below New START's limits on strategic
delivery vehicles and launchers due to atrophy of its strategic
nuclear force. The only party that will actually have to
eliminate strategic delivery vehicles and launchers under the
provisions of the treaty is the United States.
New START is a bad deal coming and going: it neither places
effective limits on a future Russian renewal of its strategic
nuclear forces (the beginnings of which already can be seen),
nor does it demand real Russian reductions now. This the
administration touts as a great negotiating accomplishment.
From these issues come a list of our specific concerns for
U.S. security and that of our friends.
MISSILE DEFENSE
First, missile defense is a key component of our defense
posture--and that of our allies. It is clear there is a
fundamental disagreement between the United States and the
Russian Federation on missile defense and what constitutes any
qualitative or quantitative improvements. If a treaty is
supposed to show points of agreement, this treaty falls far
short.
Lacking consensus, the Obama administration says that the
preamble of the treaty, which mentions an ``interrelationship
between strategic offensive and defensive arms that will become
more important as strategic arms are reduced,'' was a non-
binding concession given to appease the Russians. Russian
officials, in turn, say that it is legally binding and that
they would like to recreate the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile
treaty that severely limited missile defense. Despite the
preamble, this treaty also limits missile defense in Article V.
While this administration has stated it has no plans to act in
a way inconsistent with Article V, a future administration may
find these limits unacceptable. Under New START, the
administration has created new missile defense limitations in
the body of treaty, and opened the door to more restrictions.
This treaty, and the debate during the Foreign Relations
Committee's business meeting, also highlights a fundamental
contrast between treaty supporters and ourselves on the effect
missile defense systems have on strategic stability. Senator
Lugar's efforts to limit further damage to missile defense in
his Resolution of Ratification go a long way, but do not fully
alleviate our concerns. We were particularly troubled by the
lengthy debate over whether it was in the national security
interest of the United States to move away from the policy of
mutual assured destruction toward a fundamentally defensive
posture. Senator DeMint's amendment sought to address this 20th
century thinking, but the concern, voiced by administration
officials during the business meeting, over words like ``remain
committed'' to a layered ballistic missile defense capability
in his amendment, is quite disturbing.
For more than 50 years, the Russians have argued against
U.S. missile defense plans and we have no doubt that, despite
Senator Lugar's language, the Russians will attempt to use the
Bilateral Consultative Commission as a forum to discuss missile
defense plans and seek further concessions. For all of this
capitulation to the Russians on this issue, it is still unclear
what the United States received for making this concession.
Given all of the concerns expressed by Senators and the
adamant insistence that nothing was ``given away,'' it is still
perplexing that the administration is unwilling to share the
negotiating record with the Senate on this important topic. If
the negotiating record is as the administration has described,
and the President had approached the Senate as a partner in the
ratification process, many of these concerns could have been
addressed quickly.
However, answers to Senator Wicker's questions for the
record on missile defense called into question the commitment
of the Obama administration to fully implement the Ballistic
Missile Defense Review Report from February 2010, and the
objection to further efforts by Senator Barrasso, Senator
Risch, and Senator Inhofe to amend the treaty and Resolution of
Ratification further eroded our confidence in the
administration's commitments on this important issue.
TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Second, what is even more perplexing is that if the
preamble language is non-binding, then why did the
administration forgo seeking an equal statement on tactical
nuclear weapons? If missile defenses and conventionally-armed
ballistic missiles are relevant to strategic nuclear
reductions, why is there no linkage with nonstrategic nuclear
weapons, such as Russia's plan to develop long-range, nuclear-
armed, sea-launched cruise missiles?
The United States has made enormous security commitments to
allies around the world, and especially to our NATO partners.
The United States is a protector of many, while Russia is a
protector of none, and U.S. extended deterrence is intended to
protect and assure these countries against attack as much as it
is to protect the United States.
