by Christopher Hellman and Travis Sharp The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) completed its markup of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Defense Authorization bill (HR 2647) on June 17, 2009. HASC’s marked-up bill recommends an overall FY 2010 authorization level of $680.5 billion, $348 million more than requested by the administration. This $680.5 billion total includes […]
What to Make of Medvedev’s Statements on Missile Defense
Over at Russian strategic nuclear forces, Pavel Podvig argues that “Russia’s position on the link between missile defense is getting harder with each new statement on the U.S.-Russia arms control talks.”
On Saturday President Medvedev declared that Russia is “ready to cut our strategic delivery vehicles by several times compared with the Start I treaty,” but warned that “the reductions that we are suggesting are possible only if the United States addresses Russian concerns (i.e. missile defense). In any event, the issue of the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive weapons should be clearly laid out in the treaty.”
Compare Saturday’s statement with the joint statement Medvedev and President Obama released in London on April 1:
While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe, we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.
The relationship between offensive and defensive arms will be discussed by the two governments.
Recognizing that this is pure speculation on my part, since I’m not part of the U.S. negotiating team (duh!), I think the evolution in Russia’s public position on missile defense reflects a change in emphasis and tone rather than actual substance. Ultimately, I’d be really surprised if U.S. and Russian disagreement on missile defense blows up negotiations on the START follow-on agreement.
Here’s why. First the START follow-on is not likely to reduce the number of U.S. and Russian strategic deployed warheads dramatically below 1,700 (the lower bound of the Moscow Treaty).
Second, I think the Russian’s really want some kind of agreement, however modest, to replace START when it expires on December 5, principally to maintain strategic parity with the U.S.
Third, the Obama administration has made it clear that it will deploy the missile defense system intended for Poland and the Czech Republic only if the threat from Iran persists, the system is proven to work, and the system is cost-effective. At the moment, the proposed two stage interceptor for the European site has not even been built, much less tested. Consequently, it will be years before the system is ready to be deployed, which gives the U.S. and Russia ample time to explore cooperative measures on missile defense.
Obviously Russia is concerned about U.S. missile defense plans, and hopes that the START follow-on negotiations will address the offense/defense relationship in some form. It’s also clear that the Obama administration is not yet ready to altogether abandon the proposed European deployment, and would prefer to keep missile defense on a separate track from reductions in strategic offensive arms.
Yet for the reasons listed above, the missile defense issue is likely to get kicked down the road to a future round of negotiations. As Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak put it in early April “whether…absence of agreement…on BMD, whether it’s a showstopper for the follow-on to START, I would say no.”
Of course, the wild card in all this is the U.S. Senate. With each Russian statement linking missile defense and the START follow-on process, Republican Senators are apt to become more and more jittery about nuclear reductions. While these divisions are unlikely to derail ratification of a START follow-on treaty, more than 67 votes will be necessary to build momentum for more controversial treaties to follow (e.g., the CTBT) that also will need 67 Senate votes. If the START follow-on treaty can only muster 67 votes, we can probably forget about the CTBT.
U.S. Arms Sales May Top $40 Billion in 2009
A big focus of President Obama’s foreign policy has been to build consensus with other countries in order to tackle international security issues. Unfortunately, a rise in arms sales may result.
Last week, it was reported that U.S. arms sales are on pace to top $40 billion in 2009. That is up from at least $32 billion in 2008 and $25 billion in 2007.
Numerous Obama administration officials have stressed the importance of international coalitions and partnerships in dealing with security challenges. Implicit in these statements is an offer to sell weapons to countries that are considered key U.S. allies.
There are, of course, other factors at work. For example, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, funded mainly by the U.S. in partnership with eight other countries, is expected to result in over 4,000 fighter orders in the coming years. There has also been a more aggressive pursuit of foreign sales by U.S. companies since Secretary Gates’s defense cuts were announced in April.
Arms sales should not become the cornerstone of Obama’s drive to reinvigorate America’s standing in the international community. Particularly in the developing world, arms sales to repressive regimes discredit the United States in the eyes of local populations. How can we say we stand for freedom and liberty while providing undemocratic governments with weapons that allow them to remain in power and crack down on internal dissent?
Enthusiasm for Nuclear Fuel Bank Runs on Empty
The global uranium fuel bank was back in the news last week when developing nations on the IAEA Board angrily stalled discussions. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei faced widespread discontent when he requested that a detailed plan for a fuel bank be submitted by September 2009.
Delegations from developing nations said that they would not support any measures that could “endanger their inalienable and sovereign right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop their own nuclear fuel cycle.” They also objected to “attempts meant to discourage the pursuit of any peaceful nuclear technology on grounds of its alleged ‘sensitivity’.” India, a non-party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, reportedly led the charge against the proposal…
IAEA officials claim that talks have not stopped completely, but it will take much more time and political will to get the fuel bank project off the ground. The outcome of Iran’s presidential elections and the appointment of a new IAEA Director General are also complicating factors.
The idea for an independently monitored international fuel bank has been around since President Eisenhower’s 1953 “Atoms for Peace” speech. It has sparked interest in recent years due to fears that Iran’s enrichment program will lead to an arms-race in the Middle East. The two most promising proposals today come from the DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and Russia. NTI, backed by billionaire Warren Buffet, pledged $50 million for the effort, and Russia has offered to host the IAEA-administered bank at its Angarsk enrichment facility.
In 2006, former Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Dick Lugar wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune calling for a “new international non-proliferation standard that prevents countries from using the guise of nuclear energy to develop nuclear weapons.” In 2007, then Senator Barack Obama introduced the International Nuclear Fuel for Peace and Non-Proliferation Act of 2007, which supported the fuel bank effort and would have authorized $50 million for the project. The most important fuel bank endorsement came in Obama’s April 5 speech in Prague.
Considering this enthusiasm at the highest levels of the U.S. government, why have so many U.S. legislators been silent about the non-proliferation regime since April? The answer to this question, quite simply, is Iran.
America’s Iran agenda bears heavily on the survival of the fuel bank initiative. Iran’s progress on its enrichment program has stirred fears among other states in the Middle East, who have since voiced desire for help in developing their own civilian nuclear technology regimes. Despite this pressure, President Obama has been careful not to sacrifice the fuel bank initiative. He acknowledged Iran’s “right to access peaceful nuclear power” and said that while it has “legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations…the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.”
The fuel bank initiative might not be dead, but it is certainly in critical condition. Now we must wait until the dust settles in the streets of Tehran before taking the next step forward.
HASC Gives Nonproliferation a Needed Boost
On Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee marked up the fiscal year 2010 Defense Authorization bill. Among the provisions included were some especially promising nonproliferation boosts. Here’s how a couple of programs that Kingston and Cuyler were concerned about fared:
–The Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which tracks down and secures loose nuclear material internationally, received an additional $224 million.
–$179 million was added for the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program, another DoE effort, which would go towards installing radiation sensors at risky border crossings and tracking down potential WMD components.
Also included in HASC’s markup was an additional $30 million for the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program, aka “Nunn-Lugar.” As Travis wrote last month, funding for the program steadily decreased during the Bush years, dropping 19 percent. HASC’s increase will bring Nunn-Lugar funding to $434 million – a good sign – but it is still short of the Bush administration average of $474 million per year.
Between these three programs, funding for international nonproliferation efforts was upped by HASC by $433 million, bringing the total for 2010 to $3.2 billion, $223 million more than last year’s budget.
