Obama Wants Current Senate To Pass Russia Treaty? Not So Fast

Defense News reported Nov. 4th that “Obama Wants Current Senate To Pass Russia Treaty.”

New START strikes a foreign policy pose without accomplishing a significant strategic purpose. Although President Obama wishes to push the draft treaty through the lame-duck Senate before a more skeptical Senate is seated in January 2011, he is unlikely to succeed. In part, he is unlikely to succeed precisely because it is apparent that the treaty has more to do with the President scoring an apparent diplomatic accomplishment than with securing the United States. For that very reason the treaty is important to Russia; it gives them the strategic gain of winning increased leverage with the President. As Putin-Medvedev assist Mr. Obama in strengthening his credential in his foreign affairs, they can expect greater accommodation from him in the areas of concern to them.

Judging the prospects of this treaty, accordingly, involves far more judging the relative political calculations of the chief actors in the United States and Russia than it involves determining issues of relative security. It should be conceded by every informed observer that this treaty in no way materially affects security relations as between the United States and Russia. Whether at the prior levels or at the new levels there is no credible prospect for a Russian threat to the United States. While there may be some point below 1,550 deployed warheads where Russia could attain strategic advantage, that point has not yet been reached. To that extent Mr. Obama has not endangered the United States. To the extent that he has tacitly forgone further development of missile defenses, however, he will have exposed the United States unnecessarily to other, non-Russian threats.

There is yet another, still more significant collateral consequence of the treaty that bears careful consideration, whether in the lame duck Congress or the next. If the primary accomplishment of the treaty is to enlist foreign states and leaders in a mission of political reclamation for the President of the United States, it is inevitable that other state leaders will learn a capital lesson from the example. It would be wise to expect further and numerous attempts to roll this President on the basis of vulnerability exposed in the very form of his interest in New START.