William Broad’s article, “U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable,” which appeared in today’s New York Times, relays the Obama administration’s push for increased public awareness of what to do in the event of a nuclear blast.  

Administration officials claim that the survivability from the fallout is greater than one might typically imagine.  The key is getting to adequate shelter and staying put, rather than fleeing as most people might do in such a situation.  

Even remaining sheltered for just a few hours would significantly reduced the number of fatalities from radioactive fallout, concludes a report from a multiagency modeling effort led by Lawrence Livermore Labs in California.  The results from this model found that there would be approximately 285,000 casualties due to fallout a mile from ground zero if people did not seek shelter.  Minimal protection (e.g. a car) would reduce this to 125,000 casualties, and shelters such as a basement would further reduce the number of casualties 45,000.  

The report concluded that the best shelter is in a large office building or an underground garage.

What is problematic, however, is figuring out how to educate the public without causing undue fear or panic.  Upon arriving in office, President Obama attempted to initiate a planning for disaster response, but was impeded by political roadblocks.  Cities such as Las Vegas did not want to participate in mock disasters, claiming that it would reduce tourism.  

The fact remains that public awareness and education is crucial.  Broad notes that there was insufficient disaster planning for Hurricane Katrina, which, as we all know, led to a very uncomfortable moment between Kayne West and Mike Myers.  

If we want to avoid future uncomfortable moments, it might make sense to pursue a disaster management program which educates the public about how to minimize the risks from fallout.  

This would be a much better use of our time and resources than, say, preparing for the very unlikely event of thousands of incoming Russian ICBMs from which escape is almost impossible.

Why? Because for more than 50 years, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), have tracked Santa.

The whole deal is pretty high tech, involving radar, satellites, Santa Cams and even fighter jets.

That’s right… fighter jets.

According to NORAD, Santa tracking begins with something called the “North Warning System.”  On December 24, NORAD keeps a constant eye on this system, consisting of 47 installations along the northern border of North America, for signs that Santa has left the North Pole.

Once Santa has lifted off, satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface and equipped with infrared sensors that enable them to detect heat begin tracking Rudolph’s nose — which, naturally, gives off an infrared signature.

Then the Santa Cams kick in.  The Santa Cams are fairly new (they’ve only been around since 1998, the year NORAD went online with its Santa Tracker) and capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they deliver presents to children the world over.

Last, the jets.  Canadian CF-18s and US F-15 and F-16s fly alongside Santa and, I guess, make sure he’s safe from terrorist attacks?

Seriously, though, the website is adorable and changes daily.  Today, Santa apparently took a short break from making toys to dance with Mrs. Claus, who no doubt feels a bit neglected this time of year.

And before you flip over such an egregious use of government funds (scrooge), rest assured that the program is primarily funded by the likes of Booz Allen Hamilton, Google, and Toys for Tots.

The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center (NTSOC) opens on December 24th at 4:30 a.m. EST (3:30a.m. CST, 2:30a.m. MST, and 1:30a.m. PST) until 5:00am EST (4:00a.m. CST, 3:00a.m. MST, and 2:00a.m. PST) on December 25th.  Official Santa trackers are standing by at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO to take your calls.

The day we have all been waiting for has finally arrived – New START is heading to the Senate floor! Unfortunately there’s not likely to be much debate today, as Sen. DeMint has promised to force a reading of all 356 pages of the treaty and its supporting documents, which apparently will take 15 7-12 hours! Gotta love the GOP: Many Republican Senators have been harping for weeks that there is not enough time to consider the treaty before the end of the year, and now when the treaty actually hits the floor, these same Senators plan to deliberately waste time by forcing a reading of a treaty that’s been available for review for nearly 8 months!

Stay tuned to this space for updates, commentary, and musings on all things New START. And if you’d rather not learn about the treaty by listening to its reading on the Senate floor, check out our START briefing book on the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation website. Below is an excerpt: Our handy primer on the basics of treaty ratification procedure…

UPDATE 12/15, 2:45 PM: It looks like Sen. DeMint has backed off his threat to force the reading of the text of the treaty. The procedural motion to proceed to executive session passed by a vote of 66-32, which included the support of nine Republicans. Debate will commence tomorrow!

UPDATE 12/16, 9:00 AM: Read my take on the healthy start for New START over at the Chain Reaction, the Council for a Livable World’s blog!

