HOLDING THE LINE ON MISSILE DEFENSE?
For weeks, rumors have been swirling that the new arms control agreement currently being negotiated between Moscow and Washington will include significant curbs – desired by the Kremlin – on American missile defense capabilities. Not so, says the State Department. The February 12th Washington Times cites State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley as stating that the new agreement on offensive strategic weapons that will replace the now-defunct START treaty will not include any compromise on missile defense. “As we have made clear to the Russians through this negotiation, there is no direct link between [missile defense and strategic offensive arms],” Crowley has told reporters.
Congressional proponents of missile defense, however, are not convinced. In a private letter to National Security Advisor Jim Jones, three top Senators have cautioned the Obama administration about making a rollback of missile defense a quid pro quo for progress in arms control with the Kremlin. “It would be very troubling... if the treaty included a provision that would allow Russia to withdraw from the treaty if it felt threatened by U.S. missile defense capabilities, for example, if it felt that ‘strategic stability’ was upset by a deployment by the United States,” Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) write in the February 17th missive, a copy of which has been obtained by Foreign Policy magazine. “We ask for your assurance that the Administration will not agree to any such provisions, even a unilateral Russian declaration, in the treaty text or otherwise that could limit U.S. missile defenses in any way.”
CTBT, NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT BACK ON THE AGENDA
America’s ability to test nuclear weapons may soon be curtailed. The Washington Times (February 19) reports that the Obama administration is planning to resuscitate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an agreement negotiated in the 1990s to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. A Republican-led Senate halted the agreement’s progress in 1999 over concerns that the treaty would fail to achieve its goal while preventing the U.S. from ensuring the effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent. Administration officials now believe that those misgivings had been satisfied. “We are confident that all reasonable concerns raised about the treaty back then, concerns about verification and the reliability of our own arsenal, have now been addressed,” Vice President Joe Biden said in an address before the National Defense University. Mr. Biden also reaffirmed the Administration’s desire for the eventual elimination of the nation’s entire nuclear stockpile, claiming that modern conventional weaponry makes a nuclear deterrent less appealing.
U.S. NUCLEAR MODERINZATION: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?
In his February 18th address at the National Defense University, Vice President Biden also outlined the Obama administration’s plan for nuclear modernization. Intended to reverse “the last decade’s dangerous decline” in funding for nuclear security, the new White House effort “devotes $7 billion to maintaining our nuclear stockpile and modernizing our nuclear infrastructure.” But by themselves, these steps are not sufficient to avert a catastrophic decline in America’s nuclear standing, a top defense expert has warned. “Given the enduring importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security, the administration's request for additional funding for the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure is a welcome development.” writes Tom Mahnken in a February 22nd post on Foreign Policy magazine’s “Shadow Government” blog. “In the end, however, the administration's budget request is but a partial solution. The United States is the only nuclear power that is not modernizing its arsenal, and neither the administration nor Congress shows any inclination to change that fact. The newest weapons on the U.S. arsenal were designed decades ago, and the expertise to design new ones represents a critical shortfall. Absent modernization, the United States will eventually face the prospect of unilateral nuclear disarmament.”
ABL’S BLAZE OF GLORY
The U.S. missile defense program reached a critical milestone on February 12th, when it successfully destroyed a ballistic missile in flight using an airborne laser, the World Tribune reported on February 15th. The successful intercept marks the first time that a laser has destroyed a ballistic missile, a major development in missile defense technology. “The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defense, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies,” the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said in an official statement following the intercept. Despite the test, the airborne laser’s future remains in doubt: in 2009, with the program five years behind schedule, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that airborne laser technology be relegated to research and development testing. A string of recent successes, however, has revived questions about the program’s viability - and whether the Administration should breathe new life into it.
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