As a general rule, it’s probably best not to come to a press briefing with Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher armed with talking points on missile defense from Keith Payne.  Apparently two reporters at Monday’s State Department press briefing on New START didn’t get the memo – though it sure did make for some excellent entertainment (the full video of the briefing can be found here and the transcript here)…      

To bring everyone up to speed, on Monday the Brookings Institution hosted an event on the NPR with Michael O’Hanlon, Steve Pifer, Tom Donnelly, and Keith Payne.  During the Q/A portion of the discussion, Payne stated that he was concerned about the language on missile defense in the White House fact sheet on New START for two reasons.  

First, he argued that while the fact sheet says that the treaty “does not contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs,” we ought to be worried about potential restrictions on missile defense activities that aren’t part of the planned program (I kid you not).  Second, he expressed concern about rumblings in the Russian press that there are in fact limitations on missile defense in the treaty.  The full audio of the event can be found here – Payne starts getting anxious at the 1:28:14 mark.

Enter CNN’s Jill Dougherty, who took Payne’s comments with her to the briefing with Tauscher:

QUESTION: …You know, I hate to bring you back to the same subject, but missile defense. Just this morning I was at a briefing over at Brookings and an expert was quoting the Russians as saying that this treaty does – and I’m not quite sure what word they’re using, but link or limit – he seemed to be saying that they interpret it as limit missile defense. Can you just, you know, definitively explain that?

Tauscher went on the offensive:

UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: I can definitively tell you that I’m kind of an expert, too. I was chairman of Strategic Forces in the House. I know a little bit about missile defense and was certainly there when most of this was discussed and negotiated. As we’ve talked before, the presidents met in July and they made it very clear that there is an interrelationship between strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons. But there is no limit or constraint on what the United States can do with its missile defense systems.

QUESTION: So that – definitely, the U.S. can go ahead and build and develop –

UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: Definitely, positively, and no way, no how – there are no limits to our ability to put the phased adaptive approach forward and the other systems that we have worked on in the past. Certainly, we have our CONUS system in Fort Greely and in Vandenberg, but there’s no limit, no constraint now.[emphasis mine]

Apparently unconvinced by this response, another reporter (whose name I’ve been unable to ascertain) brought up Payne’s concerns again later in the briefing:

QUESTION: Just to follow up on Jill’s question, I think what the expert was saying today at Brookings was that the fact sheet that he saw said there were no limits on current or planned missile defense programs. And his concern was, well, what about the unplanned ones. (Laughter.) Well, and Lavrov on Friday was also going into this and he had some comment from Moscow which was to the effect that he was implying that the understanding is that missile defense is more or less at the current levels, and if there is a jump on one side or the other, then the other side can pull out of the START treaty. Now, is that your understanding as well?

UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: Well, let me just say this. There are no constraints to missile defense in the START treaty. That’s one piece of it. Each party – if you look at the START treaty itself, each party has the ability to include unilateral statements. Those statements now are still being negotiated. But each party has the ability to make a unilateral statement.

For example, in the START treaty, both sides had statements. One had – certainly from our side, we had certain statements and the Russians had certain statements, and in the end, we abrogated the ABM Treaty and they didn’t get out of START even though we have missile defenses.

…

QUESTION: Well, would that not undermine this treaty somewhat, though, if that’s their understanding of it that missile defense is somehow frozen at its current and planned levels –

UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: Nothing that we have done or said leads anybody to believe that missile defense is either frozen or will be constrained. [emphasis mine.]

The “Laughter” parenthetical in the transcript really doesn’t do Tauscher’s reaction justice.  We spliced the video from the briefing so you can see these two exchanges go down, including the point where Tauscher can’t believe what she’s hearing, which starts at the 1:31 mark.  

After news of North Korea’s second nuclear text explosion in May 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated “we will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in the region or on us…we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state.”  Ten months later, however, there are very few signs that North Korea has been impressed by such warnings.  

On the contrary, Pyongyang has since declared the successful reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods, drawn attention to progress in its uranium-enrichment program, and given Special U.S. Representative for North Korean Policy Stephen W. Bosworth no indication of a resumption of negotiations any time soon.  So where does the international community go with North Korea from here?

In January, North Korea called for the removal of sanctions and the conclusion of a peace treaty with the U.S as preconditions to making any commitment towards denuclearization.  However, because the latter demand is a nonstarter for the U.S. and the former Washington’s primary means of leverage over Pyongyang, it seems that substantively, this impasse is likely to continue for a long time.  Yet this doesn’t seem to be bothering the Obama administration that much, as it appears in no hurry to restart the Six Party Talks.

