Analysis of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty - Term Paper Example

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty The term arms control refers to the limitations on the production, growth, accumulation and reproduction of firearms, especially those weapons which can cause destruction on a large scale. It is usually carried out by tactfully carried out negotiation between countries through treaties. On a national level, arms control means regulation of citizens having the license to own and use private firearms such as guns. Arms control treaties such as Non-Proliferation treaty between the United States of America, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France and China; and Strategic and Tactical Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States of America and the Russian Federation have been a great help in keeping the world safe from nuclear weapons and nuclear wars since the Second World War These treaties are put into action with the agreement of governments that they will not produce any more weapons and arms and reduce their already existing weapons. When the Soviet Union was divided, Kazakhstan and Belarus decided to give their weapons up and joined international conventions. To see to it that the treaties are being honoured, on site inspections satellite verification or by aero planes are conducted on a regular basis. Verification is done by either bodies like International Atomic Energy Agency or the parties involved in the treaty. Often the destruction of weapons of mass destruction is assisted by international peace organizations (About, 2012). Current issues related to the regulation of arms worldwide are mainly that the weapons of mass destruction as well weapons like guns etc are being illegally proliferated on a large scale and are finding their way to terrorists and countries which are not politically and economically stable. Pakistan, Iran and North Korea’s geostrategic interests are different from the United State of America and Russia’s and that is the reason behind these countries not being a part of any non proliferation treaties and they remain a powerful threat to the United State of America and Russia. In July 2009 presidents Obama and Medvedev renewed the old START treaty with the new START treaty and decided to decrease the amount of weapons to one-third (About, 2012). The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is one of the current arms control treaties between the United States of America and Russian Republic. It is the renewed version of the old START treaty. In Prague, on April 8, 2010 President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, and the president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, signed an agreement on which the agreed to decrease  the number of nuclear weapons and weapons which can cause mass destruction to about 30% in Russia as well as the United States of America. The treaty came into action on the 5th of February, 2011. More than 95% of the total weapons in the world are under the possession of the United States of America and Russia. This treaty also focuses on improving the methods to inspect and verify to increase the clarity between these two countries, which are the world’s biggest super and nuclear powers. The approval of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was one of the biggest achievements of Obama regarding the foreign policies and was a major agreement to be passed in the Senate after almost a period of ten years. The Senate approved the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty when it was about to wrap up the affairs for the holidays for the year 2010. The Chemical Weapons Convention was the last treaty accepted by the Senate and it was in 1997. The acceptance of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty had the support of Citizens for Global Solutions. It helped by advocating the accepting of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and organized it as well. 82% of Americans were in the favour of getting this treaty to be passed by the Senate in November, statistics show and that caused the Republican Senators to give in to the wishes of the people gradually and they started supporting the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Finally, a majority of the Senators agreed to pass the treaty for the safety and welfare of the United States of America as well as Russian Federation (GlobalSolutions, 2012). The importance of ratification of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to come to force as soon as it was possible was explained by President Obama that without there being Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty not being accepted by the Senate, there was a danger of not knowing what the Russians were up to and there was no method to inspect or verify their position on arms control and vice versa. And without an accurate knowledge of the weapons, the world was a more dangerous place to live in (US Department of State, 2012) The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is a replacement for the Treaty of Moscow (SORT) which would have expired in December 2012. It gets its name from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 1 (START I) which expired in 2009, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 2 (START II) which was never put into action and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 3 (START III) which was incomplete in terms of negotiations. According to the treaty the thousands of warheads stocked in both the United States of America as well as Russia will have no limits. New methods of verification and inspection will be introduced and the old methods which were used in the Treaty of Moscow will be discarded. The number of nuclear missile launchers will be reduced to 50%. The limit for deployed missiles and bombers will be 700 and of deployed warheads (RVs and bombers) the limit will be 1550. Only 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers (missile tube and bombers) will be allowed in both the countries (Collina, 2012). An overview of the treaty is given by Jesse Lee on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The treaty covers the following topics: Strategic Offensive Reductions, Verification and Transparency, Treaty Terms and No Constraints on Missile Defense and Conventional Strike. Strategic Offensive Reductions: According to the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty the United States of America and Russia will have a relatively very small amount of strategic weapons and arms exactly after seven years of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty coming into action and being implemented. The United States of America as well as the Russian Federation will be allowed to calculate its strategic force and recognize the structure of its strategic forces while staying inside the limits drawn by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. These limits were set keeping into view an analysis that took place in 2010 which was conducted by Department of Defense planners. The following are the limits set by the treaty. 