START of a safer world

As the lame duck post mid-term Congress meets, we are bound to see some conflicts between the Democrats and Republicans, as each party adjust to a split government over the next 2 years. What wasn’t expected was the Republicans effort to push the vote of START off until after new members are sat.

START stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, aimed at continuing the dismantlement of nuclear arms between the US and Russia. The former agreement, initiated under President Bush ended last December. The treaty calls for each country to have access to the others nuclear facilities, to monitor dismantlement, and to inspect weapons. Without this treaty, the United States has no access to Russia’s weapons or facilities. As the two most powerful nuclear states in the world, Russia and the United States should work on lowering nuclear stockpiles and continue the monitoring of the other’s nuclear weapons. 

The issue that I see arising has less to do with the ability to monitor Russian silos and weapons, (after all, even with constant monitoring, there’s nothing to stop Russia from launching the missiles) and more to do with a trust arrangement. If Russia is, and they are, willing to sign the treaty, and the U.S. isn’t, it could lead to suspicion on behalf of Russia. I think having a nuclear state at alerted military level is not going to be a good thing. Russia is ready and willing to the show the US that we don’t get to call all the shots, as they did with their invasion of Georgia. Looking at it from monitoring point of view, nuclear weapons are probably the largest deterrent the US has against nation-state attacks. Russia is estimated to have over 3x as many nuclear weapons as the US. Can we let a foreign nation run a massive nuclear program, unchecked by the country that was its largest enemy in the world a scant 40 years ago?

Besides posing a higher threat to Russia, the inability to sign the treaty puts the U.S. in an awkward position. As the main leaders for nuclear dismantlement, and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons we must be willing to subject ourselves to inspections. It’s hard to police the world when you don’t follow all the rules yourself. Republicans need to drop the act and pass the treaty, nuclear weapons are a serious threat and should be reduced as much as possible.