As a result, Russian tactical nuclear weapons deployed on
the borders of our NATO allies--but based inside of Russian
territory--represent a very real threat. However, with a small
number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, U.S.
extended deterrence is provided in large part by U.S. strategic
nuclear forces. This is the course the United States has chosen
for decades. Hence, there is a long-standing interrelationship
between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, that can
undermine deterrence and the assurances of allies when the
United States accepts limits that reduce the flexibility of our
strategic forces and cuts strategic warheads so low that
Russia's tactical arsenal alone dwarfs the entire U.S. nuclear
arsenal.
Sadly, the Obama administration does not seem to understand
this relationship. As Secretary Clinton stated, ``tactical
nuclear weapons do not directly influence the strategic balance
between the United States and Russia.'' Unfortunately, because
of this narrow thinking, President Obama removed the issue of
tactical nuclear forces from the negotiations so early that he
denied negotiators one of the few points of leverage that could
have guaranteed missile defense would not have been in the
treaty.
The Committee's Resolution of Ratification only offers a
simple declaration regarding how to address the disparity
between the United States and Russian tactical nuclear weapons.
We do not share the administration's optimism that this treaty
will lead to an agreement on tactical nuclear weapons. Russia
is currently not honoring its commitments under the
Presidential Nuclear Initiative of the early 1990s regarding
these weapons and the rejection by the committee of Senator
Risch's amendment regarding this issue highlights the
unwillingness to deal with it.
CONVENTIONAL PROMPT GLOBAL STRIKE
Third, New START places limits on conventional strategic
offensive capabilities and further limits U.S. deterrence
flexibility and options. As the State Department Bureau of
Verification, Compliance, and Implementation website states;
``long-range conventional ballistic missiles would count under
the treaty's limit of 700 delivery vehicles, and their
conventional warheads would count against the limit of 1,550
warheads.''
The administration attempts to justify this situation by
saying START I did not make a distinction between nuclear and
conventional warheads on ballistic missiles. However, START I
was also written 20 years ago, before advancements in military
technology and U.S. capabilities were able to envision new
types of systems. While conventional prompt global strike
(CPGS) is still an infant technology, the limitations in New
START substantially restrict further development and deployment
of the most mature technology, instead betting on as of yet
unproven advanced technologies, and in the process limiting
U.S. options to respond to future threats, which was another
key goal of the Russian Federation.
U.S. engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that
advancements in military technology can be instrumental, but
they have also shown the limitations of integrating existing
technology with time-sensitive information. CPGS could offer an
incredible capability to swiftly respond to a threat anywhere
in the world, and eliminate the threat before it matures.
Whether emerging threats come from non-state actors,
terrorist organizations, or rogue nations, this capability
could also provide the President with a valuable and scalable
option to respond to emerging threats without the need to rely
on nuclear force, such as a rogue nation with only a few
nuclear weapons. If required to conduct a large-scale
conventional military operation in an anti-access environment,
the U.S. military could also find a weapons system like this
necessary.
The unwillingness of the Obama administration to understand
this changing dynamic or to protect American interests and
flexibility is dangerous. These constraints are more troubling
when President Obama argues that New START's reductions are
acceptable because the United States has such a strong
conventional force-endorsed by Secretary Gates in his written
answers. Yet, Secretary Gates is also pushing to cut spending
on U.S. conventional capabilities, and simultaneously seeks to
transfer $5 billion from our military to the Department of
Energy.
It is disconcerting that the only place where President
Obama could find money for modernization was the Department of
Defense. The founding mission of DOE was to ensure that the
building and maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons remained in
civilian hands. Sadly, it appears the core mission of DOE is
now a low priority, but our conventional military forces and
their readiness should not have to suffer because of misplaced
priorities at the DOE.
Since this treaty was intended to focus on strategic
nuclear reductions, the inclusion of CPGS remains dubious.
Although the State Department's analysis determined that CPGS
options would count under the treaty's central limits, it
remains unclear if it is really compelled by the terms of the
treaty or is simply the intent of the negotiating parties.
