They set a nominal July deadline for a substitute treaty for START, a date that coincides with Obama's first presidential visit to Russia. That conceivably would leave time to get the new treaty approved in the U.S. Senate by the December expiration of the current agreement. But arms control experts say December is not a hard deadline so long as there is progress.
We'd rather have no nukes in the world given our conventional military dominance. But we can never give them up in case somebody else cheats. Still, if Russia's missile strength goes down, we could afford to cut quite a bit without compromising our nuclear deterrence.
But is Russia really ready to build down? And do this without America making concessions on our missile defense plan for Eastern Europe? The Russians claim our planned missile defenses make it too difficult for them to cut their nuclear missiles strength. On the surface it almost seems to make sense to put off missile defense to get Russia's nuclear arsenal down if they really won't talk if we go forward with missile defense.
We should call their bluff.
Russia's nuclear arsenal will go down over the next decade regardless of any agreement simply because of aging weapons and lack of money to replace them all. Their loud press releases about spending a lot more money on their nukes hide the fact that they need to spend lots of money just to slow down the decline.
So our planned ballistic missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic that is aimed at Iran, and not sufficient to stop a Russian attack even from their future shrunken missile force, should not be sacrificed to get a treaty that pretty much ratifies what will happen in Russia anyway.
I fear we'll be hoodwinked by the Russians. Not because they are particularly clever, but because our administration wants to be hoodwinked in this fashion.
