[Congressional Record: November 18, 2010 (Senate)]
[Page S8052-S8053]
NEW START TREATY
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong opposition
to the administration's New START Treaty. I do so after great
deliberation and after initial disposition to support the treaty
because of the generic importance of these types of treaties for our
Nation. But with what I have learned from classified intelligence
information, I cannot in good conscience support this treaty. I have
written a classified letter summarizing my views that is available to
all members in Senate security; I urge them to read it, even as I try
now with a few unclassified comments to explain my position.
When the administration announced this new treaty, we were told that
its goal was to reduce strategic nuclear forces in a manner that would
make America safer and enhance nuclear stability. That goal may be
admirable, but unfortunately, the deal the administration has struck
with Moscow falls well short. Consequently, I believe the
administration's New START Treaty has been oversold and overhyped.
The first thing we must all understand about this treaty is that it
forces the United States to reduce unilaterally our forces, such as
missiles, bombers, and warheads, in order to meet treaty limits. On the
other hand, the Russians will actually be allowed to increase their
deployed forces because they currently fall below the treaty's limits.
This raises a crucial question: exactly what does the United States
gain from this treaty in exchange for a one-sided reduction in our
deployed forces?
Defenders of this treaty have argued, first, that the treaty places
no limits on America's plans for missile defense systems, and second,
that our own military will have the flexibility to deploy our strategic
forces, such as bombers, submarines, and missiles, in ways that best
meet our security interests.
Unfortunately, these explanations simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
The United States does not need a treaty with Russia, or any other
country, to be free to pursue the missile defense system we need to
keep America safe. The United States does not need a treaty to give us
the flexibility to deploy our strategic forces as we wish.
Interestingly, the administration's justifications completely dismiss
the unilateral statement Russia has made to this treaty that claims the
right to withdraw if we expand our missile defenses. This Russian
statement is pure and simple manipulation.
At some point down the road, our Nation will need to expand its
missile defenses. Because of this unilateral statement, however, the
reaction from some in the administration or in Congress will be to
reject any expansion lest we upset the Russians and cause them to pull
out of this new Treaty. The Russians surely are counting on this
reaction. Yet in all the rhetoric in support of this treaty, I have not
heard any reasonable explanation for why we would give Russia this
lever to use against our legitimate and necessary right to defend
ourselves against ballistic missile attack.
For several months, we have listened to the administration's claims
that New START will make America more secure by strengthening nuclear
stability. In the ``Show Me'' State, where I come from, and I suspect
throughout the rest of the country, claims like this need to be backed
up by facts. But if we cannot verify that the Russians are complying
with each of the treaty's three central limits, then we have no way of
knowing whether we are more secure or not.
The Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this issue
closely over the past several months. As the vice chairman of this
committee, I have reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to
monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals.
There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably
verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.
As an initial hurdle, the ten annual warhead inspections allowed
under the treaty permit us to sample only 2 to 3 percent of the total
Russian force. Further, under New START, unlike its predecessor, any
given missile can have any number of warheads loaded on it. So even if
the Russians fully cooperated in every inspection, these inspections
cannot provide conclusive evidence of whether the Russians are
complying with the warhead limit.
Let's take an example: say that the United States found a missile
that was loaded with more warheads than the Russians declared. While
this would be a faulty and suspicious declaration by Russia, we could
not necessarily infer from it that they had violated the 1,550 warhead
limit--especially because the Russians could always make some excuse
for a faulty declaration.
Compounding this verification gap is the current structure of the
treaty's warhead limits which would allow Russia to prepare legally to
add very large numbers of warheads to its forces in excess of the
treaty's limit. For example, the Russians could deploy a missile with
only one warhead, but legally flight-test it with six warheads to gain
confidence in the increased capability--a practice they could not
employ under the original START. The Russians could then store the five
extra warheads for each such missile nearby, ready to mate them to the
missile on a moment's notice. All of this would be legal.
Further, unlike START, this new treaty places no limit on the number
of nondeployed missiles, so the Russians legally could store spare
missiles to be mated with the spare warheads. This potential for Russia
to ``break-out'' of the treaty in a short period of time--perhaps
without adequate warning to the United States--may undermine the very
nuclear stability this administration claims this treaty provides.
Arguably, it also means that, despite the opportunities to cheat, it
may be even easier for Russia to circumvent legally the limits of this
treaty. That does not sound to me like a great bargain for the United
States.
Because the details on verification and breakout of this treaty are
classified, I have prepared a full classified assessment that is
available to any Senator for review. The key points, however, are not
classified and I believe the Senate and the American public need to
understand them fully.
