Despite the opposition of some Senate Republicans, the current New START treaty has won broad support from many other Republican and conservative voices. As Senator Harry Reid pointed out, the New START is backed by respected Republican leaders, including former President George H.W. Bush and former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. The current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen are both advocates of the New START treaty.
The New START Treaty is another in a long line of nuclear arms agreements between The United States and Russia. Below I have outlined several major treaties that serve as a backdrop to between understand the current agreement being debated in the Senate.
SALT I (1969–1972) and SALT II (1972–1979)
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union on the issue of nuclear arms reduction. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations began in Helsinki, Finland, in 1969. SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and an interim agreement between the two powers. The second accord, SALT II, was reached in 1979. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the United States Senate, which was never happy with the terms of SALT II, refusing to ratify the agreement.
The ABM Treaty (1972)
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty or ABMT) dealt primarily with the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next thirty years until the US unilaterally withdrew from it in June 2002. The United States withdrawal, which marked the first time in recent history the U.S. has left a major international arms treaty, was prompted by concerns of blackmail by rouge nuclear states with minimal, but still viable, ICBM capabilities. The Russian Federation protested U.S. withdrawal from the agreement. The United States tried to assuage Russian fears by stating they would only deploy a limited deterrent, so as not to upset the structure of the M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction) dynamic.
3 Comments
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/134435-reid-cites-gagas-meat-dress-lohans-rehab-in-start-treaty-push
“The proper exercise of diplomacy by the United States does not threaten our sovereignty. The Founding Fathers understood the value of diplomacy. They drafted the Constitution, in part, because they wanted the United States to be able to negotiate treaties with other nations. But they also understood that American foreign policy must ultimately be controlled by the American people.
That is why, for instance, the United States Senate must approve treaties that are negotiated by the President. That is how our diplomatic process works. But today, American sovereignty is threatened by the many treaties that seek to take power away from the nations that negotiate them. The solution is not to reject treaties or diplomacy: it is to return to the vision of the Founders, and to their belief that the American people have an inherent right of self-government, through their elected representatives, that cannot be extinguished by any treaty.”
President Obama’s New START creates an implementing body, called the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC), and gives it broad powers to promote the objectives of the treaty. These powers could include imposing additional restrictions on the U.S. missile defense program. This is an unacceptable cession of our national sovereignty. President Ronald Reagan walked away from Mikhail Gorbachev’s offer to eliminate nuclear weapons because he asked us to give up our missile defenses in return. No true conservative could support this treaty as it stands. – s groves
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110114/pl_nm/us_russia_usa_start