In the midst of debates about America’s decline, one fact is unchallenged: the United States possesses the most powerful military on the planet. Unfortunately, the United States’ increasingly inability to develop and acquire military hardware on-time and within budget is threatening the size and capability of America’s armed forces. If the Department of Defense does not significantly reform its acquisition processes now, in two or three decades the American military will likely be significantly less effective than the current force.

The military’s efforts to purchase sophisticated weaponry have never been free of flaws, with weapons programs frequently encountering some combination of cost overruns and production delays. For example, the F-111 program in the 1960s was originally intended to produce a joint fighter for the Navy and Air Force, but the Navy withdrew from the project because the aircraft failed to meet its specifications. Similarly, cost overruns on Black Hawk helicopters and Patriot missiles prompted passage of the 1982 Nunn-McCurdy Act, which requires the Secretary of Defense to notify Congress when acquisition programs exceed certain cost growth thresholds. However, even with such historical context, the list of recent acquisition failures is extensive and shocking.

Three separate major aircraft acquisition programs have been mired in chaos. Expensive technical difficulties reduced the purchase order of F-22 Raptors from an originally planned 750 to only 187. The cost of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has risen over 80 percent, making it the United States’ most expensive weapons program, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has threatened to cancel the troubled project. Finally, the Air Force’s efforts to replace its decades-old aerial refueling tankers have been troubled by corruption and contractor protests.

The Pentagon’s acquisition meltdown has not been limited to aircraft. In 2009, Secretary Gates canceled the Army’s Future Combat Systems program, which had failed to produce any of the eight major planned vehicles despite years of research and development at a cost of almost $200 billion. The V-22 Osprey entered service in the mid-2000s at more than twice its originally estimated cost while the amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was canceled in January due to massive cost overruns. The Navy has canceled its next-generation CG(X) cruiser and limited its acquisition of DDG-1000 (Zumwalt) class destroyers to three ships at a total cost of about $3 billion per ship. The smaller Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has more than doubled in cost, and the lead ship of one of the two LCS classes developed a six-inch crack in its hull during sea trials. The Coast Guard’s “Deepwater” fleet overhaul has also encountered numerous technical difficulties and cost overruns, including major cracks in refitted ships that then had to be removed from service.

All of these acquisition failures serve to weaken America’s military. Cost overruns force the military to either purchase fewer vehicles and weapons or cut funds from other parts of their budgets. Production delays present the services with a difficult dilemma: the choice between temporarily weakening the force by retiring old equipment as scheduled or paying additional costs to maintain aging and increasingly unreliable weaponry. Canceling acquisitions late in their development also leaves the services with no clear replacement for aging equipment, requiring them to either purchase older technologies or invest large sums in service life extension programs while organizing a new acquisition program from square one. For example, even before the Future Combat Systems program was canceled, the Army anticipated spending $2 billion annually on maintenance and upgrades for aging equipment.

As a result of these failures, the United States is left with a military that is not only smaller but also less reliable and more difficult to maintain. In the mid-1980’s, the Air Force spent $7 billion (inflation-adjusted) to purchase over 200 fighter/attack aircraft each year, but it spent about $5 billion annually between 2003 and 2009 to purchase only about 20 F-22s per year. In addition, one report found that about 70 percent of Army systems failed reliability requirements in operational testing between 1997 and 2006. Compounded over time, the unplanned shrinking of the military and the unreliability of new equipment will undermine its ability to complete its missions.

The responsibility for this grim situation lies with both the contractors themselves and the military’s approach to acquisitions. Only a handful of large companies, such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, are capable of undertaking massive military programs. But the quality of their work has repeatedly proven questionable.

Troublingly, instead of focusing on engineering, these companies consistently seek to exploit the government by playing to Congress. According to opensecrets.org, these four companies together spent nearly $60 million on lobbying in 2010. Contractors also often strategically distribute their manufacturing facilities and subcontracts to secure Congressional support. For example, Lockheed Martin inefficiently distributed subcontracts for various F-22 components to 44 states. While such behavior is unsurprising for profit-seeking corporations and unlikely to change, the current acquisition crisis would no doubt improve if major contractors paid more attention to their vital role in national security and less attention to maximizing their income from tax dollars.

The government nonetheless bears a significant share of responsibility for the current state of military acquisitions. Improved oversight of contractors would help ensure that projects proceed smoothly. The Pentagon’s implementation of Total System Performance Responsibility in the mid-1990s diminished oversight of several major acquisition programs. For example, the program manager of an Army missile program had no contractual authority to require preliminary tests, which the contractor skipped, and the missile ultimately failed in full development testing.

The government should also impose strict schedule cutoffs and/or cost ceilings at various steps in the development, testing, and production of military hardware that would either automatically cancel the project or require contractors to bear 100 percent of additional costs. Such an approach would strengthen contractors’ incentives to deliver on their promises and would cancel troublesome programs early, before substantial costs are borne and the services are left with no replacement for equipment due for retirement. The Nunn-McCurdy Act is designed to serve a similar purpose. It only requires, however, that the Secretary of Defense justify over-budget programs to Congress, which rarely cancels any project. Specification adjustments for equipment under development must also be minimized, as demands for added capabilities often cause significant cost increases and delays.

