New START Treaty

US, Russia to Sign Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty April 8

VOA News 26 March 2010

President Barack Obama says the U.S. and Russia have agreed to the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades.

The landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty reduces by about one-third the number of long-range nuclear weapons that the world's two largest nuclear powers will deploy.

President Obama said he telephoned his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, Friday, and they agreed to meet in the Czech capital, Prague, to sign the new START treaty on April 8. He said the pact shows that the two nations intend to lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat.

A spokeswoman for President Medvedev told Russia's Interfax news agency the agreement reflects the balance of both countries' interests.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the pact will give Russia and the United States more credibility in non-proliferation and in dealing with countries like Iran and North Korea on nuclear issues.

The U.S. Senate and the Russian Parliament must ratify the treaty.

Mr. Obama said the treaty also significantly reduces missiles and launchers, and establishes a strong and effective verification system. He said it also maintains flexibility needed to protect national security and guarantee the U.S. commitment to its allies' security.

The new treaty will replace the START I agreement - Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty - signed in 1991 by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. That treaty came into force in 1994 but expired in December of 2009.

U.S. and Russian negotiators have been working for nearly a year on the new pact.

The agreement would reduce each nation's nuclear arsenal from 2,200 to 1,500 warheads each. They would have seven years from the treaty's ratification to carry out the reductions.

Verification issues and Russian opposition to U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe had been holding up major progress in the talks.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/usa/2010/usa-100326-voa01.htm

any details on which systems will be affected in Russia and the US?

Farhad Gulemov wrote:any details on which systems will be affected in Russia and the US?

Its just the retirement of outdated systems. This treaty doesn't mean a damned thing. US still isn't withdrawing their European bombs.

Vladimir79 wrote:
Its just the retirement of outdated systems. This treaty doesn't mean a damned thing.

that is excatly what I am suspecting too. I will try to find out more details.

Actually this treaty means a lot.

The Moscow treaty was a joke.

The Moscow Treaty was a treaty for parties that don't want to be bound by any treaties.

The Moscow treaty basically said that on a specific date (something like December 12th 2012 or so) both sides were allowed between 2,200 and 1,700 warheads each deployed. The day before and the day after they could have as many as they wanted.
Not a single weapon need be destroyed or withdrawn from service to comply with this treaty and there were no options to ensure the other guy was doing it anyway.

The US could build 10,000 warheads and deploy them operationally on the day after the date specified and still comply with the treaty.

The only other restriction on weapons was the START I which limits both sides to about 6,000 warheads each.

This new treaty is a huge step forward.

What bothers me however is that both sides are contradicting themselves.

The Russians are saying the treaty links Strategic offensive systems and Strategic defensive systems, but the US is saying it will not effect their ABM plans in Europe or elsewhere.

Another problem is of course it will not take effect till both sides both sign it and their respective government bodies ratify the treaty.

People in US are pissed off about about Start especially FOX, they think it will stop them from building their missile defence.



Surprise: Russian Duma To Codify Missile Defense Language in New START

Many opponents of the New START treaty with Russia argued that a significant disconnect between the two parties over defensive weapons systems should have scotched, or at least delayed, ratification. The Obama administration and Senate Democrats managed to convince 13 Republicans that any language in the treaty's preamble discussing missile defense was ancillary and not legally binding, clearing the path for a 71-26 ratification vote on the lame duck Congress' final day in session.

The lower house of the Russian Duma has now taken up New START, and -- surprise! -- they're insisting that limits on US missile defense capabilities are a central element to the treaty:

The State Duma plans to confirm the link between the reduction of the strategic offensive arms and the restriction of antimissile defense systems’ deployment in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed between the US and Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs says.

"During the ratification of START in the US Congress the American lawmakers noted that the link between strategic offensive armed forces and antimissile defense systems is not juridically binding for the parties. They referred to the fact that this link was fixed only in the preamble of the document. Such an approach can be regarded as the US’ attempt to find an option to build up its strategic potential and the Russian lawmakers cannot agree with this," Kosachev says.

We will deal with these interpretations. The first thing is that our American colleagues do not recognize the legal force of the treaty’s preamble. The preamble sets a link between strategic offensive arms and defensive arms. The second thing is an attempt to interpret certain provisions of the treaty unilaterally.