• The Senate does not actually ratify treaties—that is the job of the President:
  1. The Senate provides advice (on the substance) and consent (with two-thirds of the Senate required to approve a treaty)
  2. The Senate considers on the Senate floor the text of the treaty and the resolution of ratification

• To ratify a treaty, the President signs and deposits the instrument of ratification along with the other parties to the treaty at an agreed upon location.
• The resolution of ratification of a treaty can be as short as a paragraph or many pages long. The resolution of ratification for the 2002 Treaty of Moscow was longer than the treaty itself (three and one-half pages).
• The President submits a treaty to the Senate along with its associated protocols and annexes, as well as an article-by-article analysis of the treaty. The protocols and annexes provide details of verification procedures, for example. The New START agreement is approximately 20 pages, but the associated documents are over 300 pages.
• Letters exchanged between the negotiators are often included in the package delivered to the Senate but are not binding, can be in the form of a unilateral statement or can be responded to by the other party either in agreement or disagreement.
• The treaty is first considered in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has sole jurisdiction over the crafting of the resolution of ratification.
• Other committees such as the Senate Armed Services and Senate Intelligence committees will often hold hearings as well and may express views to the Foreign Relations Committee but do not consider the resolution of ratification.
• Once a treaty is reported from the Foreign Relations Committee
  and placed on the Senate’s Executive Calendar, it must lie over for
  1 calendar day before second reading and Senate consideration, unless the Senate agrees by unanimous consent to waive this requirement. The Senate can then be called to enter executive session to consider the treaty at any time by a nondebatable motion. Unlike a bill the motion to proceed to a treaty cannot be filibustered, but it may be the subject of a roll call vote.
• When the Senate begins considering a treaty under the current
  Rule XXX procedure, the treaty is to be read for a second time.
  This reading is to be in full and it can be waived only by unanimous
  consent. This requirement is almost always waived.
• The text of the treaty itself then is open to amendment. In a very recent ruling, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the non-binding preamble of a treaty can also be amended.
• The Senate has never added an amendment to the text of an arms control treaty because the amendment would have to be approved by the other party(ies) to the treaty. Any amendment to the text of the treaty requires 51 votes, not a two-thirds vote, to be adopted (which means that a simple majority of the Senate can defeat any of the amendments).
• After debate on the treaty itself, the next step is for the Senate to consider this resolution. The Senate is not to begin considering the resolution of ratification on the same day it completes debate on the treaty itself and disposes of any amendments to it, unless the Senate by unanimous consent determines otherwise.
• The resolution of ratification can be changed on the Senate floor through conditions, reservations, understandings and declarations. A simple majority vote, not a two-thirds vote, is required to approve any of these additions (which means that a simple majority of the Senate can defeat any of the additions).
• Once the Senate has begun consideration of the treaty, cloture can be filed at any time. Two days must pass for that cloture vote to occur. If cloture is successful then there is a 30 hour limits on debate on both the treaty and the resolution of ratification. At the end of the 30 hours there is a vote on any pending amendment(s) to the resolution of ratification and then immediately on passage of the resolution which will need the two thirds vote.
• Cloture is not often invoked on treaties because they are usually considered according to a prior unanimous consent time agreement reached between the Majority and Minority.
• In the Senate, the process (of treaty ratification) is often more important than the substance of treaties

• Timing of Senate action on treaties has varied greatly:
  1. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was ratified within a matter of six weeks
  2. The 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty took four months
  3. The 2002 Moscow Treaty took nine months
  4. START I took over a year because of the collapse of the Soviet Union
  5. New START could be ratified within 5-6 months after it is negotiated if opponents do not try to hold up treaty approval
• Previous arms control treaties have been debated on the floor for a short period of time. The 1991 START I treaty required four days of debate, while START II, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the 2002 Moscow Treaty each took two days. The INF treaty was on the Senate floor for 9 days.
• If a treaty is rejected on the floor – as was the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999 – it can be sent back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where it will remain on the Senate calendar).

Click here to read the details of Senate consideration of arms control treaties since 1987.

