The Treaty Is MAD New START revives the policy of mutually assured destruction. The nuclear-weapons treaty President Obama has negotiated with the Russians may help him make America’s erstwhile Cold War adversary happy, but it won’t help protect us from the rogue nations that threaten the United States today. If ratified, the New START treaty would force the U.S. to agree to strategic-nuclear-weapons parity with the direct descendant of a nation that threatened our country’s existence for decades. Who would have thought in the year 2010 the United States would be renewing its Cold War–era policy of mutually assured destruction with Russia?MAD was a frightening policy that kept two superpowers paralyzed in a nuclear game of chicken. Both countries knew they would be destroyed if they attacked first, and so neither country attacked. But it’s not a one-on-one game anymore. The U.S. faces threats from China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea in addition to Russia, and the treaty will have no effect on the nuclear-arms-building capabilities of these countries. And New START could hamper our ability to improve our missile-defense system — leaving us unable to destroy more than a handful of missiles at a time and vulnerable to attacks from around the globe. Additionally, the treaty favors Russia when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons, which are developed for use on the battlefield. Russia’s stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, which can be affixed to rockets, submarines, and bomber planes, outnumbers the United States’ by a ratio of 10:1. These are not covered by the treaty — New START covers only strategic, long-range, high-yield nuclear weapons — leaving Russia able to keep its current advantage and produce more of these weapons at will. New START also fails on another important front: It doesn’t recognize the fact that Russia and the United States play very different roles in the world. Russia is a threat to many and a protector of none. The United States, on the other hand, is a threat to none and a protector of many. More than 30 nations, many in the former Soviet bloc, depend on the U.S. for their security. The New START treaty does not reflect that obligation. It ignores it. It’s no secret that the Russians do not want the United States or her allies to be protected by missile defense, and believe that New START forbids further development of missile defense. Last December, in the midst of the treaty’s negotiations, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, “By building such an umbrella over themselves, our partners [the U.S.] could feel themselves fully secure and will do whatever they want, which upsets the balance and the aggressiveness immediately increases in real politics and economics.” After the treaty was signed, the Russians effectively declared victory on the matter. Their government issued a statement that the treaty “can operate and be viable only if the United States refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.” President Obama insists this is not the case, but he and the Russians can’t have it both ways: New START either permits the United States to expand its missile-defense capability or does not. The treaty’s negotiating records would provide some much-needed clarity. The Obama administration, however, is refusing to provide them to the Senate. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed a request for them during a recent Senate Foreign Relations hearing. She claimed that negotiating records haven’t been provided “going back to, I think, President Washington.” This is not accurate; precedent exists for giving the Senate access to review these records. At the request of Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), negotiating records were provided to the Senate for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union. What is the administration trying to hide? No action should be taken toward ratifying the New START treaty until the White House provides these documents. The ability to protect ourselves and our allies is not an insignificant matter to be hidden away. It wasn’t long ago that Russia was taking hostile action against our friend Georgia and wielding its energy as a weapon against its neighbors. Even with those events in recent memory, Foreign Relations chairman Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is ushering the treaty through the Senate, could not fathom why the United States would want the ability to defeat Russian missiles. During the same hearing at which Clinton brushed aside the request for the negotiating records, I asked Kerry, “Is it not desirable for us to have a missile-defense system that renders their threat useless?” He said, “I don’t personally think so, no.” In his March 1983 “Star Wars” speech, Ronald Reagan called upon members of the scientific community “to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” The goal of New START, by contrast, is to ensure that the U.S. and Russia have an equal capacity to destroy each other. Of course, the world has changed dramatically since Reagan gave that speech. Today, the United States must be vigilant about attacks that could come from many different points on the globe, not just Russia. Nations like Iran, Syria, and North Korea pose the greatest nuclear threat to the United States. New START dampens our ability to defend against missile attacks and makes America and her allies vulnerable to those rogue nations. It would be a mistake for the Senate to ratify it. — Jim DeMint is a U.S. senator from South Carolina. Letters from Republican Senators New STARTTreaty Ratification During Lame Duck SessionsPublished on December 9, 2010 by Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. and Anna LeutheuserWEBMEMO #3079President Obama has submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which