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.

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.

On November 3, 2009, the European Union’s Lisbon treaty was at last ratified when the Czech president Vaclav Klaus ended his solitary opposition and signed the pivotal — if contentious—document, eight years in the making. Despite its roots in the 2001 Laeken Declaration’s pledge of a “more democratic, transparent, and effective” Europe, the Lisbon treaty’s passage is marked by some noticeably undemocratic qualities. Dating to its former incarnation as the more federalist “constitutional treaty,” which contained such proto-nationalistic elements as an EU anthem and a European “bill of rights,” the much-maligned Lisbon treaty was “agreed upon,” despite being rejected by three out of six referendums. Moreover, 10 governments backed down from their own promises of public votes. For the most part, this contention can be dissected as the struggle between the maximalist and minimalist factions of the EU: between those who argue for a more integrated Europe and those who are content with the current supremacy of certain member-states.

In light of the relatively small fanfare generated by the treaty’s final adoption, questions remain as to whether Lisbon will effect any palpable change and what it means for Europe’s future on the world stage. The Lisbon treaty aims at further European integration and can be taken as a political statement in support of a more interconnected Europe. For all the substantial political capital used to ensure the treaty’s passage, however, the maximalists have nevertheless won an empty victory. Consider current European Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s statement about the opportunity presented by the treaty: “Don’t expect miracles. Lisbon reinforces our capacity to act, but at least as important is our willingness to act.” Nothing better illustrates how politicized and inertial the current state of affairs has become than the highly conservative picks of Herman Van Rompuy, then Belgian Prime Minister, and Catherine Ashton, previously European Commissioner for Trade, to the new posts of European Council President and high representative of foreign policy.

In one view, this “capacity to act” was strengthened by the treaty’s “streamlining” and “simplification” of EU decision-making. In the past, one of the European Union’s main challenges had been its chronic inability to produce a foreign policy consensus among its 27 member states. In the vacuum of any overarching focus, its foreign policy conformed to the whims of specific members. The treaty’s creation of an EU president and foreign policy representative purports to address this problem. Furthermore, the use of frequently paralyzing unanimous votes has been abandoned in favor of majority rule in many policy areas, including migration, criminal justice, and judicial-police joint action. Additionally, Lisbon changes the voting mechanism in some zones to assign votes to member states based on their populations.

In contrast, some critics rightfully question the potentially troublesome sweeping powers of “co-decision” awarded to the still-unfamiliar European Parliament. These include approval of European Commission president and ministers along with partial oversight of the EU budget. The European Parliament now wields influence that is, theoretically, almost equal to the European Council. Many see this as a disaster, pointing to the fact that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are out of touch with their constituencies. Relatively few Europeans vote for MEPs, and, as a recent article in The Economist noted, many Europeans do not even know who represents them. From farm subsidies to immigration, some fear that the Parliament will initiate an ill-advised legislative voting spree on narrow democratic mandates. An already prickly co-existence between the European Council and the Brussels-based European Commission will now be tested by the accommodation of another, even more unaccountable body.

Despite supposed policy improvements, no guiding European foreign policy exists. With the lackluster appointments of Belgium’s Van Rompuy and Britain’s Lady Ashton, EU leaders have confirmed that they are content to exert influence only within Europe, rather than on the world stage. The EU has missed a unique opportunity to utilize the Lisbon treaty to redefine a global Europe, which was—in theory—its most significant aim. Business continues as usual, with balance-of-power concerns and the prioritization of national interests leaving the EU with only a secondary role in world affairs. Granted, Mr. Van Rompuy is an avid Atlanticist, but as he has been prime minister of Belgium for less than a year, it is doubtful that he will “turn heads” in Washington, Beijing, or Moscow the way that a more prominent figure like Tony Blair could have. As British Tory leader David Cameron has observed, Van Rompuy is not “president of Europe.” He is a narrower, “chairmanic” figure rather than a promising sign of unified European diplomacy. It was Van Rompuy’s modest stature that garnered him the outsized support of Germany and France.

Lady Ashton was chosen for similarly dull reasons. When asked why she was selected, French president Nicolas Sarkozy replied, “It was felt a woman should hold a big EU job, because a center-left politician was needed to ‘balance’ Mr. Van Rompuy and because ‘our British friends’ wanted the post.” In fact, Lady Ashton was, at best, only the third choice of her own government. To be fair, Mr. Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton had both performed admirably in their previous roles. But this was neither the time nor the place to pick two relatively inexperienced political unknowns for the most public of EU positions, a weak start for a “new” Europe.

Some Euro-conservatives argue that a minimalist interpretation of the Lisbon treaty will actually benefit Europe. They would also argue against appointing a celbrity figure as either president or foreign minister because neither position is directly elected. As Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman notes, “Ordinary Europeans would be justified in asking by what right the unelected Mr. Blair [for instance] speaks for them.” Yet Mr. Rachman also observes that European unity tends to crumble at moments of international crisis, indicating the necessity of Lisbon’s integrative measures. In principle, the treaty’s main objective was to endow Europe with the political heft to match its status as the world’s largest economy. In all likelihood, it is hard to envision America and China, or even India and Brazil, really respecting Mr. Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton. It is even less likely to imagine Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin doing so. During the South Ossetian War, Mr. Putin reserved no respect for even the European Union itself; its lack of a collective security or defense policy made it impossible for Europe to enforce its demands that Russian troops withdraw. In an international political landscape shaped by power interests, Europe needs the fullest potential of the Lisbon treaty to avoid becoming an international afterthought. Instead, this missed opportunity will cement the status quo of EU foreign policy being diluted by national governments. As Henry Kissinger once famously—if anecdotally—observed, “Whom do you call when you want to talk to Europe?”

While Europe searches for its voice, it will remain a spectator in a G2 world molded by America and China, as enunciated by British foreign secretary David Miliband. Admittedly, the European Union has been considered a triumph of diplomacy, having stabilized the Continent and made war unimaginable. In one sense, though, the European project’s success has led to the present difficulty of deciding how to project its considerable political-economic weight abroad. Europe, with the exhaustion following the Lisbon treaty and the lack of future direction it provided, will only gain international respect if it can harness the treaty’s potential and work toward a more maximalist EU.