The Cable’s Josh Rogin reported yesterday that Senators Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman sent a letter to National Security Advisor James Jones expressing concern that the Russians are continuing to seek limits on U.S. missile defenses in the context of the soon-to-be-completed START follow-on negotiations.

The letter was apparently prompted by reports that the Russians plan to release a statement declaring that they have a right to unilaterally withdraw from the new treaty if they determine that “strategic stability” is upset by U.S. missile defense deployments.

According to the Senators, “Even as a unilateral declaration, a provision like this would put pressure on the United States to limit its systems or their deployment because of Russian threats of withdrawal from the treaty.”

Jonathan Kaplan, a spokesman for Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher, told Rogin that “Anybody who knows anything about treaties knows that it is customary to be able to withdraw for reasons pertaining to one’s national interest, so there’s nothing new or diabolical here.”  

The situation is even more ordinary than Kaplan’s statement would suggest…

The same thing happened when START I was signed.

IIn a meeting on June 13, 1991, U.S. Ambassador Linton Brooks and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Obukhov exchanged unilateral statements on the relationship between the START I treaty, which was signed a month later on July 31, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.  The full text of the statements (as well as other statements issued by the two sides before START I was signed) can be found here.

The Soviet statement noted that START I “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.”  Obukhov added that withdrawal by either the U.S. or the Soviet Union from the ABM Treaty could be grounds for withdrawal from START I.

The U.S. statement responded that:

While the United States cannot circumscribe the Soviet right to withdraw from the START Treaty if the Soviet Union believes its supreme interests are jeopardized, the full exercise by the United States of its legal rights under the ABM Treaty, as we have discussed with the Soviet Union in the past, would not constitute a basis for such withdrawal. The United States will be signing the START Treaty and submitting it to the United States Senate for advice and consent to ratification with this view. In addition, the provisions for withdrawal from the START Treaty based on supreme national interests clearly envision that such withdrawal could only be justified by extraordinary events that have jeopardized a Party’s supreme interest. Soviet statements that a future, hypothetical U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty could create such conditions are without legal or military foundation…. Changes in the ABM Treaty agreed to by the Parties would not be a basis for questioning the effectiveness or viability of the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. [emphasis mine].

So there you have it. Despite the Soviet unilateral statement, Senators Lieberman and McCain joined 91 other Senators in voting to ratify START I.  Though Kyl was not in the Senate at the time START I was voted on, one wonders whether he would have written a letter to then-National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft expressing the concerns raised in the letter to Gen. Jones.  If Kyl’s record on verification is any indication, he probably would have written a letter supporting the unilateral statements.  

Remarks of Vice President Biden
National Defense University
Washington, DC
February 18, 2010
The Path to Nuclear Security:
Implementing the President’s Prague Agenda

Ladies and gentlemen; Secretaries Gates and Chu; General Cartwright; Undersecretary Tauscher; Administrator D’Agostino; members of our armed services; students and faculty; thank you all for coming.

At its founding, Elihu Root gave this campus a mission that is the very essence of our national defense: “Not to promote war, but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate preparation to repel aggression.” For more than a century, you and your predecessors have heeded that call. There are few greater contributions citizens can claim.

Many statesmen have walked these grounds, including our Administration’s outstanding National Security Advisor, General Jim Jones. You taught him well. George Kennan, the scholar and diplomat, lectured at the National War College in the late 1940s. Just back from Moscow, in a small office not far from here, he developed the doctrine of Containment that guided a generation of Cold War foreign policy.

Some of the issues that arose during that time seem like distant memories. But the topic I came to discuss with you today, the challenge posed by nuclear weapons, continues to demand our urgent attention….

Last April, in Prague, President Obama laid out his vision for protecting our country from nuclear threats.  
He made clear we will take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons, while retaining a safe, secure, and effective arsenal as long as we still need it.  We will work to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  And we will do everything in our power to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorists and also to states that don’t already possess them.

