The Foreign Service Journal, December 2010

D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 SORT, might be used for testing or training or have had their arma- ment removed, but without being converted or eliminated according to agreed procedures. Comparison with the previous limits is difficult because of changes in the counting rules. A simple arithmetical comparison with the SORT limit of 2,200 deployed war- heads would indicate about a 30- percent reduction, but this may be misleading because of the counting rules employed. The START I approach, which relied on “attribution” of warheads by types of systems, tended to overcount ballistic missile warheads and undercount heavy bomber weapons. The U.S. interpreted SORT as counting only “operationally deployed nuclear warheads,” but the Russians never agreed to this. New START basically adopts the SORT rule for bal- listic missiles. As far as heavy bombers are concerned, New START counts each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments as carrying only one war- head— a significant undercounting of the loads these air- craft are capable of carrying. Criticism of this rule by some American opponents is curious, given the traditional substantial U.S. advantage in heavy bombers. START I could be considered to have been verifica- tion overkill, with 153 notification formats, elaborate ex- changes of information, extensive onsite inspections, access to missile flight test telemetry, special provisions for mobile ICBMs and continuous onsite monitoring of the Votkinsk missile plant in Russia. By contrast, New START imposes an effective, but not overly burdensome, verification regime. The number of onsite inspections is reduced to 18 per year, with 10 at operational bases and eight at other locations. This should be sufficient for ef- fective verification. It should also be noted that the number of Russian fa- cilities requiring inspection would be halved, from 70 under START I to 35. Access to telemetry is to be re- duced and “discriminatory” provisions related to mobile ICBMs removed. In addition, there will be significant, but reduced, exchanges of data and the Votkinsk moni- toring facility has been closed. At the same time, a creative new provision to improve verification is the requirement that each ICBM, SLBM and heavy bomber be tagged with a unique identifier. Criticism of New START on verification grounds is thus rather curious: SORT had no verification regime at all (beyond na- tional technical means, of course), yet it was approved, 95-0, by the Senate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the New START Treaty, 14-4, but it proved to be surprisingly controversial dur- ing the spirited debate. In addition to verification issues, Republican opposition focused on the seemingly innocuous statements in the preamble re- garding the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms. The committee report declares that “fur- ther limitations on the missile defense capabilities of the United States are not in the national security interest of the United States.” Given that further reductions beyond those in New START will almost certainly have to involve some (at least temporary) resolution of the offense-defense relationship, complications lie ahead. The SFRC also laid down a marker that strategic-range systems with conventional warheads should not be constrained, setting up another likely future conflict with the Russians. Future Reductions There is a widespread expectation, confirmed by the Nuclear Posture Review, that further deep reductions are on the way. This has been urged by the “Four States- men” — George Shultz, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn — and has led to important studies on how this can be done by the Hoover Institution, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Stimson Center, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Carnegie Endowment and others. It is thus surprising that the modest reductions under New START are scheduled to be carried out over seven years, which would take us beyond the end of a second Obama administration. It is also somewhat puzzling that the treaty itself does not promise further reductions, or even negotiations, aside from a vague reference in the preamble to “expanding this process in the future, in- cluding to a multilateral approach.” A major problem standing in the way of further re- ductions is what to do about anti-ballistic missile systems. F O C U S With arms control front and center and quite exciting once again, there are good opportunities for FSOs to make these issues part of their career path.