Because the Obama administration again refuses to share the
negotiating record, the Resolution of Ratification should have
included an understanding or reservation that an
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or submarine-launched
ballistic missile loaded with only a conventional warhead
should not count towards the treaty's central limits pertaining
to either delivery vehicles or warheads.
At a minimum the existing resolution should be expanded to
ensure that it is not in the jurisdiction of the Bilateral
Consultative Commission to limit the deployment of CPGS systems
of the United States.
INSPECTIONS AND VERIFICATION
If the United States is to accept increased uncertainty and
risk, then we should have absolute confidence in our ability to
monitor the Russians and verify compliance. However, the
effectiveness and adequacy of any arms control treaty's
verification measures ultimately depends on what and how the
treaty limits operate. By reverting back to the Cold War
standard of U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear parity and basing
deterrence on mutual nuclear threats, New START establishes the
need for the kind of vigorous verification measures found in
the START I treaty.
Despite Secretary Clinton's comment that this treaty
``provides detailed rules and significant transparency
regarding each side's strategic forces through its extensive
verification regime,'' we do not share the administration's
confidence. To the contrary, verification in this treaty is
very weak in comparison to START I, especially for the warhead
limit.
First, quality is just as important as quantity because the
details matter and the treaty falls short on both counts. Over
the life of START I the United States conducted roughly 600
inspections; under New START we are limited to 18 annually (180
total). With 35 Russian facilities and only 17 U.S. facilities
to inspect, Russia begins at a significant advantage.
Second, the Obama administration has touted New START's
inspection regime as being a monumental shift toward counting
actual warheads, instead of using attribution accounting rules.
However, the treaty relies on an annual limit of ten Type I
inspections, which would provide the United States with
visibility on only about two to three percent of the entire
missile force each year. Conveniently, these are the same kind
of inspections that the Russians illegally obstructed, for
certain types of missiles, throughout the START I Treaty. Now,
that obstruction seems to be acceptable practice.
Fortunately, START I did not rely on these inspections
alone for verification; it wisely relied primarily on our
National Technical Means (NTM) to verify an ``attribution''
rule that in general, counted warheads based on their
demonstrated capability. (Under this rule, a missile type was
considered to have a certain attributed number of warheads,
such that warhead verification became an exercise of simply
multiplying numbers of missiles observed with satellites
multiplied by the attributed warhead number.)
New START abandoned many limitations on strategic nuclear
weapons as well as this tried and true verification structure,
and relies instead on good Russian inspection behavior for
verification. This is unwise. If the Russians continue their
obstruction, our ability to verify the warhead limit will be
substantially degraded. Hypothetically, even if the Russians
departed from past practice and did not obstruct the
inspections, their utility is still inherently limited.
The Russians are not required to tell us how many warheads
are located on each missile at the initial data exchange.
Instead, it's only after a U.S. inspection team declares its
intention to visit a missile site that the Russians will
declare how many re-entry vehicles are deployed on missiles
located at that inspection site. The U.S. team then gets to
look at only one of those missiles. There is no way to
determine from this single inspection whether the rest of the
Russian missile force also contains that number of warheads.
The United States cannot deduce from so few inspections whether
Russia is complying with the overall 1,550 limit. No one should
be under the illusion that we are ``counting'' Russian
warheads. The lack of confidence in verifying this central
limit undermines confidence in the entire agreement.
Third, the warhead limit is not our only verification
concern. START I's reliance on NTM to verify its warhead limits
was buttressed by two other key measures, both of which were
dropped from New START--(1) continuous portal/perimeter
monitoring at the Russian assembly plant for mobile ICBMs (the
type most difficult to monitor with NTM); and (2) full access
to telemetry, which is extremely useful for understanding
missile systems, including whether the Russians were complying
with START I's prohibition on flight-testing missiles that
exceded the warhead limit for each type of missile. As a result
of New START's omission or limitation of these important
verification measures, the uncertainty with respect to Russian
mobile ICBM production and overall missile capabilities will
increase substantially. Secretary Gates admitted in his
testimony before the committee that U.S. ability to monitor
this treaty would decline over time.