1550 Warheads on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs are included in this limit and one warhead can also be counted as a deployed heavy bomber fully supplied and furnished with equipment necessary for nuclear armaments. This limit is comparatively lower than the limit of 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (by 74%) and the 2002 Treaty of Moscow (by 30%). the limit of deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, heavy bomber fully supplied and furnished with equipment necessary for nuclear armaments and SLBM launchers combined is 800. Separate deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and deployed heavy bomber fully supplied and furnished with equipment necessary for nuclear armaments have a limit of 700. Verification and Transparency under the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty has a new command that takes the best of the verification and inspection components of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and combines it with the new methods which have been specifically made to fall to the limitations of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Lee, 2012). The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty makes use of various methods for verification such as on site inspections and demonstrations, exchange of data and keeping the other party up to date, instant announcement and notifying to the other party regarding strategic weapons and arms and establishments covered by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and facilitation of national technical means to monitor the treaty by allowing provisions. The exchange of data by automatic transmission and measurement from remote sources by wire or radio or other means have also increased transparency between the parties of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will last for ten years unless it is overridden and changed by some other treaty. The extension of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty can not be more than five years. A withdrawal clause standard to arms control treaty is also applicable in the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The coming into force of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will mark the termination of the 2002 Treaty of Moscow. The approval of the United States Senate and the legislature of Russian Federation is essential for the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to come into force. No Constraints on Missile Defense and Conventional Strike: There are no limitations or constraints on testing, developing and deploying any missile defense programs of the United States of America whether current or planned in advance neither on any conventional strikes capabilities of the United States of America whether current or planned in advance (Lee, 2012). Sergei Ryabkov the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia says that they can withdraw from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty but it would be very ‘undesirable’ as a response to Moscow claiming that they will withdraw from the treaty if the United States of America does not address the issue of missile deployments for defense (Lee, 2012). The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is not a dramatic step towards disarmament and arms control. The treaty does not imply that the warheads should be destroyed; rather they should be stored and increase the amount of already stored weapons. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is merely a starting point of President Obama’s vision of promotion to the next level of negotiations on arms control (Sheridan, 2012). The nuclear forces of the United States of America and Russia are not symmetrical at all. This is an issue which should be considered in the United States- Russia discussions about nuclear proliferation in the days to come. Forces to be retired should be retired and the Pentagon should not accumulate the excess warheads, and the stores of weapons should be pruned. It would be considered good planning.  The Pentagon takes a lot of warheads which haven’t been deployed and increases the amount of weapons in store for crisis. The United States of America has a much stronger force with 1722 warheads that can be accounted for and 806 deployed strategic delivery systems. In the next six years the warheads will have to be reduced by 172 warheads and 96 deployed delivery vehicles. Keeping excessive warheads in store is costly as it requires maintenance and it is not fair for the Russians who demand for an increase in the production of missiles and the deployment of new missiles and weapons (Kristensen, 2012). Obama’s supporters insist that strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will increase the national security of the United States of America and make its strategic abilities stronger. According to them the new strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will help in achieving the non-proliferation goals set by the United States of America and make other nations believe that United States of America is not going to compromise in its part and will fulfill its duties under the NPT. This may be of assistance to convince nations who are not part of arms control treaties and have their own nuclear weapons to co-operate with the United Stets of America. Critics however are not so sure if the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will be of any help regarding the national security as the Russian Federation was on the verge of decreasing its weapons, regardless of any treaty. They also argue on the point that an arms controlling treaty was unnecessary as the United States of America and Russia were already on good terms. Some critics consider the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty as a way to distract people from other greater issues regarding weapons control (US Embassy Blogs, 2012). The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty has been very effective in bringing down the number of weapons from 12,000 to 2,000 in the past twenty years and further to 1,550 by the coming into force of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Burns, 2012). References: " The New START Treaty: Central Limits and Key Provisions."blogs.usembassy.gov Blogs. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. . Category. "What Is Arms Control?."Welcome to About.com US Foreign Policy. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. . Collina, Tom Z.. "New START at a Glance | Arms Control Association." Arms Control Association | The authoritative source on arms control since 1971.. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. .  Kristensen, Hans M.. " New START Data Released: Nuclear Flatlining » FAS Strategic Security Blog ."Federation of American Scientists. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. .  Lee, Jesse . "The New START Treaty: Signed | The White House." The White House. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. .  "New START." U.S. Department of State. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. .  Sheridan, Mary Beth. "What is New START?." Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. .  "Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) | GlobalSolutions.org." GlobalSolutions.org | Global Issues, Local Activism. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. . Burns, Mike. "Obama Administration Considers Strategic And Responsible Nuclear Arsenal Cuts, Right-Wing Media Freak Out." Media Matters for America. N.p., 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2012. . Read More