On a deeper level, the military needs to reassess its approach to acquisition programs. Many of the troubled recent acquisition programs have sought to combine various capabilities into one system. The Pentagon’s acquisition projects end up sounding like something out of the imaginings of a schoolboy or a science fiction writer rather than evolutionary advancements of military technology. For example, the F-22 was designed to be not only an unmatched air superiority fighter but also to possess stealth, ground strike, and reconnaissance capabilities; the Osprey was designed as a helicopter-fixed wing plane hybrid with adjustable rotors.

Rather than selecting specifications for its acquisitions based on clearly defined strategic goals and planned missions, the Pentagon seems to embrace a philosophy of putting as many high-tech capabilities into each piece of equipment as possible. The Pentagon has not yet realized that these systems, prone to long delays and major technical difficulties, are too expensive to sustain forces at current levels. In an era where small-scale, low-tech conflict is more likely than great power war, it must realistically assess the need for sophisticated, high-cost weapons programs. At the same time, the military must keep in mind that the strategic environment can change drastically in the years or even decades it takes to develop such sophisticated weapons systems.

The Department of Defense must ultimately make a choice between maintaining an extremely high-tech but smaller military or a larger but less technologically sophisticated force, as it has proven incapable of acquiring the weaponry for a military that is both large and futuristic. While the superior technology of newer systems may compensate to some extent for lesser numbers, the military seems headed towards a smaller, unreliable force filled with equipment that fails to live up to grandiose expectations. A more sober evaluation of the military’s needs and a realistic skepticism of cost estimates and promised capabilities will become increasingly important as federal deficits tighten the defense budget.

If the current failures in the development and acquisition process persist, the United States will find itself pouring massive sums of money into its military without possessing the capability to deploying large numbers of ships, planes, and tanks. Winning the wars of the future begins with the battle to build tomorrow’s military—a battle the United States is currently losing.

Christmas came early this year for policy wonks when Wikileaks released a treasure trove of American diplomatic cables, some of which shed new light on the current state of international relations. Commentators have endlessly debated the ethics of Julian Assange’s actions and the consequences of this release for the United States’ ability to conduct foreign policy, but the fallout over Wikileaks has largely overlooked how this incident illustrates the government’s need to seriously re-evaluate its policies on controlling information and protecting whistleblowers.

While the scope of damage to American diplomacy will only be revealed in time, there can be no doubt that Wikileaks’ release has undermined faith in America’s ability to protect information. When a low-ranking soldier like Pfc. Bradley Manning can access 250,000 diplomatic cables and other classified materials, burn them onto CDs, and carry them out of a secure facility, there is an inherent flaw in the government’s information controls.

Manning had unrestricted access to two massive networks of all-source secret and top secret information, which is typical for someone in his job. Efforts to avoid repeating pre-9/11 failures of communication within the intelligence community and the increasing importance of broad intelligence sources to modern warfare motivated this broad access for intelligence analysts. Manning may have been able to avoid detection by merely deleting server logs recording his activities, and a system designed to identify suspicious activity on classified servers covers only 60 percent of Department of Defense computers.

The DoD now requires that information can be transferred between classified and unclassified computer systems only in a supervised setting, but the DoD and other government agencies should also expand monitoring systems to all computers handling classified information and ensure that server logs cannot be deleted.  While closing the holes Manning exploited should be a first step in improving protection of classified information, anything less than a government-wide review seems unlikely to diagnose different weaknesses in classified computer systems.

In addition to raising concerns about the U.S. government’s ability to protect classified information, the Wikileaks case illustrates another serious problem with current government policy: over-classification. Many of the leaked cables merely confirmed information that was already in the public realm, thus raising an interesting question: why was the information classified in the first place? In effect, by erring on the side of caution and protecting material that posed no threat to American security or interests if publicly known, the government has damaged the credibility of its classification procedures.

Under the current system, information that would be embarrassing or unpleasantly complicating if released is placed in the same category as truly dangerous and damaging knowledge. The government also restricts access to a wide range of “controlled unclassified information,” which is not technically classified but is nonetheless restricted in its distribution because of concern over the potential security risk of its release. Misuse of classified or controlled unclassified labels feeds a public perception that the government is merely trying to restrict access to information without any good reason. This lack of public faith is illustrated by the hacker group Anonymous’ recent invocation of “freedom of information” as a rallying cry for its attacks against “enemies” of Wikileaks. If the government cannot become much more judicious in deciding what information to classify, this problem of public perception will only worsen.

Even if the government is more careful in choosing what information to protect, there will always be room for abuse of classification powers. As the release of the Pentagon Papers clearly illustrated, the government is not above drastically misleading the public on life-and-death issues. Leaks can serve as an essential tool for exposing questionable activities, bringing serious problems to light, sparking policy debate, or ensuring that citizens are capable of making informed judgments about the activities of their government. However, leaks are worrisome because what information is released is ultimately at the sole discretion of the leaker, whose judgment may not be sound.