As the number of nuclear weapons decreases, verification
becomes even more important and must become more robust because
the benefits of cheating increase. On this point New START
moves completely in the wrong direction.
COMPLIANCE
As we referenced earlier, Russia has a long track record of
ignoring international agreements that it has signed. Russia
repeatedly violated START I all the way to its expiration in
December 2009, as clearly stated in the 2005 and 2010 State
Department Compliance Reports.
Specifically, Russian failures to comply with telemetry
sharing under START I raises concerns about U.S. access to
data, and New START does nothing to ensure telemetry is shared
regarding ballistic missile delivery vehicles for warheads. It
simply leaves this issue to the BCC to resolve at some later
point.
Russia has also directly impeded U.S. inspectors' ability
to accurately account for the number of reentry vehicles (RVs)
on ballistic missiles, which again speaks to the efficacy of
the Type I inspections under New START. As the 2005 State
Department report noted, ``Russian RV covers, and their method
of emplacement, have in some cases hampered U.S. inspectors
from ascertaining that the front section of the missiles
contains no more RVs than the number of warheads attributed to
a missile of that type under the treaty.''
In addition, the U.S. government has serious concerns with
Russian compliance on the Chemical Weapons Convention, the
Biological Weapons Convention, and the Conventional Forces in
Europe Treaty.
Russia has a long history of acting in bad faith and
violating arms control agreements and commitments. The
disregard for international arms control treaties when it does
not suit Russian interests provides little support to the
assumption that Russia will in good faith comply with the New
START Treaty.
MODERNIZATION
According to Secretary Gates, the United States is the only
nuclear nation that is not currently pursuing nuclear
modernization. The French, Russians, British, and others are
constantly designing and building new weapons so that their
scientists and engineers do not lose critical skills. Secretary
Gates has also made clear that nuclear modernization is a
prerequisite to nuclear reductions. As he stated in a speech to
the Carnegie Endowment, ``To be blunt, there is absolutely no
way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number
of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing
our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.''
Sadly, the United States has starved its own capabilities
for so long that we have lost core competencies in our ability
to maintain current weapons as well as have the capability to
design and build new weapons. As some, including professors
Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, have pointed out the United States
must preserve options.
In our opinion this does not mean we currently need to
build new weapons immediately, but it does mean that if the
United States wants to remain a leader in the international
system, we cannot cede this ability to other nations. It is
imperative that we unshackle our scientists and allow them the
freedom to pursue scientific discovery as they see fit. Simply
turning them into systems analysts for weapons that were
designed 30 years ago does not keep the United States on the
cutting edge. Unfortunately, President Obama's Nuclear Posture
Review (NPR) does precisely that.
In a letter signed by ten former DOE National Lab Directors
to Secretary Gates and Secretary of Energy Chu they stated:
Unfortunately, we are concerned that language in the
NPR imposes unnecessary constraints on our engineers
and scientists when it states that ``the United States
will give strong preference to options for
refurbishment or reuse,'' and that the replacement of
nuclear components ``would be undertaken only if
critical Stockpile Management Program (SMP) goals could
not otherwise be met, and if specifically authorized by
the President and approved by Congress.''
Based on our experience as former laboratory
directors, we believe this ``higher bar'' for certain
life extension options will stifle the creative and
imaginative thinking that typifies the excellent
history of progress and development at the national
laboratories, and indeed will inhibit the NPR's goal of
honing the specialized skills needed to sustain the
nuclear deterrent. If these skills are not exercised,
they will be lost. Moreover, the United States is
already taking on a certain amount of risk by not
testing its nuclear weapons. Failure to preserve
nuclear weapons skill sets will add further risk, and
unnecessarily so.
Further, President Obama and his administration must commit
the levels of funding necessary to modernize our nuclear
complex, the warheads themselves, and the delivery vehicles and
platforms necessary for our nuclear deterrence. While President
Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget and Section 1251 plan are a
good start, it is clear that it does not completely meet the
needs for the nuclear complex. And the Resolution of
Ratification could do more to ensure the President honors his
commitments to modernization.