Common sense suggests that the worse a treaty partner's arms control
compliance record with existing and past treaties, the stronger
verification must be for any new treaties. So, exactly what is Russia's
record? According to the official State Department reports on arms
control compliance, published by this administration and the previous
administration, the Russians have previously violated, or are still
violating, important provisions of most of the key arms control
treaties to which they have been a party, including the original START,
the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and
[[Page S8053]]
Open Skies. I recommend that my colleagues review the classified
versions of these reports before any further Senate action is taken on
this treaty.
Despite Russia's poor compliance record, the administration has
decided that we will rely primarily on good Russian cooperation to
verify New START's key 1,550 limit on deployed warheads. This brings to
mind the famous adage: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame
on me.
One of the persistent Russian arms control violations of the original
START was its illegal obstruction of U.S. on-site inspections of
warheads on certain types of missiles. The only reason these Russian
violations did not prevent us from verifying START's warhead limits was
because START limited the capability to deploy warheads through a
``counting rule'' that could be verified primarily with our own
intelligence satellites. Unfortunately, New START has discarded this
critical counting rule, designed to work hand-in-glove with our
satellites, in favor of reliance on no more than ten sample inspections
a year--again, just 2 to 3 percent of Russia's force.
The warhead limit in New START is calculated from the actual number
of warheads loaded on a missile, and unlike START, this new treaty
permits any missile to have any number of warheads loaded on it. But no
satellite can tell us how many warheads are loaded on missiles.
Therefore, if this treaty is ratified, we will have to rely primarily
on on-site inspections to verify actual warhead loadings the very same
kind of inspections that the Russians violated in START. If the
Russians continue their poor compliance record and obstruct our warhead
inspections under New START, the consequences will be much more serious
and will substantially degrade verification.
The administration is surely aware of these verification and breakout
problems as there is no shortage of verification gimmicks in this
treaty. But not even all of them together permit us to verify reliably
the treaty's warhead limit. So how have treaty enthusiasts responded to
these problems?
First, they discard the military significance of possible Russian
cheating. Our own State Department's verification assessment states
that:
any Russian cheating under the Treaty would have little if
any effect on the assured second-strike capabilities of U.S.
strategic forces. In particular, the survivability and
response capabilities of [U.S.] strategic submarines and
heavy bombers would be unaffected by even large-scale
cheating.
This is not exactly a ringing endorsement. I think it is pretty clear
that a large-scale breakout would have a seismic impact from a
geopolitical perspective. It would escalate tensions between the
superpowers and lead to extreme strategic instability. Even more
fundamentally, the State Department statement raises a pivotal
question: If no level of Russian cheating under New START is deemed
militarily significant, then what is the value of this treaty in the
first place?
Second, treaty proponents attempt to draw a parallel to the
``Moscow'' arms control treaty, signed by President Bush and approved
95-0 by the Senate. They argue that this treaty has the same kind of
warhead verification difficulties as New START, therefore critics of
New START are applying a double-standard. This argument fails on two
counts: the first being that the Moscow arms control treaty was placed
on top of the verification measures already in effect for START; and
second, that the United States had decided unilaterally to move to the
limits imposed in the Moscow treaty, whether or not Russia reduced to
them. This is simply not the case for New START. Clearly, the two
treaties are not comparable from a verification standpoint.
The administration also argues that our ability to monitor Russian
forces will be greater with the new treaty than without it. As a
general proposition, this is true. In actuality, however, the extent of
the treaty's monitoring benefits could be insignificant or only modest
in some important respects. This disparity between generalization and
reality is explained more in my classified paper.
The bottom line is this: if the chief benefit of this treaty is that
we will know more about what Russia is doing with its nuclear forces,
then the same benefit could have been achieved with a much more modest
confidence-building protocol, one which would not require unilateral
U.S. force reductions, give Russia a vote on our missile defenses, or
present impossible verification problems.
The administration claims that New START is indispensible to reap the
``Reset'' benefits with Russia. If a fatally flawed arms control
agreement is the price of admission to the Reset game, our Nation is
better off if we this one out.
Similarly, any suggestion by treaty advocates that rejecting the
treaty weakens the ``good'' Russian leader, Medvedev, and strengthens
the ``bad'' Russian leader, Putin, should be met with healthy
skepticism. Now is not the time to fall for a ``good cop--bad cop'' act
from Moscow.
In many cases, concerns about particular treaties can be solved
during the ratification process. I respect my colleagues who are
attempting to do so with this treaty. Unfortunately, New START suffers
from fundamental flaws that no amount of tinkering around the edges can
fix. I believe the better course for our nation, and for global
stability, is to put this treaty aside and replace it with a better
one.
The United States needs, and we in the Senate should demand, a treaty
that can be reliably verified by our own intelligence assets without
relying on Russia's good graces, not one that requires unilateral
reductions or gives Russia a vote on our strategic defenses. I urge my
colleagues to reject anything less and to take a strong stand for
America's defense and America's future.
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