Military Leaders Believe That New START Treaty Enhances Missile Defense
As the Senate moves toward a potential vote on ratification of the New START Treaty, some congress members continue to voice their concerns about missile defense restrictions. This repeated reservation has become an unsubstantiated and tiresome talking point, as the notion that the START Treaty restricts our missile defense program in any way has been widely debunked by prominent military leaders.
Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the section of the Defense Department which is responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles, has gone so far as to state that this treaty enhances our missile defenses. O’Reilly has testified before Congress numerous times in support of the New START treaty, stating that:
Relative to the recently expired START treaty, the New START treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program, and under the new START treaty our targets will no longer be subject to START constraints.
O’Reilly augments this statement by noting a few main points:
- Article III (7a) excludes interceptor development, which O’Reilly refers to as the “mainstay of our missile defense” program.
- The Trident I missile, which was previously counted in our missile limits under START I, is not accountable under New START. This allows the United States to use Trident I missiles as a defense test target without including it in the treaty quotas.
- Restrictions on encryption of telemetric information for in flight test targets are relaxed. This is positive for the US, as sharing of test target information can also reveal information about our interceptors. As pointed out in a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, under START I, the sharing of this telemetric information was necessary to produce an accurate count of the number of warheads on each missile. However, New START verification procedures count the actual number of warheads, therefore telemetric information sharing is not necessary. As merely a confidence building measure, the Treaty establishes a limited exchange of telemetric information on a parity basis; the number of said exchanges will be determined by the Bilateral Consultative Commission at a later date.
- The new treaty gives us greater flexibility in conducting long-range testing in the Pacific. In the previous treaty, the US was restricted by launching targets from airborne targets, from aircraft or from waterborne targets. Under the new treaty, we do not have those restrictions
O’Reilly is part of a growing coalition of experienced military leaders who support the START Treaty. In mid-July, seven of the eight former commanders of the US’s nuclear forces sent this letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, urging them to ratify the treaty. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has testified that the treaty will impose “no limits on us” in regards to missile defense. In addition, The Consensus for American Security, a bi-partisan group of former military leaders, including Chief Negotiator of the first START Treaty Ambassador Richard Burt and former Secretary of State George Shultz, announced their support of START last month.
Since the START I Treaty’s expiration in December 2009, the United States and Russia have lacked a nuclear agreement involving inspections, data exchange, or verification measures. Sitting on the desks of senators is a treaty which is vital to countering the global nuclear threat and to our national security. The Senate needs to listen to the country’s top military leaders and make America safer by ratifying START.