It’s easy to recognize the threat posed by nuclear terrorism.  But we must not underestimate how proliferation to a state could destabilize regions critical to our security and prompt neighbors to seek nuclear weapons of their own.  

Our agenda is based on a clear-eyed assessment of our national interest.  We have long relied on nuclear weapons to deter potential adversaries.  
Now, as our technology improves, we are developing non-nuclear ways to accomplish that same objective. The Quadrennial Defense Review and Ballistic Missile Defense Review, which Secretary Gates released two weeks ago, present a plan to further strengthen our preeminent conventional forces to defend our nation and our allies.

Capabilities like an adaptive missile defense shield, conventional warheads with worldwide reach, and others that we are developing enable us to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, as other nuclear powers join us in drawing down. With these modern capabilities, even with deep nuclear reductions, we will remain undeniably strong.

As we’ve said many times, the spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat facing our country.
That is why we are working both to stop their proliferation and eventually to eliminate them. Until that day comes, though, we will do everything necessary to maintain our arsenal.

At the vanguard of this effort, alongside our military, are our nuclear weapons laboratories, national treasures that deserve our support. Their invaluable contributions range from building the world’s fastest supercomputers, to developing cleaner fuels, to surveying the heavens with robotic telescopes.

But the labs are best known for the work they do to secure our country. Time and again, we have asked our labs to meet our most urgent strategic needs. And time and again, they have delivered.

In 1939, as fascism began its march across Europe, Asia, and Africa, Albert Einstein warned President Roosevelt that the Nazis were racing to build a weapon, the likes of which the world had never seen. In the Southwest Desert, under the leadership of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicists of Los Alamos won that race and changed the course of history.

Sandia was born near Albuquerque soon after the Second World War and became our premier facility for developing the non-nuclear components of our nuclear weapons program.

And a few years later the institution that became Lawrence Livermore took root in California. During the arms race that followed the Korean War, it designed and developed warheads that kept our nuclear capabilities second to none.
These examples illustrate what everyone in this room already knows—that the past century’s defining conflicts were decided not just on the battlefield, but in the classroom and in the laboratory.

Air Force General Hap Arnold, an aviation pioneer whose vision helped shape the National War College, once argued that the First World War was decided by brawn and the Second by logistics. “The Third World War will be different,” he predicted. “It will be won by brains.” General Arnold got it almost right.  Great minds like Kennan and Oppenheimer helped win the Cold War and prevent World War Three altogether.

During the Cold War, we tested nuclear weapons in our atmosphere, underwater and underground, to confirm that they worked before deploying them, and to evaluate more advanced concepts. But explosive testing damaged our health, disrupted our environment and set back our non-proliferation goals.

Eighteen years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed the nuclear testing moratorium enacted by Congress, which remains in place to this day.  

Under the moratorium, our laboratories have maintained our arsenal through the Stockpile Stewardship Program without underground nuclear testing, using techniques that are as successful as they are cutting edge.

Today, the directors of our nuclear laboratories tell us they have a deeper understanding of our arsenal from Stockpile Stewardship than they ever had when testing was commonplace.  

Let me repeat that—our labs know more about our arsenal today than when we used to explode our weapons on a regular basis.  With our support, the labs can anticipate potential problems and reduce their impact on our arsenal.

Unfortunately, during the last decade, our nuclear complex and experts were neglected and underfunded.

Tight budgets forced more than 2,000 employees of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore from their jobs between 2006 and 2008, including highly-skilled scientists and engineers.
And some of the facilities we use to handle uranium and plutonium date back to the days when the world’s great powers were led by Truman, Churchill, and Stalin. The signs of age and decay are becoming more apparent every day.

Because we recognized these dangers, in December, Secretary Chu and I met at the White House with the heads of the three nuclear weapons labs. They described the dangerous impact these budgetary pressures were having on their ability to manage our arsenal without testing.  They say this situation is a threat to our security. President Obama and I agree.

