Via Max Bergmann over at the The Wonk Room, today’s Wall Street Journal editorial on Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech predictably includes far more misinformation than truth about the “New START” negotiations…

For example, according to the Journal, U.S. ICBMs “are being fitted with conventional weapons.”  If that is the case, then apparently the editors know more about U.S. strategic forces than STRATCOM Commander Gen. Kevin Chilton and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright.

The Journal also claims that with the loss of U.S. monitoring at Votkinsk, the U.S. will have no means of verifying Russian mobile missile deployments.  This would be true if monitoring at Votkinsk was our only way to count these missiles.  It is not.

First, let’s not forget that it was because of the Bush administration that Rose Gottemoeller and her team were put in such a tight spot re: Votkinsk in the first place.

Second, remember that national technical means (NTM) is the basis for most of the information we get about Russian nuclear forces.  Cooperative verification measures supplement and confirm information gleaned from NTM.   Under START I, Votkinsk was but one of many cooperative provisions used to count mobile missiles.  Other procedures included data exchanges, notifications, location restrictions, and on-site inspections.  

Though New START is still being negotiated, it will likely include an updated version of START I-style data exchanges, notifications, and inspections which will continue to allow us to monitor Russia’s mobile missiles.  And of course, we will still have NTM.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Steve Pifer elaborated on this point at a briefing the Center co-hosed with the Arms Control Association earlier this week.  As Pifer put it:

I think the Votkinsk provision…perhaps at this point, we no longer need that. And so the verification provisions really need to be driven by the actual limitations that you agree to, and to the extent that you have different limitations than were in the START treaty…I think in some ways this new agreement is going to be simpler than the START treaty.  That may impose, in some ways, less demanding verification requirements.  And that gives the side the opportunity, then, to eliminate the inspections if they make no contribution to the overall understanding of the other side’s compliance with the treaty.

But you have to give it to the Journal: at least they’re consistent (well sort of).  When news broke in May 2002 that the Bush administration planned to sign a legally-binding treaty with Russia (aka the Moscow Treaty), the Journal called it a “A Gift for Mr. Putin”.  That’s right: Even the Bush administration’s largely nonexistent arms control agenda was too liberal for the Wall Street Journal!

Still, the editors couldn’t help but praise the treaty for its indifference:

At least this one does relatively little mischief. It is only three-and-one-half pages long, and a third of that is rhetorical throat-clearing. The pact does nothing to restrict defenses, and it allows either side to deploy the warheads that remain as each sees fit.

That’s right: Praise a Republican administration when it says it doesn’t care how Russia deploys its forces, yet pitch a fit when a Democratic administration attempts to negotiate an updated and adapted verification infrastructure to ensure we know what the Russians are doing, a task made all the more difficult by the previous Republican administration’s bumbling.    

Below the jump are a few responses issued by bioweapons policy experts in response to the Obama administration’s announcement on Wednesday and release of its biothreat strategy. Longer strides are being called for…

Dr. Marie Isabelle Chevrier – Professor at UT-Dallas, member of the Center’s Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons, and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Biological Weapons Prevention Project in Geneva:

Ellen Tauscher’s speech to the Meeting of the States Parties of the Biological Weapons Convention was much anticipated by delegations. Yet there was little excitement or enthusiasm by the delegation following her speech. Delegations and NGO observers welcomed the change in tone from earlier US interventions during the Bush administration, contrasting it, in particular, with the strident address by John Bolton to the 5th Review Conference in 2001. Nevertheless the lack of specificity of proposals in Tauscher’s address was notable. People wondered about the meaning of language in the statement such as “compliance diplomacy” and “robust bilateral compliance discussion.” Optimists greeted the statement with hope that the statement will be followed by real engagement absent the arrogance of the past while pessimists found little if anything in the statement that would lead to real policy changes from the Bush administration. The inclusion of CBMs on an open website was generally welcome, as a small measure of transparency but not something that would likely lead to real confidence in compliance. Many NGOs are looking forward to greater transparency among all stakeholders rather than mere “bilateral…discussions.”