While many focus on the warheads themselves, the
modernization of U.S. strategic delivery vehicles and platforms
that make up the nuclear triad is also vitally important.
Unfortunately, the funding as outlined by the Secretary of
Defense is barely adequate to replace the Ohio class
submarines, but leaves virtually no funding for
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) life extensions, a
follow on ICBM to replace the Minuteman III, a new long-range
bomber, and a follow on to our aged air-launched cruise
missile. In the absence of such modernization programs, the
U.S. strategic forces will not retain the survivability and
flexibility that is necessary to deter enemies and assure
allies. This raises questions about the intentions of this
administration. Senators have been told that maintaining the
nuclear triad is vital to ``stability'' at the reduced force
levels in the treaty, but after years of delay the
administration has yet to make any decisions about strategic
delivery vehicles beyond a replacement submarine.
We believe the committee's proposal for advancing nuclear
weapons modernization is of uncertain reliability. The
administration itself has stated explicitly that its highest
nuclear policy priority is non-proliferation and movement
toward nuclear disarmament. The Resolution of Ratification
includes a provision designed to ensure sustained funding for
the President's ten-year plan for preserving the safety,
reliability and performance of U.S. nuclear forces, which he
submitted pursuant to section 1251 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. This provision purports
to embody a deal between the President and the Senate to
sustain nuclear weapons modernization for ten years in exchange
for Senate consent to the ratification of New START.
Such a deal is made necessary by what we believe is the
accurate assumption that the President does not favor the
provisions in the section 1251 plan on their merits, but only
as a means for securing the ratification of New START.
Nevertheless, the relevant provision in the Resolution of
Ratification leaves it to the President alone to determine if
resources become inadequate to support the plan and trigger the
reporting requirement to identify the additional resources to
preserve nuclear modernization.
Senators Inhofe and Risch's efforts on this were additional
steps to ensure the specific modernization of our strategic
delivery vehicles, and while the committee accepted a modified
version of Senator Risch's amendment, it does not satisfy all
of the concerns we have.
PROCESS
We are also very disappointed in the lack of respect for
the constitutional role that the Senate plays in any treaty
process. Some treaties require more scrutiny than others, and
sadly, the process by which this treaty has been considered by
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been negligent. In
May when hearings were first starting, seven Senators on this
committee requested nine witnesses (letter attached). Some of
these individuals support the treaty and some do not, but
Senators felt these voices were important and necessary to
cover the breadth of concerns.
In twelve hearings there were only two voices of opposition
out of twenty-two. This is a far cry from the normal precedent
of the minority being allowed to have one witness on each
panel. Also, the fact that no former national lab directors
were invited to testify demonstrated a lack of balance and
serious scrutiny on key issues. When all the witnesses have
been hand-picked by the chairman to avoid critical voices, the
argument that this treaty has been fully vetted and endorsed by
witnesses lacks credibility.
Given a stacked deck of witnesses, it is even more
troubling that questions for the record were not answered in a
timely manner. In fact, the administration did not provide
substantive answers to any questions for the record until after
the last administration witness testified. The desire of the
Obama administration to avoid serious and thoughtful
consideration of the merits of this treaty only leaves us to
speculate why the administration was filibustering Senators'
requests for more information.
Further the administration delayed releasing reports, which
would have provided the larger context necessary for Senators
to understand. These reports included a National Intelligence
Estimate, Force Structure report, State Department Compliance
Reports, and other documents (letter attached). With some
provisions of this treaty so contentious, providing the
negotiating record on these points would have been a wise and
prudent gesture. The insistence on trusting administration
officials without any supporting documentation simply
undermines their credibility.
The rush to ratify this treaty and avoid scrutiny has been
of serious concern, and the argument made by some
administration officials that any Senator standing in the way
was doing so for political reasons is inappropriate and
disrespectful.