To find a balance between a government stranglehold on information and a porous classification system prone to extensive information leaks, the federal government must address the woeful state of its systems for categorizing information, managing internal complaints, and protecting whistleblowers. The current weakness of these systems is vividly illustrated by the case of Robert MacLean, a former federal air marshal. In 2003, the TSA decided to remove air marshals from long-distance flights—the type of flights targeted by the 9/11 hijackers—in a cost-cutting measure. MacLean unsuccessfully raised concerns about this approach to TSA managers and a field agent of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General. MacLean finally brought his case to the media, and Congressional outrage promptly led the TSA to reverse its decision. However, MacLean was fired after his release was retroactively categorized as Sensitive Security Information, a type of controlled unclassified information.

As demonstrated by MacLean’s case, the current lack of internal protections and procedures for whistleblowers makes undesirable public disclosures more likely. When higher-ranking officials seem unwilling to solve problems or actually fail to address concerns that have been raised, employees are more likely to air grievances in public. In fact, instant messaging transcripts show that Bradley Manning viewed an officer’s refusal to address abuses by Iraqi police as a major turning point in his decision to leak documents. Furthermore, when wrongdoing goes unchecked, it is likely to worsen to the point that someone will feel morally obligated to blow the whistle. Insufficient avenues and protections for whistleblowers consequently curtail internal reports of moderate wrongdoing while increasing the odds that severe abuses will be leaked to the public. If someone within the Army had listened to Bradley Manning’s concerns, 250,000 diplomatic cables might still be secure.

President Obama already made a move in the right direction on November 4th by signing Executive Order 13566, which imposes government-wide standards for controlled unclassified information. Congress also appeared on course to move towards enhancing protections for government whistleblowers after both the House and Senate passed different versions of The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2010 in December. However, since the Senate version included protections for intelligence community whistleblowers while the House version did not, a version excluding intelligence community protections was returned to the Senate for passage, where it was killed by an anonymous Senator’s hold. Ironically, critics of the bill argued that it would lead to more Wikileaks-type disclosures.

What the Wikileaks incident revealed, more than anything, is a crisis of confidence in the government’s control of information. The release itself has raised doubts among foreign partners about the United States’ ability to guard sensitive information, and the response to Wikileaks has revealed a significant number of people who believe that the American government abuses its classification powers to keep its corruption and crimes away from criticism. To regain foreign confidence, America must improve its safeguards of classified information. To restore the faith of the American public, the government must become more judicious in assigning classified or controlled unclassified information labels while enhancing internal whistleblowing procedures and protections.

If the government merely tightens its control over information, the public will become less likely to believe that the government ever has valid reasons for protecting information. In making sure that people like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange cannot ever again become the overlords of America’s classified information, the government needs to make sure that people like Robert MacLean have a way for their voice to be heard before they feel a need to go public. Failure to act will expose the United States to future disclosures that will complicate its ability to conduct foreign policy. It will take time for foreign partners’ broken confidence in the American government’s protection of information to recover, but whether it recovers quickly or continues deteriorating depends on how the government responds to its current situation.

This past April, President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia met in Prague to sign “New Start,” a bilateral nuclear arms-control agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) that expired at the end of 2009. Although the treaty has been credited by some observers as Obama’s most tangible foreign policy achievement, its ratification is less than certain in the face of substantial opposition from prominent Republicans, including Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Failure to ratify New Start would set back nuclear arms control efforts while creating a new element of uncertainty in US-Russian relations that would lead to a substantially less stable world.
New Start is fairly similar to START I. Both treaties limit each nation’s arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons and establish procedures for verifying treaty compliance. New Start differs from the original treaty in three primary areas: it lowers the limit on each nation’s strategic nuclear arsenal, imposes fewer verification measures, and adjusts rules for counting nuclear weapons. In spite of the general similarity between New Start and START I, which was ratified by a 93 to 6 vote in the US Senate and counted John McCain among its supporters, critics of the new treaty have found no shortage of reasons to oppose it.

Opponents’ criticism of New Start has generally fallen into four main areas. Critics argue, first, that the treaty will unacceptably restrict the development of American missile defense systems. Second, its omission of any limits on smaller, non-strategic nuclear weapons, in which Russia possesses a numerical advantage over the United States, has also drawn fire. Third, some opponents claim that the treaty’s verification measures are inadequate and question whether Russia will uphold New Start. Finally, treaty skeptics insist that New Start cannot be ratified unless the United States simultaneously makes an adequate commitment to modernizing its nuclear weapons. None of these criticisms, either alone or in tandem, are valid reasons for the Senate to refuse to ratify New Start.

Critics of New Start vastly exaggerate the restrictions the agreement places on American missile defense systems. The treaty’s preamble states that the United States and Russia recognize “the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms.” This statement, effectively a diplomatic gesture to assuage Russian concerns about American missile defense systems, is not a binding treaty provision. Russian diplomats could argue that further American missile defense plans would violate the spirit of the New Start preamble, but they could not argue that the United States is legally barred from developing missile defenses. Treaty opponents also complain that one part of the treaty prohibits the placement of missile interceptors in existing ballistic missile silos. It is important to realize that American missile defense plans do not involve missile silo conversion, and Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified that the high cost of redesigning interceptors for existing silos would actually make silo conversion “a major setback to the development of [American] missile defenses.” New Start simply places no meaningful restrictions on the United States’ plans to develop missile defense systems.