Leon Sigal describes Washington’s lackadaisical approach as a deliberate policy of ‘strategic patience’.  The idea here is that the Obama administration is in no hurry to start talks because the ‘pressure of sanctions and air and naval inspections is working and will force North Korea back to the negotiating table.’  

Similarly, Scott Snyder points out that Washington won’t now rush to engage North Korea as it has in the past because the U.S ‘can’t want denuclearization more than the North Koreans.’  According to this latter interpretation, it would seem that Special Representative Bosworth’s recent visit to Beijing should be understood as a U.S effort to persuade China to capitalize on its close relationship with North Korea with the goal of influencing a genuine change in Pyongyang’s thinking.  This in turn could bring the DPRK back to the negotiating table on U.S terms.  That Bosworth’s visit occurred at a time when China-DPRK ties show signs of strengthening, as evident by a recent flurry of high level diplomatic contact and through continued speculation of an imminent Kim Jong-Il visit to Beijing, is thus no surprise.  

If the U.S is indeed pursuing a wait-and-see policy with the DPRK, then it is not clear when the stalemate will be broken.  Indeed, unless the roots of the insecurity felt by North Korea (which have been driving the nuclear program since its inception) are credibly addressed, it’s hard to see how Pyongyang would ever be motivated to denuclearize.  As Victor Cha put it at a recent event at the Hudson Institute, complicating matters is that even if the international community were able to assuage all of North Korea’s external security concerns, it by definition would still feel insecure.  

If reports suggesting a return to talks in April actually come true, they probably won’t be meaningful, as North Korea would likely rejoin only as a gesture to China.  In this context it is therefore important that policymakers consider some of the long-term effects that their ‘strategic patience’ may have.

As arms exports have constituted such a large part of North Korea’s economy for so long, it’s easy to understand the allure of sanctions as a means to squeeze the regime and its current and would-be business partners.  But a report recently issued by International Crisis Group (ICG) suggests these sanctions could be counterproductive.  According to the report, sanctions are making Pyongyang increasingly desperate to counteract the economic pain they’re causing, as evidenced by the implementation of various stop gap measures, including efforts to rejuvenate a lucrative inter-Korean tourist project in DPRK territory and the courting of possible investment from U.S business envoys.  The report warns that as North Korea’s desperation increases, the likelihood that it will engage in riskier and more provocative behavior will also increase.  

As potential sources of income dry up, the appeal of selling to terrorists becomes more attractive.  The ICG report notes that, ‘even if Kim Jong-il and his inner circle are risk averse and unwilling to sell WMD or WMD-related materials and technology, unauthorised sales could occur at lower levels of authority’.  The report also cautions that the dire economic conditions imposed by the sanctions could, in combination with the many other ‘mini-crises’ that currently bedevil the regime, snowball into a major humanitarian crisis or possible coup d’etat.  The instability caused by either of these events could also lead to North Korean-origin WMD-usable materials falling into the wrong hands.

Another problem with “strategic patience” is that even if none of the ICG’s warnings come true, the DPRK’s nuclear capabilities will only continue to increase over time.  Despite incredible economic hardship, North Korea continues to inch towards a nuclear ICBM capability whilst working hard to increase its stockpile of fissile materials.  The longer this problem is left to fester, the more feckless statements along the lines of ‘we won’t accept North Korea as a nuclear state’ will become.  

Or perhaps such rhetoric is mere window dressing to cover what U.S. policymakers have already come to accept: We can’t prevent a nuclear North Korea.

Today President Obama announced that after nearly a year of tough negotiations, the U.S. and Russia have reached agreement on the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the “New START Treaty”).  Presidents Obama and Medvedev will sign the new agreement on April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic.

The new agreement is a modest but critically important and necessary first step toward reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.  The treaty enhances U.S. security by verifiably reducing surplus U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles and ensuring a stable and predictable U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship.  Moreover, it will allow the U.S. to maintain a robust and flexible nuclear deterrent and will not limit development of U.S. missile defenses or advanced conventional weapons systems.

And did I mention that it already has strong bipartisan support?

Below are some preliminary comments on what we know so far about the specifics of the new agreement based on recent news reports, materials released this morning by the White House, and remarks this morning from President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…

Limits

New START limits each side’s deployed strategic warheads to 1,550. In a partial an interesting departure from how START I counted warheads, each deployed heavy bomber counts as one warhead toward this limit. (Update 3/27: See Amyfw’s helpful clarification on this below!)  Regarding delivery vehicles (the missiles and bombers used to deliver nuclear warheads to their target) the treaty includes two limits:

•    A combined limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
•    A separate limit of 700 deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.  