The Russian lawmakers insist that all the chapters of the treaty including the preamble are legally binding, which is a common norm of international law. It is not lawful to take certain provisions and to give them unilateral interpretations like the American senators do, Alexei Arbatov, a member of the Carnegie Scientific Council, says.

This is our reaction on the US steps, which are not justified because you cannot selectively validate or invalidate certain provisions of the treaty. We are quite consistent here. We said that the entire treaty, the preamble and the articles have the same judicial force. This is logical and this is right.


This development vindicates START critics' concerns about the accord and represents an outright embarrassment for the Obama Administration. The Russians are (again) asserting as non-negotiable the precise treaty interpretation that the White House assured wavering Senators they had no reason to fear. This very question was the subject of hours of debate on the Senate floor, when START quarterback Sen. John Kerry repeatedly intoned that the preamble's missile defense language was meaningless. It's now abundantly clear that the pesky passage was far from the "throwaway" paragraph Kerry vowed it was, and that Moscow won't honor America's toothless opposition to the handful of troublesome sentences. From the Russian perspective, those few words are a central pillar of the agreement's overall attractiveness.

The Obama Administration was either grossly incompetent and clueless in its negotiating process, or it was deliberately misconstruing the motives and assumptions of its negotiating partner in the name of securing a domestic political victory. In light of the White House's continued refusal to release negotiating records -- and reports like this -- the latter option is the safer assumption.

If the Duma makes any alteration whatsoever to the treaty, it must bounce back to the Senate for another ratification vote -- where six new Republican votes could either kill it, or alter it further and force a renegotiation. As Ed Morrissey writes, either way, the president's credibility has taken a big hit:


[The White House] will have been publicly caught arguing one thing to the Senate while apparently agreeing to its opposite with Russia. The next time Obama brings a treaty of any consequence and controversy to the Senate, don’t expect the Senate to just accept Obama’s word …. and don’t expect it to pass ratification, either.[b]

Why would the Duma make any changes?

In the Preamble it states a link between defensive and offensive strategic systems.

A Preamble is part of a legal document and is just as binding as any other part of the document.

Very simply this means that if the US decides to ignore Russian concerns and starts building ABM systems in Europe and Japan and other places without caring what Russia says or does then Russia has every right to start to produce nuclear warheads beyond those allowed in the treaty to counter the new threat.

Equally if the S-500 turns out to be a 600km range 400km altitude mobile ABM addon to S-300 and S-400 batteries that can be put practically anywhere including on Russian surface vessels then the US might start thinking that 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads might not be enough too.

Officials on both parties in the US said there was of course undeniable links between defensive and offensive systems.

It is like two guys with pistols negotiating how many rounds each can have in their magazines at any one time and how much extra ammo they can carry and then all of a sudden one guy puts on some body armour.
Of course the other guy is going to start planning body armour for himself and armour piercing ammo but the first thing they will try is to persuade the other guy that wearing body armour is destabilising and instead of fighting fair he might have to shoot him in the back of his head when he is doing something else.

If both agree to no body armour or limited body armour (ie ABM treaty which was the = of say a helmet) then everything is OK, but at the moment there is no restriction on ABM systems... and mid course interceptors look a lot like IRBMs... build thousands and fit them with nuke warheads and you have found a loop hole in the START and INF treaties.

Russian missiles must penetrate any defenses — parliament

RIA Novosti

02:12 22/01/2011

MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia must quickly modernize its nuclear deterrent focusing on the deployment of ballistic missiles capable of penetrating the most sophisticated missile defenses, a draft supplementary statement to the new START treaty ratification document says.

The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, posted on its official website on Friday the texts of two draft statements that would accompany the resolution on ratification of the treaty.

"The State Duma believes that maintaining Russia's nuclear deterrent in an adequate state of readiness is a key venue of the country's military doctrine, with the focus on the deployment of strategic offensive weapons that possess the most combat effectiveness and the highest potential to penetrate missile defenses," says the statement dedicated to the upkeep of Russia's nuclear deterrent and the development of new missile defenses.