he signed with Russia on April 8, 2010. But Congress currently sits in a lame duck session, one month after a significant election. The question has been raised: Has the United States Senate ever ratified a major treaty during a “lame duck” session of Congress? The Spirit of the Twentieth Amendment In 1933, three-quarters of the states ratified the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution—often referred to as the “Lame Duck Amendment”—the main purpose of which was to dramatically reduce the period between an election for national offices and the time when the newly elected individuals take office. While recognizing that such sessions were necessary under extraordinary circumstances, proponents of the Amendment argued that laws made by lame duck sessions were less democratically legitimate because those laws were promulgated by individuals different from those chosen by a popular election immediately preceding the session.[1] In cases where there were changes in the control of Congress or the presidency, significant binding actions—such as the ratification of treaties—may violate the principle of the consent of the governed. The Twentieth Amendment established the current dates of federal office terms and consequently made possible the modern congressional “lame duck” session between the election in November and the new Members’ swearing in on the third day of January. Such sessions can occur only for numerous reasons resulting from specific actions by the sitting Congress or President.[2] There were numerous such sessions during World War II and the early Cold War (with six in the eight Congresses between 1940 and 1954), but they were sparse for long stretches of time after that. However, since 1994, eight of the last nine Congresses have also called for lame duck sessions, reflecting the evolution of their increased use for ordinary purposes. Since 1933, there have been a total of 18 lame duck sessions, including the current one. Lame Duck Sessions Since 1933
A treaty is “an Agreement, league, or contract between two or more nations or sovereigns, formally signed by commissioners properly authorized, and solemnly ratified by the several sovereigns or the supreme power of each state.”[4] The State Department maintains a comprehensive listing of all agreements and treaties currently in force.[5] While considerable research would be required to establish definitively that no treaty has ever been ratified by a lame duck session, it is of note that current research efforts have yet to find any such treaty. Below is a list of 34 significant United States treaties from 1940 (the year of the first lame duck session after ratification of the Twentieth Amendment) to the present compiled from multiple sources (including the State Department). The first date is the year in which the treaty was signed, and the parenthetical date is the day that it was ratified by the U.S. Senate. Major U.S. Treaties Since 1940
Treaties v. Executive Agreements The Senate date of treaty ratification cross-checked with the dates of each lame duck session of Congress confirms the general assertion that no major treaty has ever been ratified by the Senate during a lame duck session of Congress. Numerous agreements and some treaties have been signed or entered into force during a lame duck session. Note, for instance, that the lame duck session of the 103rd Congress (1994) passed legislation implementing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the lame duck session of the 109th Congress (2006) passed the United States–India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. Both were major acts of legislation based on executive agreements, not treaties. Both executive agreements and treaties are binding in the realm of international law, but only treaties are ratified by the Senate[6]and have constitutional status.[7] While Congress can approve executive agreements, Presidents have often issued executive agreements without congressional approval. Unprecedented The recent midterm elections created significant ramifications for passing New START during the lame duck session. The ratification of New START by a lame duck Senate would not only ignore the message sent by voters in November but also break a significant precedent, consistent with the principle of consent, maintained by Presidents and Congresses since the passage of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933. Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. , is Director of, and Anna Leutheuser is a Research Assistant in, the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Matthew Kuchem, an intern in the Simon Center, assisted with the research for this report. [1]See John Copeland Nagle, “Presidential Terms,” in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, pp. 419–421. [2]Richard S. Beth and Momoko Soltis, “Lame Duck Sessions of Congress, 1935–2008 (74th-110th Congresses),” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, March 2, 2009, athttp://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*P%3CC%3C%23%20%20%20%0A(December 8, 2010). [3] Ibid. [4]Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Pub., 1990), p. 1502. It is important to emphasize the distinction between a treaty and agreements or other understandings that have neither the constitutional requirement for ratification nor the resulting constitutional standing under the laws of the United States. [5]United States Department of State, “Treaties in Force: A List of Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States In Force on January 1, 2010,” at http://www.state.gov/documents-/organization/143863.pdf (December 8, 2010). [6]U.S. Constitution, art. 2, sec. 2, cl. 2. [7]U.S. Constitution, art. 6, cl. 2. |
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
START TREATY
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