The Joint Understanding signed in Moscow last July stated that the new treaty would limit each side’s strategic nuclear delivery vehicles to between 500 and 1,100.  Not surprisingly, the two sides settled on the midpoint of their opening positions.

Why are there two limits?  Amb. Linton Brooks suggested last year that the upper limit of 800 “will allow the Russians to say that they captured all of those systems and that the United States couldn’t go build a bunch more empty silos and somehow get a breakout capability.”

New START will not require significant cuts in the number of deployed U.S. nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles and it will not require any cuts in the number of U.S. warheads in storage.  

On paper, the warhead limit will require about a 30% cut in the number of deployed U.S. warheads.  The United States currently deploys approximately 2,126 strategic nuclear warheads, with a comparable number of warheads in reserve. Russia is believed to deploy approximately 2,600 strategic nuclear warheads. However, since each deployed heavy bomber will now count as only one warhead, under New START the U.S. currently deploys far fewer than 2,126 warheads (according to the best estimates we currently have 500 warheads on 60 or 113 bombers – depending on how you count; if you do the math, that already puts us at 1700-1800 warheads)! FYI: Someone please correct me if I screwed this up! 

New START’s limit of 800 delivery vehicles is similar to the actual inventory of U.S. nuclear-armed missiles and bombers.  It is estimated that the U.S. currently has 800-900 delivery vehicles, while Russia has an estimated 600-700 strategic delivery vehicles.  Moreover, New START will not count U.S. delivery systems – such as B-1 bombers and the four Trident submarines – that have been converted to conventional-only roles.  

New START’s counting rules combine elements from both START and the Moscow Treaty.  Like START, New START counts each type of missile and bomber as one delivery vehicle against the limits of 700 and 800 delivery vehicles.  A la the Moscow Treaty approach, New START counts only those nuclear warheads that are actually deployed, save for the bomber twist.  The new treaty largely reflects a splitting of the difference between Russia’s preferred approach of counting delivery vehicles, and the U.S.’s preferred approach of counting deployed warheads.  

The U.S. and Russia have seven years to achieve the limits in the treaty.  The agreement will remain in force for a total of ten years.

Verification

See here, here, and here for some of my thoughts on this issue.  

As we’ve know for some time, the new treaty draws upon START I’s provisions and includes new provisions that are pegged to the new rules and limits.  Secretary of Defense Gates noted this morning that “The verification measures for this treaty have been designed to monitor compliance with the provisions with this treaty.”  The White House stated that the provisions “will be simpler and less costly to implement than the old START treaty.”  Presumably there are provisions that allow for data exchanges, notifications, and on-site inspections of actual warhead loadings, which would be a first for a strategic arms control treaty.

The new treaty’s verification provisions should be judged on their ability to ensure compliance with this treaty, not a treaty that was negotiated in the 1980s and early 1990s.  On that basis Gates thinks that what we got is more than enough: “I think that when the testimony of the intelligence community comes on the Hill, that the DNI and the experts will say that they are comfortable that the provisions of this treaty for verification are adequate for them to monitor Russian compliance, and vice versa.”

New START also contains a simplified and less demanding provision on telemetry.  START I stated that “telemetric information…assists in verification of Treaty provisions concerning, for example, throw-weight and the number of reentry vehicles.”   However, the very purposes for which the telemetry provision was crafted in START I likely no longer exist in the new treaty.  According to Gates, “we don’t need telemetry to monitor compliance with this treaty.”  That the U.S. negotiating team was still able to secure an agreement to exchange telemetric information on up to five missile launches a year is a nice win for transparency and confidence-building.

Missile Defense

The Joint Understanding released by the U.S. and Russia in July 2009 stated that the follow-on to START I would deal only with strategic offensive arms.  At the same time, it said that the new agreement would note an “interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms.”

New START closely mirrors the Joint Understanding.  According to a White House fact sheet on New START, “the Treaty does not contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs.”  The U.S. could have caved to their Russian counterparts on missile defenses or any of the other complex issues that delayed signature of the treaty well past START I’s expiration on December 5.   But they didn’t.  

Reports indicate that while the offense-defense link is noted in the preamble of the new treaty, the text of New START does not contain any formal or legal limitations on missile defenses.  As was the case with START I, the U.S. and Russia may also issue unilateral statements on how they interpret the relationship between the new treaty and missile defense.

Ratification Prospects in the Senate

I’ll defer to John on this but I too an optimistic about the treaty’s prospects in the Senate.  Afterall, no Senator has taken a position in opposition to the treaty, not even Kyl.  For his part, Gates seems none too impressed with some of the concerns that have been raised about the process: “Missile defense is not constrained by this treaty.  And we have in our budget, the President’s budget that went to the Hill for FY ’11, almost $5 billion for investment in the nuclear infrastructure and maintaining the stockpile.  So I think we have addressed the concerns that there may have been on the Hill.”

