The treaty's little-noticed limits on conventional weapons systems will reduce our ability to project power around the world.
The centerpiece of "New Start," the arms-control treaty that President Barack Obama signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April, is its reduction in nuclear warheads. Less well-understood—but profoundly misguided—is the treaty's return to outmoded Cold War limits on weapons launchers, which will require the United States, but not Russia, to dismantle existing delivery systems. This could cripple America's long-range conventional warhead delivery capabilities, while also severely constraining our nuclear flexibility. We will pay for this mistake in future conflicts entirely unrelated to Russia.
In pursuing New Start, the Obama administration has essentially jettisoned the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, which only dealt with the limitation of nuclear warheads that were operationally deployed. That freed large numbers of U.S. launchers (land-based and submarine-based ballistic missiles, along with heavy bombers such as the B-2) to carry conventional payloads world-wide—a concept known as "conventional prompt global strike."
Such delivery flexibility is far more important to America than to Russia, given our global interests and alliances. Its wisdom was evident after 9/11, as we fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. New Start encumbers us with unnecessary constraints that will distort strategic priorities and weapons-development for decades.
[ There has been far too little attention paid to Obama’s continuing unilateral disarmament of the USA . Beyond that, many won’t pay attention to what, at times, can be very boring, even if deadly. In this case, what looks like an anti-nuke common good actually will severely hamper our ability to use conventional arms! – JS ]
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