The treaty skeptics’ argument that New Start is dangerous because it does not address smaller non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons is counterintuitive. Certainly, Russia does possess more tactical nuclear weapons than the United States. However, neither START I nor any other U.S.-Russia arms control treaty contained limits on tactical weapons, so New Start will merely preserve the status quo in this matter. Furthermore, the new treaty was intended as a quick, uncontroversial replacement for START I that would merely be the prelude to a more comprehensive nuclear arms control agreement in the near future. By souring diplomatic relations between the two nations, refusing to ratify New Start would probably reduce the chances of the United States and Russia negotiating an agreement to limit tactical weapons.

Opponents of New Start further argue that Russia cannot be trusted to uphold the treaty and that the treaty’s verification measures will be inadequate to ensure Russian compliance. Granted, a State Department report released this summer found that Russia violated some of the verification provisions of START I. This report, however, also concluded that Russia upheld the “central limits” of START I. Given Russia’s record of general compliance with START I and the diplomatic costs Russia might suffer from committing major violations of New Start, it is highly unlikely that Russia would exceed the treaty’s limit on strategic warheads or largely ignore verification measures. Under New Start, the United States would have much more information about Russian nuclear weapons than it would otherwise have and so would be better able to detect expansions of Russia’s arsenal. Russia must retire much of its aging arsenal and has been unable to produce more than a small number of new strategic weapons over the past decade, so any significant, illicit expansion of Russia’s strategic arsenal would take years to achieve and be hard to miss. The United States would simply be much better off having some degree of information on Russia’s arsenal than it would be having no information at all, even if this does come with the cost of dismantling some American warheads.

Finally, a number of New Start skeptics insist that the treaty cannot be ratified without an accompanying commitment by the Obama administration to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal. However, this issue lacks any logical connection to New Start ratification. Considering the importance of the treaty to ensuring continued arms control negotiations, the Senate cannot afford to hold its ratification hostage to a largely unrelated policy debate.
Opponents of New Start ultimately seem to be criticizing the treaty on the grounds that American negotiators were unable to dictate the treaty terms. However, instead of asking whether New Start is ideal, Senators need to be asking whether the United States will be more secure with it than without it. If the treaty is ratified, the US will be entitled to information on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and have means of verifying this information. The ratification of New Start would also serve as a stepping stone to a more comprehensive arms control agreement that could address issues such as tactical weapons. At the very least, New Start could be expected to continue the fifteen years of nuclear arms cuts and strategic stability brought about by START I.

The future will be far less certain if the Senate does not ratify the treaty. Concerned about its ability to keep its arsenal and intent on maintaining equivalence with the United States, Russia could conceivably agree to concessions in a new treaty. An American refusal to ratify New Start, however, could also enrage Russia and vastly complicate any further efforts to negotiate a new nuclear arms control agreement. With fraying diplomatic relations, no nuclear arms control agreement, and no clear prospect for such a treaty, the United States and Russia could find themselves gradually expanding their nuclear arsenals and initiating a new nuclear arms race. In short, failure to ratify New Start would make the world less stable and more dangerous.
New Start is ultimately too important to American national security and international stability for the Senate to not ratify. Failing to ratify the treaty would be a major foreign policy blunder that could seriously damage diplomatic relations with Russia and even open the door for a renewed nuclear arms race. Unless the Senate wishes to create new challenges to American security and international stability, it must ratify New Start.

On April 8, President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev met in Prague to sign a follow-on agreement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired in December 2009. Like START I, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) sets limits on strategic nuclear weapons, specifies how these weapons are to be counted, and includes provisions for verifying compliance with the terms of the treaty. By demonstrating that the United States and Russia are committed to the principle of nuclear arms control and capable of cooperating with each other on this issue, the treaty potentially sets the stage for more ambitious nuclear arms reduction measures in the future. However, the treaty itself is a cautious agreement reflecting unfortunate political realities, and does little to bring the world closer to eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons.

New START limits both Russia and the United States to 700 total deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers, collectively known as “delivery vehicles.” Because a single delivery vehicle can carry multiple warheads to different targets, the treaty sets a limit of 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed delivery vehicles. The treaty further limits the U.S. and Russia to no more than 800 combined deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles.

While these limits will require some reductions in the number of delivery vehicles and deployed warheads both countries possess, a change in the counting of warheads will allow both countries to cut hundreds of them on paper with no actual reductions. Under START I, each deployed delivery vehicle was counted as carrying a specified number of warheads, regardless of how many warheads were actually equipped on the missile or bomber. These counting rules were based on the fear that, in the event of a crisis, warheads would be added to delivery vehicles and thereby significantly alter the nuclear balance of power.