"The combat effectiveness of Russia's nuclear deterrent must be maintained at the level that guarantees the protection of the country from attacks carried out by any foreign state or a group of states in any military-strategic situation," the 3.5-page document says.

The second supplementary statement outlines the State Duma's position on the reduction and limitations of strategic offensive armaments. It is addressed to the United States, but also calls on other nuclear powers "to join the process of the reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons through a ban on their further development."

The new arms reduction treaty, replacing START 1, which expired in December 2009, was signed in Prague last April by President Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama. The document slashes the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

The U.S. Senate ratified the new arms deal with Russia on December 22, 2010, but added several amendments to the resolution on ratification, including a demand to build up U.S. global missile defenses.

The new agreement will come into force after ratification by both houses of the Russian parliament, the State Duma and the Federation Council.

The State Duma is expected to adopt the draft law in the third and final reading on January 25. The upper house could hold its ratification vote in its first session on January 26.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2011/russia-110122-rianovosti02.htm

Russian parliament committee recommends ratifying New Start
RIA Novosti

16:28 20/01/2011 MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - The foreign relations committee of the lower house of the Russian parliament on Thursday recommended that lawmakers give final approval to the New Start arms reduction treaty with the United States.

The U.S. Senate ratified the new arms deal with Russia on December 22, but added several conditions to its resolution on ratification, including a demand to build up U.S. global missile defenses.

The new agreement will come into force after ratification by both houses of the Russian parliament, the State Duma and the Federation Council. The lower house is due to hold its third and final reading of its ratification bill next Tuesday.

The Federation Council could hold its ratification vote as soon as it returns to session on Wednesday.

The new treaty, replacing the START 1 that expired in December 2009, was signed in Prague last April by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama. The document slashes the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2011/russia-110120-rianovosti01.htm

Russia says New Start inspections to begin in April

RIA Novosti

13:35 17/03/2011 MOSCOW, March 17 (RIA Novosti) - On-site inspections of Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will begin in April, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

The treaty came into effect on February 5 after being approved by the U.S. Senate and the Russian parliament.

"According to the treaty, the first inspections should begin within 60 days [after entry into force]," Sergei Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow.

The treaty, signed in April by the presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, trims both nations' nuclear arsenals to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2011/russia-110317-rianovosti03.htm

Russian and American nuclear breakout capabilities

http://www.armscontrol.org/print/1121

The US has said that no matter what happens it will have an ABM system in Europe, and on that basis I very much doubt the Russians will accept any suggestion to lower nuclear warheads below 1,500 in terms of strategic weapons, and unless NATO promises to drop its conventional force levels to equal Russian force levels (ie 6,000 tanks etc ) I am pretty sure the Russians wont be interested in getting rid of any tactical nukes either.

Something this article doesn't take into account is that the Russian nuclear industry is investing in fast neutron reactors... so called breeder reactors for power generation.

Very basically these reactors can create their own fuel by placing spent fuel rods around the core during normal operation of the reactor these rods get enriched and can be used as fuel in that reactor or another one like it... or enriched further to create weapons grade material...

Decided to post this here:

Russia threatens to quit START as US deploys Aegis destroyer to Spain
Link

Why the START Treaty and not the INF Treaty, i don't get it??   

I once wrote that "if the Russians go about trusting the Americans on their promises or signed treaties, they'll end up being played like a string quartet in allegro vivace", and I pretty much still feel the same today.
I always hope though, that minds wiser than mine are the ones taking the decisions in the Kremlin (even if I've been disappointed on some occasions). But I remain a dreamer, so I'm not giving up hope*... 

*(well...not just yet)

AlfaT8 wrote:Why the START Treaty and not the INF Treaty, i don't get it??   

Because START limits numbers of deployed launchers and warheads.

AlfaT8 wrote:Decided to post this here:

Russia threatens to quit START as US deploys Aegis destroyer to Spain
Link

Why the START Treaty and not the INF Treaty, i don't get it??   

START limits the number of ICBMs and launch platforms and SLBMs and SSBNs and cruise missiles and long range bombers Russia can deploy.

