HOME :: PUBLICATIONS :: Exclusive: Playing Russian Roulette with American Security, by PRESIDENTIAL POLICY: DOES IT MAKE THE GRADE?, JAMES JAY CARAFANO, PHD

Exclusive: Playing Russian Roulette with American Security

by PRESIDENTIAL POLICY: DOES IT MAKE THE GRADE?, JAMES JAY CARAFANO, PHD March 30, 2010
If I could hand out a grade lower than “F” for foreign policy, the administration would have earned it last week, when the White House announced it would sign a new nuclear arms control treaty with Moscow.
 
The President believes that reducing nuclear arms in concert with Moscow is the first step on the “road to zero.” The Russians believe anything but that. Russia believes nuclear weapons are the cornerstone of its defense policy. The last thing Russia plans on doing is deemphasize the central role the threat of nuclear attacks plays in their foreign policy. What they want is to see the U.S. nuclear deterrent diminished and placed on equal footing with Moscow’s mediocre might. They also want to link offensive and defensive weapons to arms limitations. They want U.S. conventional strike capabilities and missile defense to be on the table too.  
 
Rather than walk hand in hand with the Russians on the road to zero, the president is likely to make a new arms race more likely. As the U.S. deterrent is seen to shrink, others will step up – not down.
 
There are likely to be at least three major problems with the treaty that the president wants to sign.
 
1) The Russians cheat and the White House will do nothing to stop them. Moscow has a long and well documented history of violating arms control agreements. By focusing intently on the reduction in each nation’s strategic arsenal, the U.S. has lost some negotiating ground on the issue of verification.
 
2) America’s nuclear arsenal is aging, fast, and struggling to maintain its reliability and effectiveness. The U.S. is not producing new nuclear weapons, and its ICBM force is shrinking and not being modernized. In contrast, Russia and China are engaged in a major modernization effort. The President will likely sign this treaty without making any commitment to modernize the nuclear arsenal. It is hard to see where a smaller, less reliable nuclear deterrent puts the President in a better place to defend America’s interests.
 
3) The Russians are going to do everything in their power to limit U.S. missile defenses. Early reports suggest that Obama will give them what they want. The New York Times reports: “Administration officials describing the draft treaty said its preamble recognized the relationship between offensive weapons and missile defense, but that the language was not binding.” But the Times goes on to quote retired major general Vladimir Dvorkin who says Moscow will scrap the treaty if the U.S. pursues missile defense: “If, for example, the U.S. unilaterally deploys considerable amounts of missile defense, then Russia has the right to withdraw from the agreement because the spirit of the preamble has been violated.”
 
After the signing in Prague on April 8th, the treaty will head to the Senate for verification. There the White House will face many tough questions on why it opted for a treaty that will make America less safe.
 
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affaires, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.

James Carafano is a leading expert in defense affairs, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at The Heritage Foundation. He was an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and fleet professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Carafano is the author of several military history books and studies. Carafano also is the coauthor of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom; coauthor of the text book, Homeland Security published by McGraw-Hill; and the principal author of Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and has provided commentary for ABC, BBC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, SkyNews, PBS, National Public Radio, the History Channel, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Telemundo, Al Arabiya and Australian, Austrian, Canadian, French, Greek, Hong Kong, Irish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish television. His editorials have appeared in newspapers nationwide including The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, The New York Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today and The Washington Times. Carafano is a member of the National Academy's Board on Army Science and Technology, the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee, and is a Senior Fellow at the George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute.

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