New START abandons these rules, instead only counting the number of warheads actually equipped on deployed missiles. In addition, strategic bombers each count as one warhead, regardless of how many warheads they are actually carrying. New START allows both sides to claim substantial reductions from previously reported warhead levels without decommissioning delivery vehicles or placing warheads in storage. For example, the Russian strategic bomber force, capable of launching over 800 nuclear warheads, will now count as only 75 warheads under the new rules. These new rules reflect the evolution in the Russian-American relationship since the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the Cold War over, neither country appears concerned about a surprise attack involving warheads being rapidly loaded onto existing delivery vehicles.

The new treaty’s more relaxed verification measures, designed to be less costly and intrusive, also reflect this improvement in Russian-American relations. The treaty forbids concealing weapons from satellite surveillance, and it allows for on-site inspections to check the accuracy of reported weapons counts. But unlike START I, which allowed each country to maintain a permanent monitoring mission at the other’s weapon production facility, the new treaty removes permanent on-site monitoring. When the United States stopped manufacturing new nuclear weapons in the early 1990s, Russia withdrew its suddenly useless monitoring mission, but because Russia has maintained its production of new nuclear weapons, an American mission continued to monitor Russian production facilities until START I expired. The original provision for permanent monitoring consequently came to be seen as unfair and politically toxic in Russia, leading to the removal of this provision in New START. This change and other moves towards a less costly verification regime are reasonable given improved Russian-American relations, though they have the potential to raise some concerns in the Senate during the treaty ratification process.

New START effectively continues START I with minor modifications, but the issues left unaddressed in the treaty are almost as notable as its provisions. The new treaty only concerns the number of strategic nuclear weapons held by each nation, completely overlooking thousands of tactical nuclear weapons which are distinguished by their shorter ranges, smaller explosive yields, and intended use against military targets in a combat theater. Nonetheless, some of these tactical weapons are more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Both the United States and Russia have undertaken voluntary efforts to reduce their arsenals of tactical weapons, but international agreements continue to neglect this important area.

The new agreement also fails to address NATO expansion and American missile defense systems. These issues are necessarily related to decreasing the threat posed by nuclear weapons because they have led Russia to maintain a substantial nuclear arsenal. Russia successfully pressed for the treaty’s preamble to include a statement recognizing the connection between offensive and defensive systems, but there is no mention of NATO. In addition, New START does not address the alert status of nuclear weapons, which can currently be launched within minutes of detecting an incoming nuclear missile—or, as almost occurred in 1995, a U.S.-Norwegian weather rocket.

Furthermore, the treaty largely deals with only deployed warheads and delivery vehicles. Although the measure limiting each country to 800 total deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles will require the United States and Russia to dismantle significant numbers of weapons kept in storage, it does not compel them to dismantle warheads or reduce their stockpiles of weapons-grade fissile materials that could be used for new weapons. Large stockpiles of non-deployed weapons and fissile materials, unnecessary for any legitimate national security purpose, are a security risk, because they increase the likelihood that terrorists will acquire a nuclear weapon or the fissile materials needed for creating a crude, radioactive “dirty bomb.”

To be fair, the negotiators appear to have done the best they could, considering the political challenges in both nations. Russia has loudly protested NATO expansion and American missile defense systems. Despite the improbability of a NATO-Russia war, much less one involving nuclear weapons, and the questionable effectiveness of current missile defense systems, such fears make Russia unwilling to allow large cuts. Russia’s heavy reliance on a nuclear deterrent to compensate for the degradation of its conventional forces only exacerbates this reluctance.

Cold War-era strategic calculations also continue to influence thinking on the American side. A number of Republican senators insist on the need for new nuclear weapons and oppose any mention of missile defense restrictions. Meanwhile, there is broad opposition to weapons cuts to levels that might require the U.S. to eliminate one leg of its strategic triad (intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines, and bombers). The logic behind these arguments is dubious at best. Programs extending the service life of existing nuclear weapons have proved effective in the past. Furthermore, missile defense systems, whatever their value, are under no threat from the vague provisions of New START. Finally, cutting one leg of the strategic triad would hardly undermine America’s nuclear deterrent, particularly considering the hardened state of nuclear missile silos and the relative invulnerability of nuclear submarines on patrol.

On the whole, New START is a modest, stopgap replacement for START I. While it is encouraging that the Obama administration was able to work with Russian leadership to ensure the continued presence of substantial arms-control agreements, the new treaty missed an opportunity to address a number of important issues in reducing the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Although New START demonstrates that the United States and Russia are at least minimally capable of working together on such issues and suggests the possibility that a more extensive agreement may eventually be reached, this treaty and the political circumstances that shaped it give little cause to believe that the world will be, as President Obama hopes, free of nuclear weapons anytime soon.

This past April, President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia met in Prague to sign “New Start,” a bilateral nuclear arms-control agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) that expired at the end of 2009. Although the treaty has been credited by some observers as Obama’s most tangible foreign policy achievement, its ratification is less than certain in the face of substantial opposition from prominent Republicans, including Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Failure to ratify New Start would set back nuclear arms control efforts while creating a new element of uncertainty in US-Russian relations that would lead to a substantially less stable world.