Dr. Amy E. Smithson – Senior Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies:

Tauscher tabled a modest, constructive set of proposals, but given the $49 billion in U.S. biodefense spending since 2001, the international community will want more in terms of transparency from Washington than just posting the US confidence-building declarations?already available to all member governments?on the web and inviting one person to Ft. Detrick.   New money earmarked for building international disease surveillance and reporting capacities would have more emphatically conveyed U.S. support for thorough implementation of the International Health Regulations.  If the Obama administration hopes to claim the leadership mantle in the biological nonproliferation arena, they will have to bring something much bolder to the table.  The sooner they do, the better.

Dr. Jonathan Tucker, Senior Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies:

Although none of the elements of the U.S. strategy are new, taken together they provide a comprehensive and cooperative approach to the prevention of biological threats, both natural and deliberate. The main disappointment is the strategy’s lack of ambition with regard to strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention, both with respect to the treaty’s institutional deficit and the festering suspicions of non-compliance by a few member states. The measures proposed to address compliance concerns—increased transparency, confidence-building measures, and bilateral diplomacy—appear too weak to make much of a difference.

UPDATE: NOH’s bad – we should have acknowledged that Armchair Generalist was the first to post on this.

The Obama administration in Geneva yesterday formally revealed its new strategy for strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

Anticipating the release of the White House’s “National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats,” Dr. Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Global Security Newswire last Friday: “What’s important is the U.S. government is giving political attention to this issue, and making it clear the U.S. is not a one-trick pony and that in addition to the very ambitious nuclear agenda, the government is also very concerned about biological weapons.”

Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher did indeed proclaim the administration’s commitment to the issue. However, the strategy has drawn criticism for reaffirming the Bush administration’s opposition to creating an international monitoring system to verify treaty compliance…

It is important to understand why the Bush administration announced eight years ago that a BWC verification protocol was “not in the best interests of the United States and many other countries.” First, the Bush team felt that the protocol’s provisions were overly influenced by particular nations’ demands. According to FAS, Iran, who played a key role in the deliberations of the Ad-Hoc Group tasked with drafting the protocol, “insisted throughout that all export control regimes, and particularly the Australia Group arrangements, be totally abolished.” In addition, according to Dr. Tucker, Russia sought to define the “types and quantities” of pathogens and toxins banned by the agreement, thereby limiting its scope. Russia and Iran continue to seek such provisions.

An intrusive verification protocol was also perceived by the Bush administration, and perhaps now by the Obama administration, as a burden to biodefense research and the growth of the biotechnology industry. Although a broad interpretation of the BWC, particularly Article X, allows for the production of small amounts of hazardous biological agents for peaceful study, a verification protocol would subject the U.S. biodefense and biotechnology complex to “increased inspection costs and bureaucratic hurdles.” Moreover, the access required for inspections could also threaten to expose vulnerabilities in the U.S. biodefense shield or reveal lucrative pharma-industry secrets.

These concerns appear not to have changed since the Bush administration’s rejection of the verification protocol in November 2001. Meanwhile, biotechnology has continued to advance at a revolutionary pace, advanced techniques have been disseminated around the world and throughout populations, and the biological dual-use dilemma has been amplified. Given these trends, some doubt that effective monitoring through a verification protocol is possible. For this reason, Undersecretary Tauscher explained, “We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security.”

Verification protocol aside, the Obama administration’s new strategy contains a collection of objectives to mitigate biological threats. One of those objectives is to promote global health security, which includes providing assistance to other nations to bolster their disease surveillance, detection, diagnosis, and response programs. Such an approach links security with public health, thereby countering not only nefarious biological weapon threats but also natural infectious disease outbreaks. The White House strategy also includes a variety of confidence and transparency building measures.

But in a press release yesterday, the experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies suggest it may take more far-reaching steps than are presented in the new strategy to truly impact the BWC. A close look at the White House strategy document makes it seem more like a reiteration of recommendations generally supporting biological threat reduction rather than a fresh roadmap for strengthening the BWC as an effective central pillar. In fact, the 23-page document’s emphasis on the BWC is limited to a brief pledge in the introduction to uphold the treaty’s obligations, fleeting mentions in a few bullet points, and a single subsection about the need to revitalize the BWC in one of the seven strategic objectives.

