Gates to Brief Senate on New START Treaty

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is slated to go to Capitol Hill today to brief the full Senate on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed last month, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters today.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also are slated to attend the briefing, he said.

“As demonstrated by that briefing team, this treaty has broad interagency support,” Morrell said.

Obama and Medvedev signed the so-called “New START” treaty April 8, with both countries pledging to reduce their deployed, strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles. The treaty sets new limits on ready-to-use, long-range nuclear weapons and establishes comprehensive verification procedures for both countries to verify which weapons the other possesses.

The goal of today’s briefing is to provide senators with an overview of the treaty and to answer questions, Morrell said, noting the briefing is closed to the media.

In a podcast recorded earlier this week, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the treaty “significant.”

Should the treaty be ratified by the United States and Russia, “it will result in a reduction of nuclear weapons,” the chairman noted.

From a military standpoint, the United States will retain a strong nuclear capability based on the triad of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines, Mullen said. “That is sustained,” he added.

“We’re still able to deter; we’re able to sustain a very strong nuclear triad,” the chairman said. “I’m very supportive of how the treaty came out.”

The proposed treaty is a step toward Obama’s long-term goal to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, Mullen added.

NOTE The following text is a quote:

http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59241

Mullen Calls Treaty Ratification ‘Right Thing to Do’

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2010 – The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia is “the right thing for us to do,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, who spoke for all of the service chiefs during his testimony, urged the senators to vote to ratify the agreement.

Mullen said the conclusions and recommendations that grew from the Nuclear Posture Review informed the negotiations with Russia.

“The chiefs and I believe the new START treaty achieves important and necessary balance between three critical aims,” Mullen said. “It allows us to retain a strong and flexible American nuclear deterrent. It … strengthens openness and transparency in our relationship with Russia. It also demonstrates our national commitment to reducing the worldwide risk of nuclear incidents resulting from the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

The chairman stressed that the treaty’s central limits allows each side the freedom to determine its own force mix. The treaty also provides the United States with the flexibility to field the right force structure to meet the nation’s needs.

“We plan to retain our triad of bombers, ballistic-missile submarines and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in sufficient diversity and numbers to assure strategic stability between ourselves and the Russian Federation,” Mullen said. “We will also maintain sufficient capability to deter other nuclear states.”

Mullen said the treaty provides an array of verification measures to ensure compliance.

“This treaty is also a critical element in the president’s agenda for reducing nuclear risks to the United States, our allies and partners and the wider international community,” the chairman said.

START is important by itself, and should also be viewed in wider context, Mullen told the senators.

“It makes meaningful reductions in the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals while strengthening strategic stability and U.S. national security,” he said. “Coupled with the administration’s clear commitment to prudently invest in our aging nuclear infrastructure and in nuclear-warhead life extension programs, this treaty is a very meaningful step forward.”

Biographies:
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen
Related Articles:
Gates, Clinton Urge Senate to Ratify Nuke Treaty

NOTE The following text is a quote:

http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=59239

Gates, Clinton Urge Senate to Ratify Nuke Treaty

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 18, 2010 – Saying the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty strengthens America’s defenses, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today urged the Senate to ratify the pact between the United States and Russia.

Gates testified about the treaty before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen lent their voices at the hearing in support of the treaty.

The treaty allows the Defense Department to maintain a strong and effective nuclear deterrent while modernizing the weapons to ensure that they are safe, secure and reliable, Gates said.

“This treaty reduces the strategic nuclear forces of our two nations in a manner that strengthens the strategic stability of our relationship and protects the security of the American people and our allies,” the secretary said. “America’s nuclear arsenal remains a vital pillar of our national security, deterring potential adversaries and reassuring allies and partners.”

Under the treaty, the United States has an upper boundary of 1,550 deployed warheads; up to 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable heavy bombers; and up to 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments, Gates said.

“Under this treaty, we retain the power to determine the composition of our force structure, allowing the United States complete flexibility to deploy, maintain and modernize our strategic nuclear forces in a manner that best protects our national-security interests,” he said.

The Defense Department will retain 240 deployed SLBMs, distributed among 14 submarines, each of which will have 20 launch tubes. This is the most survivable leg of the triad, and reducing the number of missiles carried on each submarine from 24 to 20 will facilitate Navy planning for the Ohio-class submarine replacement, Gates explained.

Manned bombers provide flexibility to the mix, and the United States will retain up to 60 deployed heavy bombers, including all 18 operational B-2s. At the same time, the Air Force is planning for a long-range strike replacement and plans to convert a number of B-52Hs to a conventional-only role.

“Finally, the U.S. will retain up to 420 deployed single-warhead Minuteman 3 ICBMs at our current three missile bases,” Gates said.

Clinton stressed that the treaty does not affect U.S. missile-defense plans.
“Nothing in the new START treaty constrains our missile-defense efforts,” she said. “Russia has issued a unilateral statement on missile defense, expressing its views. We have not agreed to this view, and we are not bound by this unilateral statement.”

In fact, the United States intends to continue improving and deploying the missile-defense systems, Clinton said.

The new START does not restrict U.S. ability to develop and deploy prompt global strike or prompt conventional strike capabilities that could attack targets anywhere on the globe in an hour or less, Gates said.

“In my view, a key contribution of this treaty is its provision for a strong verification regime,” the defense secretary said. “The treaty provides a firm basis for monitoring Russia’s compliance with its treaty obligations while also providing important insights into the size and composition of Russian strategic forces.”

The treaty allows each party to conduct up to 18 on-site inspections each year at operating bases for ICBMs, SSBNs and nuclear-capable heavy bombers, as well as storage facilities, test ranges and conversion and elimination facilities. The agreement establishes a database that will be initially populated 45 days after the treaty enters into force and updated every six months thereafter that will help to provide the United States with a rolling overall picture of Russia’s strategic offensive forces, the secretary said.

The new treaty also allows both parties to track the movement and changes in status of the strategic offensive arms covered by the treaty. Each ICBM, SLBM, and nuclear-capable bomber will have a unique identifier.

Finally, the treaty provides for noninterference with national technical means of verification, such as reconnaissance satellites, ground stations and ships. “This provides us with an independent method of gathering information that can assist in validating data declarations,” Gates said.

But to be an effective deterrent, nuclear weapons must be safe, secure and reliable, the defense secretary said, and the U.S. nuclear arsenal requires reinvigoration.

“That is, our infrastructure and our science, technology and engineering base,” he said. “To this end, the Department of Defense is transferring $4.6 billion to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration through fiscal year 2015. This transfer will assist in funding critical nuclear weapons life-extension programs and efforts to modernize the nuclear weapons infrastructure.”

Biographies:
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Robert M. Gates
Related Articles:
U.S., Russia Agree to New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.