Why Ratifying New START Strengthens U.S. Security

Overview

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins hearings this week on New START, we explain why ratifying the nuclear arms treaty will strengthen U.S. security and offer messaging guidance for proponents.

Some critics of New START will dismiss the treaty as being of little consequence, while outright opponents will argue that the agreement weakens our security. Two claims are at the heart of the opposition: 1) the U.S. is negotiating away its missile defense programs in order to get the New START agreement with Russia; and 2) modernization of the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal is lagging and degrades our ability to deter our adversaries. Neither critique is valid, and we offer responses to both claims below.

Public polling shows solid voter support for nuclear arms control agreements generally and New START specifically, and we believe proponents should lean into their support for the treaty. Still, Democrats must be aware that they are vulnerable to attacks on the question of making America safer from nuclear threats.

Proponents of New START should speak of the treaty’s merits in the broader national security context. New START is an important piece of a larger nuclear security initiative to safely secure all nuclear materials and keep them out of the hands of terrorists and black market smugglers. The agreement requires that Russia and the U.S. eliminate surplus nuclear weapons in a balanced, responsible, and verifiable way. Under New START, the U.S. will retain a safe, reliable, and overwhelming nuclear force that will continue to deter our adversaries.

Responding to Opponent Claims

Opponents have focused on two unfounded claims to undermine support for New START: 1) the U.S. is negotiating away its missile defense programs in order to get the New START agreement with Russia; and 2) modernization of the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal is lagging and degrades our ability to deter our adversaries.

CLAIM: Under New START, the U.S. is negotiating away its missile defense programs

• There is nothing in New START that constrains the U.S. from proceeding with missiles defense programs here or overseas. The treaty preamble even acknowledges that current missile defenses “do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the parties.”
  
• President Obama, at the Prague signing ceremony, noted: “I’ve repeatedly said that we will not do anything that endangers or limits my ability as commander in chief to protect the American people. And we think that missile defense can be an important component of that.”
  
• Defense Secretary Gates and the U.S. military leadership have said New START does not limit Pentagon missile defense plans. Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified before Congress that “The New START treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of missile defense program,” by permitting previously prohibited tests during the development of anti-missile systems.
  

CLAIM: Under New START, the nuclear arsenal will atrophy and no longer be an effective deterrent to our adversaries

• The U.S. will continue to maintain the world’s most powerful nuclear force under New START, a technologically advanced arsenal distributed on nuclear submarines, bombers, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Pentagon’s recent Nuclear Posture Review concluded that a strategic nuclear force of 1,550 under New START was more than sufficient to deter our adversaries and respond, if necessary, to any attack imaginable.
  
• Since 1992, when the U.S. halted nuclear explosive tests in the Nevada desert, the U.S. national security laboratories have used an advanced computer simulation and component replacement program to modernize our nuclear stockpile and certify that the warheads are safe, secure, and reliable. This ability to modernize existing warheads has kept our nuclear arsenal a potent deterrent and locked in place a technological advantage other nations do not possess.
  
• President Obama announced last week plans to spend $180 billion over the next decade to upgrade America’s nuclear weapons complex, including large increases in the national laboratories’ stockpile stewardship program—a requested 10% increase in 2011 alone.
  

Public Opinion

• A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, completed two days after the April 7th Obama and Medvedev signing ceremony, found that Americans overwhelmingly believe (70%-28%) that the U.S. Senate should ratify New START.¹ Other recent polls reported strong majorities in support of ratification as well.² At the same time, Americans see the threat posed by terrorists seeking nuclear weaponry as a grave one. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted at the same time found that 70% of Americans believe the possibility of terrorists obtaining a nuclear weapon is a “major” threat or greater.³
  
• Despite a strong public mandate to reduce and secure surplus nuclear arms and material, there are indications that Democrats are vulnerable to Republican attacks on nuclear security. A recent Third Way-Democracy Corps/GQRR poll, which preceded New START, found Democrats down 11 points to Republicans on the question of “making America safer from nuclear threats.”⁴
  

Messaging

Given this backdrop of public support for nuclear arms control and considerable concern over the threat of “loose nukes,” supporters of treaty ratification should highlight points which not only stress the importance of New START but places it in broader national security context:

• The President is showing leadership in getting Russia and other countries to act to keep surplus nuclear weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists.
  
• New START will draw down surplus U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons in a balanced, responsible, and verifiable way and ensure that the nuclear material is secured. The bipartisan Nunn-Lugar program has been successful at securing and rendering unusable surplus Russian plutonium and uranium.
  
• The U.S. has and will continue under New START to have the most powerful nuclear force in the world. President Obama and the Congress have significantly increased funding to ensure our nuclear stockpile remains strong and reliable, and capable of deterring, or if necessary, responding to any attack.
  
• Through New START and the President’s other nuclear security initiatives, we are isolating and increasing the pressure on rogue states like Iran and North Korea to give up their destabilizing nuclear programs.
  
• New START is the latest in almost 50 year bipartisan tradition of arms control agreements improving American security. President Obama has demonstrated global leadership in reducing the spread of nuclear weapons, a bipartisan tradition going back to John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
  

• According to the legislative history of these agreements, only 10 votes have been cast against nuclear arms reduction treaties with Russia/Soviet Union. Of the current members of the Senate, only one Republican, Senator Inhofe, has ever cast a vote against one of these treaties (1992 START I: 93-6; 1996 START II: 87-4; 2003 Moscow Treaty 95-0).⁵ A massive change in Republican votes would either indicate the party of Reagan has left Reagan’s legacy behind, or has decided that politics are more important than American security interests.