While the administration wants to see New START in place to
restart the inspections that have been absent since START I
expired in December 2009, we do not believe their mistakes
should force the Senate to surrender its obligations or due
diligence. START I provided a five year extension to keep
inspections in place, which the administration did not
exercise. And Senator Lugar introduced the START I Treaty
Inspections and Monitoring Protocol Continuation Act to do
likewise. We voted for this legislation when it came before the
Foreign Relations Committee, but the administration was
uninterested in this approach.
However, it should be clear that the Obama administration
took five months after START I's expiration to complete the
treaty's negotiations, sign it, and send it to the Senate. Why
was the anniversary of President Obama's speech in Prague a
more important deadline than the expiration of START I? More
importantly, it took the administration more than 12 months to
negotiate this treaty, but it has sought the ratification of
this treaty through the Senate in less than five months.
To put this in context, the Senate considered START I for
almost an entire year, and the Moscow Treaty, which was much
shorter and far less complex than New START laid before the
Senate for almost nine months. The rush to ratification
undermines the important role of advice and consent that the
Senate must exercise on any treaty of this magnitude.
Combined with a lack of transparency, the rush creates an
impression that the administration is hiding something. Given
the changing nature of global security, a more thoughtful and
measured approach should have been taken, and the
administration should not have filibustered Senators' requests
for information and clarity.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we believe the treaty will substantially
limit U.S. flexibility and constrain the overall strategic
posture of the United States in a way that emerging threats and
nations could weaken U.S. national security, undermine security
for important friends and allies, and possibly encourage
proliferation. The United States appears to have received
nothing in return for its concessions on strategic nuclear
force levels, conventional strategic forces, or missile
defense. The treaty effectively requires unilateral U.S.
reductions and its limitations are so porous and permissive
that it does not place effective ceilings on the slowly
emerging comprehensive Russian strategic modernization program.
Moreover, these concessions in New START deprive the United
States the leverage that would be necessary for negotiating any
future meaningful nuclear reduction agreements.
While we believe the Committee's Resolution of Ratification
serves to identify the most important flaws and weaknesses
either derived from, or found within, New START, we cast our
votes in opposition to reporting New START to the Senate for
consideration based on our view that the proposed remedies in
the Resolution of Ratification adopted by the Committee are
insufficient. We sincerely hope these issues can be resolved
before a final vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
LETTER FROM SENATORS CORKER, ISAKSON, RISCH, DEMINT, BARRASSO, WICKER,
AND INHOFE TO SENATOR KERRY, MAY 18, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, May 18, 2010.
Hon. John Kerry,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington. DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: We deeply appreciate your efforts and
those of the Committee to hold hearings in order to carefully
examine the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
As you know, while the issue of arms control is not a new
one, most of us have never had to consider an arms control
treaty in the U.S. Senate, and none of us have done so while
serving on the Foreign Relations Committee. Given the unique
role the Committee plays in consideration of treaties, we were
encouraged by your statement that, ``the way to ratify it is to
fully explain it, vet it, and thoroughly address any kinds of
concerns that people may have.''
In order to fully understand the provisions of this treaty
and its potential impacts on American security and that of our
allies and friends, it is necessary to hear from a wide range
of witnesses.
Below is a list of individuals who are uniquely qualified
to address the potential effects of this treaty. We would
appreciate having a majority of them testify to cover the
breadth of issues.
Ambd. John Bolton--Fellow, American Enterprise
Institute
Gen. Kevin Chilton--Commander, U.S. Strategic Forces
Command
Ambd. Eric Edelman--Fellow, Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments
Mr. Brian Green--Former Dep. Asst. Secretary of
Defense for Strategic Capabilities
Dr. Keith Payne--President, National Institute for
Public Policy
Mr. Stephen Rademaker--Former Asst. Secretary of
State for Arms Control
Mr. Dimitri Simes--President, The Nixon Center
Ambd. Dave Smith--Fellow, Potomac Institute for
Policy Studies
Ambd. James Woolsey--Former Director of Central
Intelligence
Thank you for your patience as we analyze this complex
treaty. We appreciate your assistance with this matter and look
forward to working with you to schedule these witnesses.