New Start is fairly similar to START I. Both treaties limit each nation’s arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons and establish procedures for verifying treaty compliance. New Start differs from the original treaty in three primary areas: it lowers the limit on each nation’s strategic nuclear arsenal, imposes fewer verification measures, and adjusts rules for counting nuclear weapons. In spite of the general similarity between New Start and START I, which was ratified by a 93 to 6 vote in the US Senate and counted John McCain among its supporters, critics of the new treaty have found no shortage of reasons to oppose it.

Opponents’ criticism of New Start has generally fallen into four main areas. Critics argue, first, that the treaty will unacceptably restrict the development of American missile defense systems. Second, its omission of any limits on smaller, non-strategic nuclear weapons, in which Russia possesses a numerical advantage over the United States, has also drawn fire. Third, some opponents claim that the treaty’s verification measures are inadequate and question whether Russia will uphold New Start. Finally, treaty skeptics insist that New Start cannot be ratified unless the United States simultaneously makes an adequate commitment to modernizing its nuclear weapons. None of these criticisms, either alone or in tandem, are valid reasons for the Senate to refuse to ratify New Start.
Critics of New Start vastly exaggerate the restrictions the agreement places on American missile defense systems. The treaty’s preamble states that the United States and Russia recognize “the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms.” This statement, effectively a diplomatic gesture to assuage Russian concerns about American missile defense systems, is not a binding treaty provision. Russian diplomats could argue that further American missile defense plans would violate the spirit of the New Start preamble, but they could not argue that the United States is legally barred from developing missile defenses. Treaty opponents also complain that one part of the treaty prohibits the placement of missile interceptors in existing ballistic missile silos. It is important to realize that American missile defense plans do not involve missile silo conversion, and Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, testified that the high cost of redesigning interceptors for existing silos would actually make silo conversion “a major setback to the development of [American] missile defenses.” New Start simply places no meaningful restrictions on the United States’ plans to develop missile defense systems.

The treaty skeptics’ argument that New Start is dangerous because it does not address smaller non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons is counterintuitive. Certainly, Russia does possess more tactical nuclear weapons than the United States. However, neither START I nor any other U.S.-Russia arms control treaty contained limits on tactical weapons, so New Start will merely preserve the status quo in this matter. Furthermore, the new treaty was intended as a quick, uncontroversial replacement for START I that would merely be the prelude to a more comprehensive nuclear arms control agreement in the near future. By souring diplomatic relations between the two nations, refusing to ratify New Start would probably reduce the chances of the United States and Russia negotiating an agreement to limit tactical weapons.

Opponents of New Start further argue that Russia cannot be trusted to uphold the treaty and that the treaty’s verification measures will be inadequate to ensure Russian compliance. Granted, a State Department report released this summer found that Russia violated some of the verification provisions of START I. This report, however, also concluded that Russia upheld the “central limits” of START I. Given Russia’s record of general compliance with START I and the diplomatic costs Russia might suffer from committing major violations of New Start, it is highly unlikely that Russia would exceed the treaty’s limit on strategic warheads or largely ignore verification measures. Under New Start, the United States would have much more information about Russian nuclear weapons than it would otherwise have and so would be better able to detect expansions of Russia’s arsenal. Russia must retire much of its aging arsenal and has been unable to produce more than a small number of new strategic weapons over the past decade, so any significant, illicit expansion of Russia’s strategic arsenal would take years to achieve and be hard to miss. The United States would simply be much better off having some degree of information on Russia’s arsenal than it would be having no information at all, even if this does come with the cost of dismantling some American warheads.

Finally, a number of New Start skeptics insist that the treaty cannot be ratified without an accompanying commitment by the Obama administration to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal. However, this issue lacks any logical connection to New Start ratification. Considering the importance of the treaty to ensuring continued arms control negotiations, the Senate cannot afford to hold its ratification hostage to a largely unrelated policy debate.

Opponents of New Start ultimately seem to be criticizing the treaty on the grounds that American negotiators were unable to dictate the treaty terms. However, instead of asking whether New Start is ideal, Senators need to be asking whether the United States will be more secure with it than without it. If the treaty is ratified, the US will be entitled to information on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and have means of verifying this information. The ratification of New Start would also serve as a stepping stone to a more comprehensive arms control agreement that could address issues such as tactical weapons. At the very least, New Start could be expected to continue the fifteen years of nuclear arms cuts and strategic stability brought about by START I.

The future will be far less certain if the Senate does not ratify the treaty. Concerned about its ability to keep its arsenal and intent on maintaining equivalence with the United States, Russia could conceivably agree to concessions in a new treaty. An American refusal to ratify New Start, however, could also enrage Russia and vastly complicate any further efforts to negotiate a new nuclear arms control agreement. With fraying diplomatic relations, no nuclear arms control agreement, and no clear prospect for such a treaty, the United States and Russia could find themselves gradually expanding their nuclear arsenals and initiating a new nuclear arms race. In short, failure to ratify New Start would make the world less stable and more dangerous.

New Start is ultimately too important to American national security and international stability for the Senate to not ratify. Failing to ratify the treaty would be a major foreign policy blunder that could seriously damage diplomatic relations with Russia and even open the door for a renewed nuclear arms race. Unless the Senate wishes to create new challenges to American security and international stability, it must ratify New Start.