That’s why earlier this month we announced a new budget that reverses the last decade’s dangerous decline.
It devotes $7 billion to maintaining our nuclear stockpile and modernizing our nuclear infrastructure.  To put that in perspective, that’s $624 million more than Congress approved last year—and an increase of $5 billion over the next five years.  Even in these tight fiscal times, we will commit the resources our security requires.

This investment is not only consistent with our nonproliferation agenda; it is essential to it.   Guaranteeing our stockpile, coupled with broader research and development efforts, allows us to pursue deep nuclear reductions without compromising our security.  As our conventional capabilities improve, we will continue to reduce our reliance on nuclear weapons.

Responsible disarmament requires versatile specialists to manage it.
The skilled technicians who look after our arsenal today are the ones who will safely dismantle it tomorrow.

And chemists who understand how plutonium ages also develop forensics to track missing nuclear material and catch those trafficking in it.  

Our goal of a world without nuclear weapons has been endorsed by leading voices in both parties. These include two former Secretaries of State from Republican administrations, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz; President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense Bill Perry; and my former colleague Sam Nunn, for years the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  
Together, these four statesmen called eliminating nuclear weapons “a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage.”

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, both the President and Senator McCain supported the same objective.

We will continue to build support for this emerging bipartisan consensus like the one around containment of Soviet expansionism that George Kennan inspired.

[PAUSE]

Toward that end, we have worked tirelessly to implement the President’s Prague agenda.

In September, the President chaired an historic meeting of the UN Security Council, which unanimously embraced the key elements of the President’s vision.
As I speak, U.S. and Russian negotiators are completing an agreement that will reduce strategic weapons to their lowest levels in decades.  
Its verification measures will provide confidence its terms are being met.  These reductions will be conducted transparently and predictably. The new START treaty will promote strategic stability and bolster global efforts to prevent proliferation by showing that the world’s leading nuclear powers are committed to reducing their arsenals.  

And it will build momentum for collaboration with Russia on strengthening the global consensus that nations who violate their NPT obligations should be held to account.  

This strategy is yielding results.  We have tightened sanctions on North Korea’s proliferation activities through the most restrictive UN Security Council resolution to date—and the international community is enforcing these sanctions effectively.

And we are now working with our international partners to ensure that Iran, too, faces real consequences for failing to meet its obligations.

In the meantime, we are completing a government-wide review of our nuclear posture.

Already, our budget proposal reflects some of our key priorities, including increased funding for our nuclear complex, and a commitment to sustain our heavy bombers and land and submarine-based missile capabilities, under the new START agreement.
As Congress requested and with Secretary Gates’ full support, this review has been a full interagency partnership.

We believe we have developed a broad and deep consensus on the importance of the President’s agenda and the steps we must take to achieve it. The results will be presented to Congress soon.

In April, the President will also host a Nuclear Security Summit to advance his goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material within four years.  We cannot wait for an act of nuclear terrorism before coming together to share best practices and raise security standards, and we will seek firm commitments from our partners to do just that.

In May, we will participate in the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.  
We are rallying support for stronger measures to strengthen inspections and punish cheaters.

The Treaty’s basic bargain—that nuclear powers pursue disarmament and non-nuclear states do not acquire such weapons, while gaining access to civilian nuclear technology—is the cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime.

Before the treaty was negotiated, President Kennedy predicted a world with up to 20 nuclear powers by the mid-1970s.  Because of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the consensus it embodied, that didn’t happen.

Now, 40 years later, that consensus is fraying.  We must reinforce this consensus, and strengthen the treaty for the future.

And, while we do that, we will also continue our efforts to negotiate a ban on the production of fissile materials that can be used in nuclear weapons.  
We know that completing a treaty that will ban the production of fissile material will not be quick or easy—but the Conference on Disarmament must resume its work on this treaty as soon as possible.