The US deployment of AEGIS to Spain will impact the effect of Russian deterrence so to get that MAD back they will need to increase the number of strategic missiles they have to overwhelm the system.

Withdrawing from INF would not have the same effect as IRBMs wouldn't reach Spain from most of Russian territory...

Now its all clear for everyone to understand   

Russia could use right out of the START Treaty

Russia may be forced to withdraw from the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms (START), if the U.S. continues to develop its missile defense system, said the director of the Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament Mikhail Ulyanov

Nice

Russia may reconsider its attitude to the treaty on strategic offensive arms by the actions of the United States

Hahaha... clearly they have found one button to press to upset the Americans...

Amusing that the US thinks it can impose sanctions on Russia and force its cronies to do the same because it claims Russia is interfering in the Ukraine... it would be easier to name the countries the US isn't directly interfering in than the ones it was...

Consider that 8 Borei's will be constructed until 2020 with 5 of them to have 20 silos for 6 MIRV Bulava missiles

3x16x6=288 WH from Borei I
5x20x6=600 WH from Borei II

and about 4 Delta IV class
4x16x4=192

Total = 1070 missiles

About US and Russia treaties..

I don't know why people in This forum place so much focus on "Treaties" between US and RUssia..
Is just a dam piece of paper.. and when war happens..between US and Russia.. no rule will apply.
In a world war 3.. with nuclear weapons.. Russia and US both ,will seek to destroy the other completely ,
faster ,before the other have a chance to retaliate.  So if the tensions and hostilities are very high ,the so called "preventive strike" will be a full scale decapitation strike.. the goal will be to attempt to destroy as much military
infrastructure as possible ,and anything vital for that nation economy.  

I really don't think that Russia or US will comply with international laws at the moment to start a nuclear strike.
United Nations will also be nuked , so it will be irrelevant.  I consider all arms treaties a game.. more than anything.
I even read that US bypass the Start treaty by giving weapons to his allies.. So is a stupid paper , that nobody will
follow if their nation will be at risk of being nuclear attacked.   Just look at Israel.. they violated HUNDREDS of United
Nations laws and nobody give a dam.. no sanctions against them..  Or how about USA?  They are arming and financing terrorist in the middle east to overthrow legitimate government.. and provoked the civil war in ukraine
which is also against all international laws ,that is sponsoring terrorism.. and against their own laws..

Moral of the story.. is we live in a world.. where Major world power like USA and its major mafia allies does not give a DAM about any International Laws ,or Human rights or treaties,or laws , they will clean their ass with any treaty at the moment they want it.. and RUssia neither will be stupid to think USA will play fairly in case of major war start .

BIological weapons , Chemical weapons , Nuclear weapons all will be valid and treaties will mean a shit . Only law that will matter is the law of the jungle ,the stronger will survive. and who can completely destroy the other nation capability to fight and remain standing in the end.. with a more or less operable country wins..  Forget the treaties , they are useful only for reference of what they are supposed to do. .but please don't be naive and think any nation will not try to trick the other to completely bypass.

Just look at USA ,they store nuclear weapons in all europe all the way to Russian near Borders in Turkey. There was
also talks about NASA loading nukes in their space shuttles in secret.. Nobody will care about a piece of paper..so called treaties is just a diplomatic game. There was a treaty between Germany and soviet union for peace and we all know how that turned out..  Is just a dam piece of paper.. with ink and is just for show.

I will not be surprised ,not even a little if the pentagon use as tactics.. their own Civilian airliners filled with nukes
and detonate them when fly over moscow to blind Moscow Defenses and start launching tridents right before it from their submarines. US also have tactical nukes that can be launched from f-16s.. Time to wake up people ,we don't live in a fair world of morals and justice,where treaties or laws are respected..

it will be very easy for US government and Russia to have secret underground nuclear facilities building nukes like there is no tomorrow..

Russia needs to be fully prepared for the worse unthinkable imaginable events.. IF using nukes against civilians cities in Japan when they were ready to negotiate for peace and 9/11 inside job attacks at WTC ,is not enough to give you a hint ,what they are capable to do.. then nothing will. Russia needs to be ready not only to counter it..but also consider also to do the first strike.. and try to survive as much as possible in case of being attacked.

