New START: U.S. Sovereign Security Interests at Stake

The New York Times expresses unhappiness that a number of Senators are questioning the wisdom of the New START treaty that may be voted upon in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this Wednesday. Of concern to the scribblers at the Times is the apparent concern of Senators DeMint, Kyl and others that the pending treaty will restrict our deployment of missile defenses and will not be grounded in a sufficient commitment by the administration to modernize our nuclear enterprise, including the laboratories and our strategic nuclear force structure of submarines, land-based ballistic missiles and strategic bombers.

The Times itself, ironically, gives credence to the very concerns it airily dismisses. On missile defense of the homeland, the Times says it won’t work so there is obviously no point in making any further deployments beyond the roughly 30 interceptors now in Alaska and California. What the Times is referencing is the idea popularized by missile defense critics, that decoys and counter measures–never deployed and never built–can fool missile defense interceptors because of the physics of trying to do things in outer space where there is no atmosphere.

Of course, if we built missile defenses in space such hypothetical decoys and counter measures wouldn’t matter. Or if we built missile defenses in the boost phase, such as those using lasers or the Navy Aegis based standard missiles (if equipped to reach sufficient speed), decoys and counter measures wouldn’t matter either as the rockets would be destroyed before such measures could be released. But the Times has been opposed to most missile defense and less than enthusiastic about that which does work, even using their own rigged criteria.

On the nuclear modernization front, the Times further accentuates the very fears of those in the Senate worried about the future of nuclear modernization. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a dangerous complacency through one administration after another on the need to maintain deterrence and undertake the related necessary modernization. Both blue ribbon commissions and top-notch reports have detailed the unfortunate consequences of this neglect.

While the funds promised into the future for nuclear sustainment and modernization appear large–$180 billion over a decade–such investment does not even modernize two-thirds of our nuclear Triad and builds no new nuclear warheads. While the Times says such an investment as contemplated is unnecessary, they do not give us a clue as to what they support except for less than what is now planned.

More importantly, the Times does not address, unfortunately, the two key issues which cannot be addressed by arms control, whether the SALT, START or SORT nuclear weapons treaties. First, a robust nuclear deterrent is required to maintain a policy of being able to hold at risk an adversary’s nuclear forces, so that we can stop their attempts to achieve any war aims that would, even if highly unlikely, involve the contemplated use of nuclear weapons.

The Russian’s rather reckless current policy of proposing the use of tactical or theater nuclear weapons in their near abroad or possibly in regional conflicts makes this concern of deadly seriousness. This deterrent policy is in stark contrast to those proponents of fewer deployed nuclear weapons at levels far lower than what the new START treaty proposes. They seek a US minimal deterrent that threatens revenge against an adversary such as simply incinerating cities. Such is not a credible or moral deterrent policy and if implemented would spell the end of our extended deterrent that now protects some 30 allied nations.

And that brings us to the second major issue which START by its very nature should not address, but does so briefly in its preamble. And that is the extent to which the US is going to adopt what the Heritage Foundation recommends as a “protect and defend” strategy where we seek to discard “mutual assured destruction”, or MAD.

Here, the US adopts a strategy of deterrence by denial, in that any such contemplated use of nuclear weapons by an adversary simply cannot, even mathematically, achieve any of an adversary’s war aims. During the Cold War, the great Paul Nitze characterized this as an insurance policy in which any military commander would look at the “nuclear force bean count” and declare: “Not today comrade!” The key difference is today our nuclear deterrent would be complemented with the deployment of major missile defenses.

And thus the START treaty clause albeit in the preamble that declares there is a relationship between our offensive nuclear forces and the missile defenses we build is code to many that our defense of our country against North Korea, Iranian, Chinese or even Russian missiles is going to be bounded by Russian objections, not solely US national security interests. What mischief this means for the future will depend upon the strength of US convictions to maintain our security. That is indeed the challenge before us as we seek to remain faithful to our Constitutional obligation “to provide for the common defense”.