The last piece of the President’s agenda from Prague was the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

A decade ago, we led this effort to negotiate this treaty in order to keep emerging nuclear states from perfecting their arsenals and to prevent our rivals from pursuing ever more advanced weapons.  

We are confident that all reasonable concerns raised about the treaty back then – concerns about verification and the reliability of our own arsenal – have now been addressed.  The test ban treaty is as important as ever.

[PAUSE]

As President Obama said in Prague, “we cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.”

Some friends in both parties may question aspects of our approach. Some in my own party may have trouble reconciling investments in our nuclear complex with a commitment to arms reduction. Some in the other party may worry we’re relinquishing capabilities that keep our country safe.

With both groups we respectfully disagree. As both the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, and as a strong proponent of non-proliferation, the United States has long embodied a stark but inevitable contradiction. The horror of nuclear conflict may make its occurrence unlikely, but the very existence of nuclear weapons leaves the human race ever at the brink of self-destruction, particularly if the weapons fall into the wrong hands.

Many leading figures of the nuclear age grew ambivalent about aspects of this order. Kennan, whose writings gave birth to the theory of nuclear deterrence, argued passionately but futilely against the development of the hydrogen bomb. And Robert Oppenheimer famously lamented, after watching the first mushroom cloud erupt from a device he helped design, that he had become “the destroyer of worlds.”
President Obama is determined, and I am as well, that the destroyed world Oppenheimer feared must never become our reality. That is why we are pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. The awesome force at our disposal must always be balanced by the weight of our shared responsibility.  

Every day, many in this audience help bear that burden with professionalism, courage, and grace. A grateful nation appreciates your service. Together, we will live up to our responsibilities.  Together, we will lead the world.  Thank you.  May God bless America.  May God protect our troops.

The third of occasional postings
Guest Post by Afghanistan Ag Man

Today marks a change for me here in Afghanistan. After a few months working and living with a 173rd Airborne platoon (wherein my daily routine has consisted of walking through minefields, meeting with villagers, scoping out projects, sleeping on a roof side-by-side with members of the platoon in severely inadequate sleeping bags, sharing a cigarette on guard at 0300, and playing non-stop RISK tournaments until 0100), they have left my outpost for a new assignment. My original “co-workers” are now on their way to train the new soldiers that will comprise the Afghan National Army (ANA), and have been replaced by a new platoon.

With this change in my environment, I cannot help but address the President’s State of the Union address and how it has impacted – and continues to impact – us here on the ground. Admittedly an unwatched speech at our outpost due to a lack of satellite television (and due to the aforementioned RISK tournaments!), I finally got around to reading a transcript the next morning. I also read some of the Monday morning quarterbacking on the speech.  One column by a veteran who served in Afghanistan stood out…

As a former infantry officer with the 10th Mountain Division in 2007, Mr. Erik Malmstrom possesses a perspective on the conflict in Afghanistan that most Americans will never have.  Except for perhaps me (and a few others of course).  Interestingly enough, I am an embedded civilian sent to train Afghans in his old area of operation (AO) under the protection of the 173rd Airborne (the successors to Mr. Malmstrom’s 10th Mountain Division) in the northeast mountains of Afghanistan. It is from this perspective that I’d like to briefly comment on Mr. Malmstrom’s main arguments on the current counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy and the much-needed Integrated Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troop increases.

In his opinion piece, Mr. Malmstrom makes several assertions about “Mr. Obama’s strategy” (better named “the COIN strategy”) that I think require additional context, as the situation in Afghanistan today is a lot different than it was during Mr. Malmstrom’s time here in 2007.

Select ISAF troops–now including my old platoon–are living side-by-side with the Afghan National Army (ANA) to show them firsthand the discipline required to be a productive security force, provide them with the much-needed skills and equipment to effectively protect their communities, and ensure that all missions and patrols contain the ANA as the lead component. In fact, we do not go outside the wire into villages without the ANA’s leadership and guidance–a drastic change from the protocols of the 10th Mountain Division a few years past.