Some Questions I Still Have…

…most of which will be answered by the treaty text.

-Will the agreement or any of its associated documents say anything about pursuing deeper reductions after this treaty?  If not, will the two governments say anything about deeper reductions via some other means around the time when the treaty is signed?

-How explicit is the reported link between offensive and defensive forces in the preamble of the treaty?  Will each party state their position on missile defense in the preamble?

-What do the verification provisions re: mobile missiles look like?

-How many on-site inspections will there be to verify actual warhead loadings?

-What does the new counting rule re: bombers portend for the future of the U.S. bomber force? Do we no longer care how many warheads are on bombers?

-Are the Russian’s expected to issue a unilateral statement to the treaty declaring their right to withdraw from the agreement if they believe U.S. missile defenses upset strategic stability?  If so, will the U.S. issue a unilateral statement in response?

-Given the current U.S. force of approximately 900 nuclear-armed delivery systems is greater than the reported limit of 800 in the treaty, which leg(s) of the triad will see some cuts?

-If U.S. delivery systems that have been converted to conventional-only roles are excluded from the treaty’s limits, what provisions were put in place to assure the Russians that these systems can’t be quickly returned to the nuclear war plan?

-How will the treaty count – if at all – long-range conventional systems (i.e. prompt global strike)?

-Will the negotiations be completed when Presidents Obama and Medvedev sign the treaty (reportedly in Prague in early April) or will negotiations on some of the treaty’s annexes and other associated documents continue after the signing ceremony?

One year ago this April, President Obama first outlined his goal to “secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within four years” in order to “ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon.”

I don’t want to overstate the threat, but the likelihood of a nuclear attack is far from impossible. In January, a group of activists breached security at the Kleine Brogel air base in Belgium, where U.S. nuclear weapons are stored. A similar incident also took place the previous November. In January, the activists were not only able to hop the simple wire fence to get inside, they were able to enter the area where hardened shelters are located, containing aircraft and 10-20 U.S. B61 nuclear gravity bombs. Replace those activists with terrorists and the situation could get out of hand.

Unfortunately, the President’s budget for FY 2010 did not live up to his ambitious goal of only four years to secure enough material to build more than 120,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. In fact, it provided over $200 million less than the last budget of the Bush administration.

This year things have changed. President Obama’s FY 2011 budget includes a total increase of approximately $320 million for global nuclear security and forecasts growth in the coming years for key programs run by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The $2.7 billion budget request for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation portfolio includes approximately $560 million for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, an increase of 68 percent, which will remove and secure “high-priority” vulnerable nuclear material around the world and accelerate conversions of highly enriched uranium fueled research reactors to the use of low-enriched uranium.

It also includes $590 million for the International Material Protection and Cooperation program, an increase of $18 million, designed to enhance the security of nuclear stockpiles and weapon-usable nuclear material in “countries of concern” and to improve the ability to detect the illicit trafficking of those resources.

At a meeting of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee earlier this month, Vice Chairman Ed Pastor noted that, “Securing vulnerable nuclear material is a laudable goal, a goal that this committee supports. However, the magnitude of the increase, 26 percent, raises concerns whether the increase can be effectively executed in a single year.”

Ranking subcommittee Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen also stated that the president’s four-year objective is “laudable” but “not well defined.” Frelinghuysen noted that his “constituents are increasingly concerned about the country’s growing budget deficit and are calling for budget cuts, not budget increases.”

In his response, Steven Black noted multiple changes at NNSA that may positively affect its productivity, including a drop in the “personnel vacancy rate.” In addition, NNSA’s contracting process has been modified to allow for the execution of procurement actions “fairly quickly” and make use of small businesses to help carry out fuel removals and perform feasibility studies for research reactor conversions. “Without overpromising, we do believe we can effectively spend the [FY 2011] funds that we’re requesting of you,” he said.

Black acknowledged that, “It’s not easy to build a nuclear weapon,” but pointed out that “the consequences of a nuclear attack would be so dire that we would be greatly under-serving the American public if we failed to do everything we could as quickly as we can.”

For an objective look at the numbers, though, consider Alex Toma and Ken Luongo’s excellent comparison:

In 2007, climate change funding was at $6.5 billion — more than triple what we spend today on nuclear security. And nuclear security spending is only about one-third of 1 percent of the total defense budget this year… the real question should be whether we can afford not to aggressively finance the president’s four-year goal.

Russian and U.S. officals have said that an agreement was close before, only for the negotiations to continue to drag on.  This time things look to be different.  The news out of Geneva, Moscow, and Washington is that the agreement is nearly …