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From: "The Heritage Foundation" <newsletters@heritage.org>
Date: April 7, 2010 2:03:49 PM CDT
To: Jay Phillips <jayman2124@gmail.com>
Subject: Pres. Obama, Medvedev to Sign START Follow-On Treaty Tomorrow
Reply-To: 33minutes@heritage.org
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Pres. Obama, Medvedev to Sign START Follow-On Treaty Tomorrow in Prague
After more than a year of negotiations on a follow-on treaty to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached an agreement which they will sign tomorrow in Prague. While many arms control advocates are jubilant about a 30% reduction in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, larger questions linger.
Missile Defense News
Sean Hannity on START Russia: New START Clearly Links Missile Reduction with Missile Defense President Obama, Why Won't You Defend Us? The Road to a New Nuclear Arms Race START: How Did We Get Here?
President Obama has slashed the defense budget and pulled back from building a comprehensive missile defense system. Now in the name of diplomacy, he wants to destroy weapons when Iran and North Korea are developing nuclear capabilities. The Administration's claim that this treaty will induce Iran to discontinue developing nuclear weapons is, at best, misguided. Tehran wants these weapons to intimidate the U.S. and its neighbors.
Times have changed. When President Ronald Reagan proposed the original START treaty, the world was dominated by only two superpowers. But the world today is very different-- a world in which many nations have nuclear capabilities.
When President Obama signs the follow-on START treaty tomorrow, he will open ways for Russia to veto U.S. missile defenses. President Obama unwisely played into Russia's strategy to link these weapons to START when he abandoned a plan to build missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic during early START negotiations. While the Administration insists the text of the treaty imposes no constraints on testing, development, or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs, Russia has stated that there is indeed a "legally binding linkage between strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons."
The fact of the matter is that Russia has a history of violating arms control agreements and they have already threatened to back out of the agreement that is being signed by the two Presidents tomorrow in Prague.
The Administration should proceed with caution when negotiating with Russia. Signing arms control treaties to score public relations points in pursuit of a "getting to zero" nuclear pipe dream is bad policy. The Senate should ask tough questions of the Administration and not rush to ratify a treaty that would undermine U.S. missile defense and national security.
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