The ANA is taking on a larger amount of the responsibility for the security of the country and will continue to do so as the pledged additional American/NATO/non-NATO troops enter the country and allow for the incubation of a stronger national military. Likewise, the civilian sector of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) has put itself at the forefront of helping their citizenry, from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (with whom I work and mentor daily).

Last month, it was ANA commandos–not ISAF troops–that defended the Presidential Palace in Kabul. And efforts to train Afghan soldiers are growing and will continue to do so at rapid rates throughout 2010.  These Afghan units are trained by, backed up by, and supported by their non-Afghan partners–as it should be.

A solider assigned to train the ANA recently told me that on his first deployment to Afghanistan two years ago, the Afghan security forces were non-existent and security operations were undertaken without the inclusion of these forces. Today he has noticed a change in ANA presence when we patrol the villages, and–relative to his last deployment–he has seen a noticeable increase in ownership of the patrol responsibilities (especially when the ANA conducts independent patrols, missions, and community protection without ISAF soldiers). The purpose of these patrols has not been security for the sake of security, but to stabilize an area of Afghanistan to allow it to develop with the assistance of its own ministries and civilian advisors.

Admittedly, there is a large divide between American and Afghan “cultural norms,” as I have seen from living side-by-side with both American and Afghan military and civilian personnel. However, we harbor enormous respect for the Afghan security forces as they attempt to secure their country and instill discipline within their ranks. My platoon and I walk patrols with them each day, have pulled guard with them standing next to us (and yes, it was “all hands on deck” at 0300, even for civilians!), and have literally slept in the same living quarters as the Afghan security forces (which consisted of dirt floors, glassless windows, and below freezing temperatures).

Bottom line: it’s important to point out that Afghans are not taking a passive role in governing, securing, and providing essential services for their people.  I agree with Malmstrom that “this is an Afghan war that must be won or lost by Afghans.”  I also agree that the Afghan government must do a better job of fighting corruption and winning the confidence of the Afghan people.  However, the Afghans are indeed taking steps to take ownership of their country in every sector of society, starting with security and ultimately by trying to provide other essential services (which is where I come in). The COIN strategy is on paper–and hopefully in practice–exactly the approach that is required to move foreign troops out of Afghanistan responsibly.

I hate to see my old platoon go, but I know they are the right men to train the ANA recruits. I look forward to flying down to see them work in a few months, but I really can’t wait to share a much-needed beer with them at their German base when their deployment is over.

Keep up the good work, gents. It was great working with you all.

I ran off to the Bahamas for a week and all hell broke loose!

… okay, well, not exactly (unless you count SnOMG).

There was some bad news.  Iran will move forward with its plans to produce 20 percent Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), and has already produced its first “consignment” of the material.  At the least, this likely means an end to the already-doomed fuel swap and a big push for further sanctions, “smart” or not.

February 11, though, also marked a great disappointment for Iran’s Green Movement, which had designed what they called a “Trojan Horse” strategy in advance. In the culmination of their months of protest, backers of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi planned to attend the official regime-backed rally commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, assemble in front of the cameras of the foreign news media, and denounce the brutality of the Iranian government for the entire world to see.

Rather, President Ahmadinejad stood in Azadi Square and informed the public, once again, that the Islamic Republic had become a “nuclear state.” I’m not sure how many times this official “announcement” can be made with the same bone-chilling affect on the media, but for now it does still seem to be working.

It has certainly sent a chill down the spine of those supporting the Iranian opposition. Foreign Policy reports that Mohammad Sadeghi, who administers Mousavi’s official Facebook page, admits now “that he doesn’t know what comes next” and is “at a loss.”

Since the protest movement had not previously planned its activities beyond February 11, they must now take a step back to re-evaluate, or fade into obscurity.  

As Cameron Abadi notes, “Cynicism and despair may be the order of the day among Iranian activists. They would do well, though, to remember that social movements on this scale are not a sprint, but a marathon.”