Is the United States the only nuclear power that is not modernizing its nuclear arsenal, as is often alleged by some defense hawks?  If by “modernization” we mean the regular production of new missiles and warheads, then yes; U.S. strategic forces…

The approach of some vocal Republicans to the “New START” negotiations goes something like this: suggest a dozen different ways that a new arms control agreement with Russia could be detrimental to U.S. security without actually opposing a new arms control agreement with Russia.  That strategy continued last week…

On December 3, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution on New START which never opposes a new treaty.  True to form, however, the resolution calls on the President not to sign an agreement with Russia that could compromise our ability to deter China and other would-be nuclear powers; to provide Congress with reports on both negotiations with Russia and China’s nuclear forces; to complete the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) before signing an agreement; and to ensure that a new agreement does not constrain U.S. missile defenses.  

While the bill is unlikely to go anywhere legislatively (recall that the Senate, not the House, has jurisdiction over treaties), as The Cable’s Josh Rogin notes, it can play an important role on the level of narrative.  Ros-Lehtinen’s resolution is the latest in a long list of efforts on the part of some Republicans to define New START as bad for U.S. interests.  So far 57 Republicans have cosponsored Ros-Lehtinen’s bill. I’d like to see 57 Democrats (and Republicans) cosponsor separate House legislation that describes how a New START agreement will enhance U.S. security.

None of the arguments in the resolution are new, although this is the first time China has figured so prominently in the debate. We’ve provided rebuttals to them over at our START Resource Center.  Below are some detailed responses to the specific concerns raised in the resolution. The bottom line: Ros-Lehtinen shouldn’t worry; the Obama administration has her back.

1. To reiterate, the resolution never opposes a New START agreement. It could, but it does not.

2. The resolution asks that a New START agreement not jeopardize our deterrent vis-à-vis China.  This is puzzling.  Even after a New START agreement, the U.S. will still have at least 1,500 deployed strategic nuclear weapons (as will the Russians), plus many thousands more in reserve. In contrast, China has only 240 total weapons and only 25-40 missiles capable of striking the U.S., far from the U.S. total.  The resolution cites a U.S. intelligence estimate that the Chinese could have over 100 missiles capable of striking the U.S. 15 years from now.  First, it’s important to note that U.S. intelligence estimates have repeatedly overestimated the speed and content of China’s modernization programs.  Second, given the numbers being considered for New START, even if one assumes that China could have 100 such missiles by 2035, the U.S. would still have an overwhelming advantage.

3. The resolution calls on the President to provide Congress with reports on both negotiations with Russia and China’s nuclear forces.  Clearly a report on negotiations with Russia should be doable once they are completed, as should a report on China’s nuclear forces, although such estimates already exist.

4. Perhaps the most pointed demand made by the resolution is that the administration should complete the NPR before signing an agreement.  However, the Pentagon has repeatedly stated that it is satisfied that the NPR has sufficiently informed the negotiations. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 9, Marine General James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “We prioritized in the Nuclear Posture Review . . . the activities and the analysis that would be necessary to support the timelines associated with the START negotiations or the follow-on START negotiations. . . . I’m very comfortable that we prioritized that analysis at the front end in order to support these negotiations.”   The expiration of START I on December 5 and the close link between the New START negotiations and the NPR process mean that it is both necessary and prudent to try and negotiate a new Treaty by the end of the year without waiting for a finalized NPR.

5.  Finally, the resolution calls on the administration to protect U.S. missile defenses in a new agreement.  The Obama administration has already made it crystal clear that it will comply with this wish.  Presidents Obama and Medvedev have stated that New START will deal only with strategic offensive arms. The offense-defense link might be noted in the preamble of the new treaty, but the text of New START will not contain any formal or legal limitations on missile defenses.

UPDATE 6:35PM: Jeffrey Lewis and Max Bergmann offer their own takes.