Barack Obama told the American people last week that the START Treaty would help create a world without nuclear weapons.
“This treaty will enhance our leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and seek the peace of a world without them.”
What he meant was it would create a world without US nuclear weapons.
It’s sure is a good thing that this wasn’t amended and discussed before it was rammed through.
Analysts agree that the new START Nuclear Treaty will go easy on Russia.
The AFP reported:
The new Russia-US nuclear arms pact may have been hailed as historic but analysts said that all Moscow really has to do is phase out Soviet-era missiles and warheads that are already out of date.
The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was ratified by the US Senate on Wednesday after a passionate months-long debate and given initial approval by Russia’s State Duma lower house of parliament two days later.
It will face two more hearings in Russia and almost certainly come into force within the next few months.
The first nuclear pact in two decades has been feted as vital to global security because it reduces old warhead ceilings by an impressive 30 percent and sets a streamlined new inspection procedure designed to eliminate cheating.
The new START limits each side to 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 deployed long-range missiles — including those fired from submarines — and heavy bombers.
The two sides may also have up to 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers and bombers.
But analysts said that Russia’s real problem was that even these lower missile and launcher ceilings were too high for the country to keep pace with the United States.
Soviet-era missiles such as the Saber SS-22 are rapidly approaching their expiry date and technical specifications mean the weapon has no purpose if its nuclear warheads are taken out of commission.
Independent estimates from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said that in late 2009 the United States in fact had 2,200 “operational” nuclear warheads and 2,500 more warheads in reserve that could be activated if necessary.
Russia on the other hand was believed to have had a total of 2,600 operational long-range warheads covered by START.
But the required phase-out of old missiles is not the only thing working in Russia’s favour. New counting rules will also allow it to attribute just one warhead per bomber even if it carries more — a point insisted on by Moscow during the treaty negotiations.
National Defence magazine editor Igor Korotchenko told the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia was now likely to keep just 390 missiles and bombers as it looks to save money ahead of a new round of strategic reductions in 2020.
And Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov saw nothing but the treaty’s advantages as he defended it parliament Friday.
“We will not have to make any cuts to our strategic offensive weapons,” Serdyukov told sceptical lawmakers from the Communist opposition. “But the Americans — they will indeed have to make some cuts.”
“Serdyukov is right,” said Moscow’s Centre for Disarmament Director Anatoly Dyakov. “Russia has already met its launcher obligations. It only has 560 of those.
Hat Tip K. Solomon
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