The balance of national politics has only grown more uncertain since the Republicans retook the House of Representatives last month, and it has become evident that every item on President Barack Obama's agenda will prove to be a strenuous battle of its own. However, this is rarely expected in foreign policy, where politics is said to end at the water's edge. For that reason, the White House had eagerly anticipated that one of the President's greatest achievements, the arms reduction treaty known as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), would finally earn the necessary support from the U.S. Senate this year.
After the president and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the treaty in Prague in April, Obama had hoped that this START treaty, like those that came before it, could be readily accepted by both parties, even bitter enemies in the opposition. And yet, after months of negotiations and deals between the White House and Sen. Jon Kyl (R−Ariz.), the GOP's point man on START, the senator surprised everyone and announced after the midterm elections that the treaty was unlikely to receive his support.
As Congress debates major issues like energy reform or deficit reduction, there remain serious drawbacks and uncertainties that should make any lawmaker hesitate to push too hard to one side. But that is not the case here.
New START now has the overwhelming support of the U.S. military, allied governments in Western and Eastern Europe, and even former Reagan and Bush senior administration officials, including Colin Powell, James Baker and George Shultz. Few issues are as cut and dry as this one, and therefore, what is occurring today is not a national security debate, but instead a most blatant game of partisan duplicity.
The White House is frustrated for good reason. They have spent months using every resource possible to prove the treaty's worth. Unlike the START treaties that came before it, which were ratified quickly and nearly unanimously, New START carefully made its way through the Senate hearing process this summer. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee diligently questioned endless bipartisan commissions and panels of military and foreign policy experts who responded to concerns about missile defense and treaty verification thoroughly and effectively.
Any legitimate doubt had long been removed by their testimony, which is why in September, the Committee voted 14−4 in support of the treaty. It earned the votes of Republican Senators Richard Lugar (R−Ind.), Bob Corker (R−Tenn.) and Johnny Isakson (R−Ga.), hardly moderates in the Republican caucus.
The treaty has been embraced for many significant reasons. It requests a modest decrease in the American and Russian nuclear arsenals, which is insufficient to shift the status quo of deterrence but still acts as a powerful symbolic move toward securing the weapons from theft and terrorism and toward a faraway future safe from nuclear annihilation.
Perhaps most importantly, the treaty would return weapons inspectors to nuclear sites after an entire year of their absence following the expiration of the first START treaty. Critics have claimed that this treaty lacks the verification methods necessary for proper implementation, but this accusation lacks credibility for two reasons. Firstly, this concern is easily debunked as field experts confidently affirmed the strength of the treaty on these fronts in their testimonies. Secondly, without this treaty, we have no verification capabilities at all. We would lack any assured means to protect nuclear materials scattered across the Russian Federation, and we would be forced to focus all of our technical means on Russian facilities instead of where they belong: concentrated on real risks like North Korea or Iran.
This fundamental truth lies at the heart of the differences between START's countless supporters and its few, confused opponents harboring a Cold War unwillingness to accept Russia as a partner in any form. It is unsurprising that when discussing START, Republican opponents like Sen. Jim DeMint (R−S.C.) don't even notice when they warn against "missiles fired by the Soviet Union." Clearly, they would acknowledge this wording as a slip of the tongue, that they are well aware of the fall of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago. But it is more evident that they have failed to absorb the vast changes in global politics since that time.
They have ignorantly left their heads stuck in the sands of the Cold War — in a simplified narrative of evil empires — instead of acknowledging the good that can be achieved from cooperation. President Obama has made real progress over the past year in negotiating Russian opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions, but these Republicans are more content to talk tough than to back rhetoric with action. As a result, they will see their Cold War dreams realized as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested that if START fails to be ratified, Russia will be forced to build its nuclear stockpile.
The White House has negotiated with Senate Republicans beyond all reasonable expectation. Kyl demanded a massive overhaul of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and President Obama delivered with an unprecedented reach into next year's budget, assuring him nearly $85 billion for weapons modernization. He has also indicated that his support for the treaty would depend on Democrat support for an extension of the Bush tax cuts, effectively tying vital national security priorities with unrelated and controversial political goals. Ultimately, he has requested months of time to deliberate on questions that have long been answered, delaying a final vote from the summer until September, then from September until the "lame duck session" and now until the new Senate can be seated in January, when the Democrats will have fewer assured votes.
Lugar, the ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has called Kyl's bluff, saying last month that "every senator has an obligation in the national security interest to take a stand, to do his or her duty. Maybe people would prefer not to do his or her duty right now. Sometimes when you prefer not to vote, you attempt to find reasons not to vote." He called on his colleagues to stand up and be counted, to support the treaty as they should, or at least admit that they do not, instead of the illusion that they need more time to deliberate.
The White House has promised a vote before Christmas, although the outcome is far from certain. If Senate Republicans do vote against ratification, it will be a clear sign of the sort of politics that will infect our national security in the 112th Congress.
If New START does indeed die in the Senate, the best thing that we the people can do is notice, call them on it and not forget. There are too many real debates to be had; we cannot afford to invent an imaginary one.
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Aaron Zucker is a senior majoring in International Relations.
