Senator John Kerry hailed the Senate cloture vote to end debate on the new START treaty as a great bipartisan effort. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

The new START treaty, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, has been approved to be voted on by the Senate. The Senate had seemed to stall on passing the treaty, which reduces American and Russian nuclear arsenals. The START treaty vote was incredibly close.

Senate barely ratifies new START treaty

The U.S. Senate has passed a cloture motion, clearing the way to a final vote on the new START treaty after a tumultuous few days of debate and some harangues between partisan factions. Cloture is a part of parliamentary procedure, which forces debate to wrap up and a vote to be held. The START treaty vote for cloture was incredibly close, as it just barely cleared the necessary two-thirds majority with a vote of 67 for and 28 against, according to the New York Times. In all, there were eleven Republicans who crossed party lines and voted to kill debate. No Democrats voted against it. Though the treaty did pass, it did so by only two votes. There will still be a Democrat controlled Senate in 2011, but the lead will be even slimmer.

Old saw forms basis of objections

The biggest thorn in the sides of Republicans over this bill was mostly over missile defense. Missile defense systems have been a huge issue for decades, especially during the Reagan administration when the Strategic Defense Initiative or the “Star Wars” program, was an enormous national priority, though the program wasted billions of dollars, produced no results and was known to not be feasible to begin with. Senate Republicans wanted to ensure that the treaty did not impinge on the capability to develop and deploy missile defenses at home or possibly in Europe, though John McCain (R-AZ) had assured that it would not.

Final vote still pending

The final vote on the treaty, New START, may take place before Christmas. If the treaty passes, it will reduce the number of U.S. Warheads to 1,550 and number of launchers to 700. Then it must be approved by the Duma, the Russian legislature.

Sources

New York Times

The new START treaty has already been signed by Presidents Medvedev and Obama, but is stalling in the U.S. Senate. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

A new version of the START treaty with Russia is languishing in the Senate. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty would renew the commitment between the United States and Russia to reducing and securing the nuclear arms each country holds. Moscow maintains the treaty must pass whole, or it won’t be honored.

New START treaty stalls in lame duck Senate

On the Senate agenda before the session recesses for the holiday is the new START treaty, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The START treaty update for 2010, referred to as New START, is currently languishing in the U.S. Senate, and it has been on the books since the summer, according to CNN. Senate Republicans are objecting to some provisions of the bill, one of them being that it could hamper development of missile defense. The President has given assurances that it does not, but it appears that GOP Senators want voting on the treaty to hold until new Senators can be seated.

Russia demands complete approval

The treaty was signed by President Obama and President of the Russian Federation, Dimitry Medvedev in April of this year. Since then, voting on the treaty has been put off 13 times, according to the New York Times. The Russian government has maintained that for the Russian legislature, the Duma, it has to pass without any modifications whatsoever for it to be acceptable in Moscow. If ratified, the number of nuclear warheads each side possesses would be reduced to 1,500 and the number of launchers reduced to 700.

Republicans object to treaty on diverse grounds

Republican Senators are the largest roadblock thus far. Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.) objected to Russian demands for passing the treaty unadulterated, while others wanted language to be clearer about what type of nuclear weapons, tactical or strategic, were being reduced. Another objection was the possible compromise of missile defense, though no missile defense system has proven to be reliable.

Sources

CNN

New York Times

A recent test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense missile defense system has failed. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

A recent test of a missile defense system has failed. The track record of these systems — missiles that target missiles — has never been good, and they have been a money pit in defense spending for years. There hasn’t been a successful missile defense system invented yet.

Another missile defense system test has failed

The recent test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, long range missile defense system was conducted off the course of California by the Missile Defense Agency. The test did not go as anticipated, as the anti-missile missile failed to hit the target, but the Pentagon takes heart that at least the target, or incoming long range missile, and the intercepting missile, or “kill vehicle,” both launched, according to CNN. The test pitted a long range incoming dummy missile launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands against an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Both successfully launched, but the kill vehicle failed to find its target.

Few successes to boast of

To date, Boeing’s modern missile defense system, deployed in California and Alaska, has successfully shot down eight of 15 targets in testing, which is a 53.3 percent success rate. This test has not had an official reason for the failure, but it possibly is due to the radar array, which is used to steer the interceptor missile to its target, called X-Band. The X-Band array is housed on a customized floating oil rig, and is supposed to generate vital information about incoming targets. A previous in test in January this year also failed to hit its target. The last successful test of the GMD was in December of 2008, when an intercepting kill vehicle found its target, but some say that may have been a coincidence.

History of failures

There hasn’t been much success in  missile defenses. Various systems and technologies have been developed and tested over the years, and aside from a few limited deployments, there have been few successes to speak of. There has been more than $100 billion spent on missile defense systems in the last 30 years, beginning with the Strategic Defense Initiative under President Reagan. No anti-missile system has managed a 100 percent success rate in testing.

Sources

CNN

Missile defense is being used by leading GOP voices on the NewSTART treaty as a ploy to deny the administration a national security victory. Image: CC pingnews.com/Flickr

Missile defense is often the currency of conflict and compromise these days among international adversaries. But in the current U.S. Senate, missile defense is being used by Republicans in an attempt to deny the Obama administration a national security imperative. In this case it’s the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by President Obama and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev in April.

NewSTART and U.S./Russian relations

Missile defense as it relates to the NewSTART treaty, which had bipartisan support until this week, is being used by certain Republicans as an opportunity for political posturing. The NewSTART treaty is seen as a critical element in the Obama administration’s efforts to improve national security and U.S./Russia relations. The ratification of the NewSTART treaty by the Senate is so important that such incidents as last summer’s Russian spy scandal and this week’s extradition of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to the U.S. have had no ill effects on U.S./Russia relations. But this week, veteran Arizona Republican senator Jon Kyl and 10 freshly elected GOP senators are trying to get the vote delayed until next year, when Democrats lose six senate seats.

GOP wants to START over

The NewSTART treaty reduces U.S. and Russian arsenals of strategic nuclear missiles and resumes on-the-ground inspections that ended when the old START treaty expired in 2009. Kyl and his new acolytes are saying that the Senate needs to start over because more money is needed for modernizing the arsenal that remains after the reductions. Ironically, that point was brought up earlier, and in response the administration added $4.1 billion for such a purpose. Other conservatives say that the language of the treaty is so broadly defined that it will restrict U.S. missile defense options.

What NewSTART really says

In fact, the NewSTART treaty contains no provisions limiting the number of missile defense systems the U.S. can build. It also doesn’t require the U.S. to cut any already existing systems. Military Defense Agency chief General Patrick O’Reilly, in a statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April, said the NewSTART treaty actually reduces restraints on missile defense. It removes limits imposed by the old START treaty on U.S. testing of missiles designed to take out incoming missiles.

Sources

Washington Post

Media Matters

The Hill