Sincerely.
Bob Corker.
Johnny Isakson.
James Risch.
Jim DeMint.
John Barrasso.
Roger Wicker.
James Inhofe.
LETTER FROM SENATORS CORKER, ISAKSON, RISCH, DEMINT, BARRASSO, WICKER,
AND INHOFE TO SENATOR KERRY, JUNE 29, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, June 29, 2010.
Hon. John Kerry,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington. DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: We deeply appreciate your efforts to
hold a number of hearings in order to carefully examine the new
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty currently before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
Considering the history of past arms control treaties, the
number of hearings being held on New START seems appropriate.
However, we are concerned by a recent press release announcing
your intention to move the treaty out of committee before the
August recess.
We believe that a full and open debate on the substance and
implications of this treaty is necessary and that should
determine when the committee votes on this treaty. If the
Senate moves according to the announced schedule, the
ratification process would be one of the quickest in the
history of arms control treaties--faster than START I and even
the Moscow Treaty, which was significantly less complex than
New START.
Also a month ago, we sent a letter requesting a number of
witnesses that would help fully vet this treaty. Some of the
proposed witnesses support the treaty and some do not.
Unfortunately, the recently announced series of hearings does
not adequately address the request we made. According to your
press release and subsequent hearing notices, only two of the
nine witnesses we requested would appear before you seek to
vote the treaty out of committee.
Further, the Senate has not received the National
Intelligence Estimate, the State Department Verifiability
Assessment, nor the five State Department Compliance Reports.
These reports are crucial to understanding the real world
implications of the New START Treaty. The 2005 Compliance
Report alone highlighted a number of direct violations of START
I by the Russians. For five years and two administrations we
have not seen a single report to confirm if Russia has improved
its transparency with the United States and is completely
honoring its treaty obligations.
In addition, both the Senate Armed Services Committee and
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will need to hold
hearings on this treaty and submit their own reports to the
Foreign Relations Committee. Even if we receive these reports
quickly, it leaves little time for serious and thoughtful
consideration of what may be in them.
Finally, we have still not received the full negotiating
record nor answers from any administration witnesses regarding
the questions for the record that many of us submitted. Both
the record as well as responses to our questions would be
helpful in making scheduled hearings more fruitful, but are
especially critical to timely consideration and voting.
We take very seriously the role of advise and consent for
treaties that the Senate--and especially our committee--has in
this process. And given these outstanding issues, we believe
talk of scheduling a business meeting is premature. We
encourage you to work with us to make sure this treaty is fully
understood and vetted, and ask that you wait to schedule a
business meeting on this treaty until after everyone has
testified and members have had a reasonable amount of time to
review all the reports, documents, and answers.
Thank you for your patience as we analyze this complex
treaty. We appreciate your assistance with this mailer and look
forward to working with you to schedule a business meeting at
the appropriate time.
Sincerely.
Bob Corker.
Johnny Isakson.
James Risch.
Jim DeMint.
John Barrasso.
Roger Wicker.
James Inhofe.
IX. Additional Documents
LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., VICE PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES, SEPTEMBER 15, 2010
LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE ROBERT M. GATES, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, JULY
30, 2010
LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE ROBERT M. GATES, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, WITH
ATTACHMENT, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
LETTER TO THE HONORABLE CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES, FROM ADMIRAL MICHAEL G. MULLEN, USN, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT
CHIEFS OF STAFF, JUNE 9, 2010
LETTER TO THE HONORABLE CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES, FROM GENERAL JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT, USMC, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010
LETTER FROM THE HONORABLE RICHARD R. VERMA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, AUGUST 3, 2010
LETTER FROM FORMER COMMANDERS OF STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND, AND U.S.
STRATEGIC COMMAND, JULY 14, 2010
FACT SHEET ON THE PLAN IN THE 1251 REPORT, MAY 13, 2010