When delegates from nations around the world gathered in Copenhagen last month for a conference on global climate change, President Obama prevented a total breakdown of negotiations by reaching a last minute agreement with leaders from Brazil, China, India, and South Africa. Although the resulting document provided national leaders the opportunity to claim progress in fighting climate change, in many respects, it must be considered a failure. Most disappointingly, the agreement reached in Copenhagen failed to establish clear emissions targets, and will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near future. It also failed to address concerns that are likely to prevent the passage of emissions reduction legislation in the U.S. The near-collapse of negotiations demonstrated serious flaws in the current approach to global climate change cooperation, and, in a remarkable display of the limits of American influence, made clear that it is nations with emerging economies that will ultimately dictate the content of international climate treaties.

There are those who argue the Copenhagen Accord did produce notable victories. Indeed, the accord does acknowledge the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change, state that cuts should be made “with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius,” and agree to raise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change and reduce deforestation. It also calls for further negotiations to set targets for emissions reduction and develop the details of implementation.
A majority of environmentalists, however, view the accord as fatally insufficient: Its statements of principle are commendable, but it suffers from fundamental deficiencies that are likely to render it ineffectual. In addition, historical precedent does not bode well for the widely celebrated pledge to raise funds for climate change adaptation in developing nations. In 2005, the G8 pledged to increase annual aid funds to all developing countries to $50 billion by 2010 with half of these funds designated for Africa. What became of this commitment? In 2009, the UN reported that the G8 needed to increase total aid spending by $29.3 billion and increase African aid by $20.6 billion to reach the original 2010 target. This once lauded pledge remains an empty promise, and there is no reason to believe that the Copenhagen aid commitment will meet a different fate.

In addition, the weaknesses of the Copenhagen Accord will stifle emission-targeting legislation in the U.S. The two major objections offered by opponents of the “cap-and-trade” emissions reduction bill passed by the House of Representatives this past July centered on expanding economies, and both are certain to reappear if the bill progresses to the Senate. At the time, a press release from the office of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) stated, “Even supporters of the national energy tax concede that unilateral American action will do nothing to improve Earth’s environment unless global competitors like China and India curb their emissions, too.” While the U.S., the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, could certainly have a significant effect on worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, rapid emission increases in developing countries do pose a significant challenge to mitigating climate change. The failure of the Copenhagen Accord to set global emission targets has weakened proponents of climate change legislation in the U.S.

Additionally, “cap-and-trade” opponents argue, with some validity, that American businesses will be harmed unless other nations make similar commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Rep. Boehner’s press release objects that climate change legislation “will impose tough new requirements and increased costs on American manufacturers.” The release goes on to state that these costs will affect American jobs in one of two ways: “Either domestic manufacturers will move overseas directly, or American companies in energy-intensive industries will be driven out of business by overseas rivals that undercut their prices.” It is accurate that American businesses would be harmed by bearing the costs of buying carbon credits or paying carbon taxes while their foreign competitors enjoy a cheap supply of coal-generated electricity. In this regard then, the Copenhagen Accord does nothing to assuage the concerns of senators worried about the economic consequences of climate change legislation.

Perhaps most importantly, the conference demonstrated the serious problems plaguing the current UN climate change negotiation framework, and highlighted the difficulties the U.S. will face in attempting to lead the development of climate change legislation. The developing countries who comprise the Group of 77 threatened to walk out of the conference after stating that they were being treated unfairly in the negotiations. Furthermore, the conference was on the verge of complete failure until President Obama met with leaders from China, India, Brazil, and South Africa to craft the accord that was then presented to other nations on a take-it-or-leave it basis. The sharp divisions between developed and developing countries, and the fact that nations could only come to agreement through smaller, more isolated negotiations, raises serious questions about whether all-inclusive U.N. negotiations can ever establish meaningful emissions targets.

Although the United States did, in some respects, emerge from Copenhagen as a global leader on climate change, the more important development was the global realization that the U.S. is unlikely to be the nation that will determine the future course of climate change negotiations. Instead, it seems China and India, representing the developing Group of 77, will be the determinants of climate change legislation progress. India and China signed a five-year memo of understanding in October to present a united front in climate change talks, and they were the two primary players in directing the pace of negotiations in Copenhagen.

Unfortunately, the ascendancy of China and India does not bode well for those with a firm commitment to preventing climate change. Both nations prioritize economic growth above all else, and refuse to commit to restrictive emissions targets that could impede their rapid economic expansion. China and India will probably hamper efforts to produce a strong international commitment to preventing climate change; it seems likely that future international climate treaties will be severely limited by the recalcitrance of large developing nations eager to raise the living standards of their citizens, despite the increasing costs of substantial greenhouse gas emissions on everyone else.

The Copenhagen Accord contains admirable sentiments, but in itself does nothing to prevent climate change. The future of climate change prevention rests with further negotiations, and unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly evident that those nations likely to be most influential are those least likely to support meaningful emissions limits. At the same time, Copenhagen’s failure has made it less likely that the U.S. will make a serious commitment to reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions. The prospects for a serious global agreement on climate change mitigation are dim, and national governments may not substantially cooperate until they recognize the serious economic and ecological damage climate change could cause. They must also recognize the substantial economic benefits the development and expansion of “green” industries could bring. Hopefully, this day will not come too late.

