Analysis: Nuclear treaty and Obama's `new start'

The name, perhaps more than the content, of a new U.S.-Russian arms treaty — dubbed the "New START" — conveys President Barack Obama's message about the direction of superpower relations.

For the president, it marks not only his biggest foreign policy accomplishment but also a fresh beginning for relations with Moscow, which was one of his top priorities upon taking office. U.S. relations with Russia had frayed during the Bush administration, largely due to a spat over U.S. missile defenses, an expansion of NATO to Russia's doorstep and Moscow's invasion of Georgia in August 2008.

For the Russians, the mere fact that the U.S. spent so much time and effort negotiating an arms arrangement helps bolster Moscow's claim to being a global force and not just another regional power.

The treaty, announced by Obama on Friday after he spoke by phone with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would reduce the allowable number of long-range U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads by about 30 percent. That, along with reductions in the permissible number of long-range missiles and a legally binding system to ensure against cheating, makes it the most significant nuclear arms treaty in a generation.

"I've been committed to a reset of our relationship with Russia," Obama said. "When the United States and Russia can cooperate effectively, it advances the mutual interests of our two nations, and the security and prosperity of the wider world."

He and Medvedev agreed to meet in Prague on April 8 to sign the treaty, which would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which was itself historic but expired last December.

The New START would take effect only upon ratification by the U.S. Senate and Russian Duma.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the administration aims to have it ratified by year's end.

Signing in Prague has symbolic importance. It was there last April that Obama declared his vision for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. The Czech Republic also was to be one of the sites for an expanded U.S. missile defense network in Europe, although Obama last fall reconfigured the plan and dropped the Czech site.

It became clear immediately after Obama's announcement Friday that the chances for Senate ratification rest in large measure on one related issue: Russia's efforts to constrain U.S. missile defenses.

The Russians view U.S. missile defense plans in Europe as a potential threat to the credibility of their strategic arsenal. The Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — insists that the defensive weapons are too limited to worry Russia and are designed to counter missile threats from Iran.

Ellen Tauscher, the undersecretary of state for arms control, told a White House news conference that the treaty imposes "no constraints" on U.S. missile defense programs. Tauscher, who was sent to Geneva late in the negotiations to help clinch the deal, said both sides acknowledged that Obama and Medvedev agree there is a connection between strategic offensive and defense weapons — "and that is where the discussion ended."

Any treaty reference to missile defense could not be verified because the White House did not release the text.

Sen. John Kyl, a leading Republican advocate of missile defense, wrote in a letter to Obama last week that he was worried by recent Russian statements about the treaty's making a legally binding linkage of offensive weapons and missile defense. Kyl said it was unlikely the Senate would ratify a treaty with such links.

Early reaction on Capitol Hill revealed no clear-cut Republican opposition to the treaty. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., whose foreign policy views are widely respected in both political parties, said he looks forward to Foreign Relations Committee hearings, "so that we can work quickly to achieve ratification of the new treaty."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton predicted a "vast majority" in the Senate would vote to ratify.

A key to the administration's strategy for winning Senate ratification is highlighting the military's backing.

At the White House news conference, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left little doubt about the military's stance.

"Through the trust it engenders, the cuts it requires and the flexibility it preserves, this treaty enhances our ability to do that which we have been charged to do: protect and defend the citizens of the United States," Mullen said. "I am as confident in its success as I am in its safeguards."

In the history of nuclear arms control, the new treaty is not the most sweeping or dramatic, but it advances the case for disarmament in an era of increasing fear about the spread of nuclear arms technology — particularly in the volatile Middle East.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Mullen and Clinton at the White House news conference, recalled the Cold War years when both sides had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, many on hair-trigger alert.

"The journey we have taken from being one misstep away from mutual assured destruction to the substantial arms reductions of this new agreement is testimony to just how much the world has changed," he said.

Less clear is how enthusiastic the military would be about taking further steps toward eliminating nuclear weapons.

Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists, said the administration implicitly has committed itself to following the new treaty with negotiations on even deeper weapons reductions.

"I would place money that President Obama on April 8 will say something about a follow-on treaty," he said, even if the administration is not yet prepared to say exactly how much deeper it would be prepared to cut.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.