*For more information, see “TREATIES AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS: THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE.” A Study Prepared by the Congressional Research Service, January 2001, Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/treaties_senate_role.pdf

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, former George W. Bush administration official Doug Feith writes that whereas he stood firm in the face of Russian demands to limit U.S. missile defenses, the Obama administration caved to Russian demands.  According to Feith, “In the SORT negotiations, they [the Russians] demanded that the treaty recognize an “interrelationship” between offensive arms reductions and missile defense,” which the Bush administration rejected.  Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a similar claim in her recent Journal op-ed endorsing the treaty.

Others remember this history a little differently.  As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report on New START notes,

A link is of course not a limit. But it has been longstanding U.S. policy to note the link between offensive and defensive forces.  And it’s still our policy.  To quote from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report once more:

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. 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.

To reiterate, this interrelationship is an objective reality that undergirds U.S. policy toward rogue states (and still undergirds U.S. policy toward Russia, albeit in a different way).  It’s Arms Control 101.  I guess Doug Feith only remembers what he learned in that class when Republicans are President.

For more information on the New START treaty and missile defense, check out our handy fact sheet over at the mothership.

In a The Wall Street Journal article published on November 30, Adam Entous and Jonathan Weisman allege that Russia has moved tactical nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.  In light of the administration’s attempt to secure Senate approval of the New START treaty during the lame-duck’s final moments, the authors have stirred up longstanding GOP concerns about the issue of tactical nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey Lewis, Nikolai Sokov (see the comments section of the aforementioned Jeffrey Lewis piece), and Pavel Podvig have already done an excellent job refuting Entous and Weisman’s assertions, noting that this “breaking news” is nothing more than a red-herring leaked with the intention of derailing New START ratification.  In lieu of rehashing what they have already addressed, I want to focus on how entry into force of New START is integral to paving the way for a subsequent agreement with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons…

New START naysayers—e.g., our friends over at Heritage, Mitt Romney, and Jim DeMint (R-SC)—claim that New START will hinder American national security because it doesn’t address tactical nuclear weapons.  For example, Romney suggests that Russian tactical weapons would pose a “threat to our forces abroad, and our allies.”  First, Russian TNWs do not increase the threat already posed by Russia’s strategic forces.  Second, New START—i.e. the New STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty—does just that: it limits the number of STRATEGIC nuclear weapons and delivery systems.  It would be great if New START cured cancer, outlawed John Bolton’s moustache, and limited the movements of Minnesota Vikings fans (if there are any Vikings fans reading this, I apologize, but Kingston wouldn’t let me post on the blog unless I included this dig).  But that’s not what the treaty is about.  

An arms control treaty limiting tactical nuclear weapons will not be an easy lift.  For starters, there isn’t even a mutually agreed upon definition of what exactly constitutes a “tactical nuclear weapon.”  Details such as these would need to be hammered out and an agreement is likely to come to fruition only after many rounds of negotiations between the U.S. and Russia.  Most observers agree that the end game will probably include limits on Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in exchange for limits on U.S. non-deployed warheads.  

What there is no debate about is that such an agreement would be next to impossible without New START.  In response to questioning by John Kerry, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger (who, as both John Isaacs and Max Bergmann point out, hasn’t always been a friend to arms control treaties) contended that New START is a precursor to any agreement concerning tactical nuclear weapon reductions.  

But wait!  There’s more!  As Bridget already pointed out, on Monday Anders Fogh Rasmussen—secretary general of NATO—published an op-ed in the NYT in which he argues that:

“The New Start treaty would also pave the way for arms control and disarmament initiatives in other areas that are vital to Euro-Atlantic security.  Most important would be transparency and reductions of short-range, tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, which allies have called for in our new ‘Strategic Concept.’  This is a key concern for allies…in light of the great disparity between the levels of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and those of NATO.  But we cannot address this disparity until the New Start treaty is ratified.  Which is another reason why ratification would set the stage for further improvements in European security.”

In addition, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis—note that Lithuania is one of the NATO member states bordering Kaliningrad, where Russia is supposedly deploying Iskander missiles—states that his nation sees “this treaty as a prologue, as an entrance to start talks about sub-strategical weaponry.”

The New START opposition should remember that actions speak louder than words. If they truly want a treaty addressing tactical nuclear reductions, they should follow the advice of our military leadership, numerous high-ranking former military and civilian officials from both parties, and our NATO allies and ratify New START.  Only then can the U.S. and Russia move forward.