In mid-September, the Obama administration announced that it would abandon plans developed under former President Bush to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland. As an alternative, the administration announced new missile defense measures designed to be implemented quickly and counter threats in the immediate future. The introduction of these new measures is commendable. But Obama’s abandonment of the original missile defense plan has weakened the American diplomatic position in Europe and provided a political victory for Russia.

In announcing the cancellation of the Eastern European missile defense installations, the Obama administration emphasized that it was not abandoning European missile defense entirely, but was instead pursuing an alternative strategy to more effectively address current threats. Long-range missile interceptors are unreliable and frequently ineffective, and neither Iran nor North Korea appears to be close to developing the long-range missiles the cancelled system would have been designed to intercept. Iran instead possesses short- and medium-range missiles that could pose a threat to Israel and parts of Europe, while North Korea’s current technology poses no threat to Europe. To protect Europe and Israel from any potential strikes by short- and medium-range Iranian missiles, the Obama administration’s new plan will use ship-based missile interceptors and an installation of small ground-to-air missiles in Poland.

If the diplomatic ramifications of abandoning the Bush-era missile defense plans are ignored, the administration’s new strategy is logically sound. New installations in Europe are not necessary for improving and testing the currently unreliable technology for intercepting long-range missiles. In addition, constructing, maintaining, and manning the missile defense sites in Europe would impose a financial burden on the United States for the sake of providing unreliable protection against a threat that does not currently exist. Building missile defense sites now would ensure that the United States would be ready if and when North Korea and Iran develop long-range missiles, but intelligence reports should give the United States enough advance warning to prepare for such an occurrence. The canceled long-range interceptor sites also failed to address the danger of the technology that Iran currently possesses, so the addition of new capabilities to the missile defense system is commendable.

In spite of these pragmatic arguments for an adjustment in European missile defense strategy, the United States’ new strategy is short-sighted and ignores the broader diplomatic implications of canceling the planned installations. Poland and the Czech Republic, NATO allies of the U.S., hoped that American military installations in their nations would deter Russian aggression in the region. Their desire to secure a material American commitment beyond a treaty obligation is reasonable, particularly in light of the Russian military occupation of territory in Georgia little more than a year ago. Although a Russian attack on a NATO member seems very unlikely in the foreseeable future, Poland and the Czech Republic are rightly concerned with checking the expansion of Russian influence in the region.

Conversely, one might argue that cancelling the missile defense sites reduces the need for Russia to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, thereby giving Poland and the Czech Republic less reason to fear Russian encroachment in Eastern Europe. This analysis assumes that Russia is seeking a fixed amount of influence with which it will be satisfied attaining—a thesis with little supporting evidence. Russia’s recent foreign policy has been characterized by an aggressive pursuit of power; actions such as gas shutoffs to Ukraine and the armed incursion into Georgia give no indication that Russian leaders will be content with some particular amount of regional influence.

More broadly, the Obama administration’s new missile defense strategy raises questions about the credibility of American commitments in Europe and around the globe. It signals to other nations the United States’ willingness to change policy in pursuit of its own interests, and indicates that American commitments may weaken with changes in administration. While the Obama plan to include smaller interceptors in Poland may assuage Polish concerns to some degree, it remains to be seen if the shift in missile defense policy will make other nations more skeptical of American commitments and less likely to enter into defense agreements.

One could argue that revising missile defense policy presented an opportunity for the United States to improve diplomatic relations with Russia and increase the odds of Russian cooperation on other issues, such as sanctions against Iran or supply lines into Afghanistan. But the Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that its missile defense decision was completely unrelated to U.S.-Russian relations, and there is no evidence that the United States has received any concessions from Russia in return. Clearly, an open agreement between America and Russia on abandoning missile defense in exchange for Russian concessions would have carried high diplomatic penalties for both states. Alternatively, it would have been naïve of the administration to change its missile defense strategy and simply hope for a future Russian concession in return. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev did say, “if our partners hear some of our concerns, we will, of course, be more attentive to theirs.” This supposed attention to American concerns is unlikely to produce actual policy results, however, given Russia’s aggressive foreign policy stance. Simply put, there is no evidence that realigning missile defense policy has motivated Russia to change its positions on issues important to the United States.

From a purely military standpoint, the decision to immediately implement missile defenses against short and medium-range missiles is a good strategic outcome. Unfortunately, the decision to simultaneously abandon slower-developing plans for long-range missile defenses was a diplomatic misstep. Abandoning the originally planned sites in Poland and the Czech Republic has not only harmed relations with these NATO allies, but may also make other nations skeptical of American commitments and hesitant to reach agreements with the United States. Moreover, the realignment may reduce the number of complaints from the Kremlin, but is unlikely to help secure any real diplomatic concessions from Russia. Ultimately, the Obama administration’s decision to discontinue the Bush administration’s missile defense program damaged American diplomatic credibility without producing any benefits for the United States.