Everything will be valid in war ..no rules ,laws or treaties will matter.

I fully agree. The US and Canada have a record of breaking all their treaties with the aboriginal peoples. So they can't even
be trusted to abide by treaties in peace time.

The US has been stockpiling nuclear warheads. Stop and think what that means. It means they think they can use these
warheads and on short notice. So even though the terms of various strategic nuclear weapons treaties are fulfilled, in the
real world the old ICBMs exist in disassembled form. Somewhere within the US there are hundreds of solid rocket fuel
ICBMs sitting to be mated with these nuclear warheads. Of course, Russia cannot search every square inch of the USA and
NATO to verify there are no such ICBMs.

By contrast, the stupid saps in Russia actually decommissioned their nuclear warheads. Hence the large supply of MOX fuel
for nuclear reactors that Russia has been selling to the USA and others.

By contrast, the stupid saps in Russia actually decommissioned their nuclear warheads. Hence the large supply of MOX fuel
for nuclear reactors that Russia has been selling to the USA and others.

Except that the next generation of nuclear reactors the Russians are developing and putting into service are called breeder reactors... in other words you can stack spend uranium fuel rods (ie depleted uranium) around the core of the breeder reactor and the uranium is enriched... leave it there long enough to enrich it to weapons grade material and you can make lots of bombs over a very short time period... they don't need to stockpile warheads or nuclear material.

Most of the time however they will be enriching material for customers who will use the enriched material in the reactors Russia builds for them...

GarryB wrote:

By contrast, the stupid saps in Russia actually decommissioned their nuclear warheads. Hence the large supply of MOX fuel
for nuclear reactors that Russia has been selling to the USA and others.

Except that the next generation of nuclear reactors the Russians are developing and putting into service are called breeder reactors... in other words you can stack spend uranium fuel rods (ie depleted uranium) around the core of the breeder reactor and the uranium is enriched... leave it there long enough to enrich it to weapons grade material and you can make lots of bombs over a very short time period... they don't need to stockpile warheads or nuclear material.

Most of the time however they will be enriching material for customers who will use the enriched material in the reactors Russia builds for them...

In principle the fast neutron reactors can be used to breed isotopes for nuclear weapons. However, this is one of the tropes repeated about
breeder reactors by people who don't like nuclear power. Running a civilian operation and a military one are not quite the same thing. The
civilian reactors are used to produce heat and do not care about purity of the fuel. Nuclear weapons require high purity radioactive material.
You don't want warheads spontaneously detonating due to neutron flux noise spikes.

Anyway, it would take a significant amount of time for Russia to produce new warheads while the USA can just mount them on rockets. Of course,
warheads do have a finite shelf life. But my point was that Russia should no assume good faith from its "partners" in the west.

kvs wrote:

GarryB wrote:

By contrast, the stupid saps in Russia actually decommissioned their nuclear warheads. Hence the large supply of MOX fuel
for nuclear reactors that Russia has been selling to the USA and others.

Except that the next generation of nuclear reactors the Russians are developing and putting into service are called breeder reactors... in other words you can stack spend uranium fuel rods (ie depleted uranium) around the core of the breeder reactor and the uranium is enriched... leave it there long enough to enrich it to weapons grade material and you can make lots of bombs over a very short time period... they don't need to stockpile warheads or nuclear material.

Most of the time however they will be enriching material for customers who will use the enriched material in the reactors Russia builds for them...

In principle the fast neutron reactors can be used to breed isotopes for nuclear weapons.   However, this is one of the tropes repeated about
breeder reactors by people who don't like nuclear power.   Running a civilian operation and a military one are not quite the same thing.   The
civilian reactors are used to produce heat and do not care about purity of the fuel.   Nuclear weapons require high purity radioactive material.
You don't want warheads spontaneously detonating due to neutron flux noise spikes.  

Anyway, it would take a significant amount of time for Russia to produce new warheads while the USA can just mount them on rockets.  Of course,
warheads do have a finite shelf life.   But my point was that Russia should no assume good faith from its "partners" in the west.  

Well it should be noted that nuclear cooperation in the form of 'Megatons to Megawatts' has ended between Russian and the US.