“NEW START” FACES HOSTILITY ON THE HILL...
The new arms control pact recently signed between Moscow and Washington now faces considerable resistance in Congress. “New Start, signed by the president in April, is more than a stand-alone treaty: It is an important element of Mr. Obama's overall plan for maintaining a credible U.S. nuclear capability,” writes Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in the July 8th edition of the Wall Street Journal. “If the Obama administration was clearly articulating that our nuclear posture is going to be strong and properly resourced, most senators will likely view the treaty as relatively benign. But right now many are wary of ratifying it because the Obama administration is sending mixed signals on this serious issue.”
Of concern to Kyl and other skeptics are the practical implications of the President’s focus on global disarmament. “The problem is that Mr. Obama embraces ideas that contradict his own declared goals of nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation and modernization,” Kyl writes. “He says all of his nuclear policies are rooted in his vision of a world with zero nuclear weapons, a world he claims would be more stable and less likely to suffer a nuclear war. But this position is not grounded in reality, and the policies that flow from it are dangerous and impractical.” Examples cited by Kyl include the President’s support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban the U.S. from testing nuclear weapons in the future, as well as the Administration’s newly-imposed restrictions on design updates for aging U.S. nuclear weapons. All of these limitations, Kyl notes, have been created “in the service of a utopian idea of nuclear zero.”
...AS MOSCOW, WASHINGTON INCH CLOSER TO MISSILE DEFENSE DEAL
Moscow, meanwhile, is eager to follow “New Start” with negotiations on missile defense. According to Lt. Gen. Alexander Burutin, the Deputy Chief of Russia’s General Staff, while a missile defense agreement is “not on our agenda” at the present time, negotiations on the topic are ongoing between Russian and U.S. officials. “Missile defense is a subject for discussion with the Americans,” Burutin has confirmed in comments carried by Kuwait’s KUNA news agency (July 8). For their part, U.S. officials appear open to the idea – at least in theory. "We will continue this dialogue so that Russia and we can work together on the creation of a global missile defense system," RIA Novosti (June 28) reports John Beyrle, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, as telling students and staff at a university in Moscow.
BULGARIA COMES ABOARD
After months of negotiation, the Obama administration can officially count the east European nation of Bulgaria as its newest missile defense partner. “We are the most interested state in Europe in the establishment of a missile shield because we are in the most threatened region – we fall within the range of ballistic missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles as the ones employed by the states in the wider Middle East,” the Novinite news service (July 9) reports Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov as telling reporters. “It is no secret that Iran has already conducted tests with Shahab-3 missiles which have a range of 2 000 km. Therefore, if you draw a circle around the potential launch site in Iran, you will notice that most of Bulgaria falls within the range of their missiles. Bulgaria is participating actively in the discussions and the practical realization of all steps concerning the establishment of a NATO-wide missile defense system.”
What role Bulgaria will play in U.S. missile defense plans, however, remains to be seen. Officials in Sofia have expressed an interest in hosting elements of U.S. defenses on their territory, but neighboring Romania has already concluded a basing agreement with Washington to position anti-missile interceptors on its territory. This leaves Bulgaria with the option of hosting “auxiliary elements” of the missile shield – something it will consider once “NATO makes a political decision to adopt the missile defense as it own project,” according to Angelov.
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