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During START negotiations, missile defense experts were concerned about a rumored link between offensive and defensive missile strategy. As it turns out, those concerns were warranted. The preamble to the new START includes language that reads as experts suspected.

The Heritage Foundation‘s Kim Holmes discusses this issue in a Washington Times op-ed. An excerpt:

“Treaty supporters in the U.S. say this language is merely rhetorical; it won’t restrict our ability to defend against missiles from Iran, North Korea or elsewhere. It’s stunning how easily they dismiss Russia’s interpretation. They should review a little history. The Russians may know something they don’t.

“For example, under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with the Soviet Union, the U.S. consistently placed limitations on ‘theater’ (shorter-range) air and missile defense systems the treaty did not officially cover. Why? Because Pentagon attorneys feared controversy with the Soviets. Their guidance led the U.S. to ‘dumb down’ the Patriot missile so that it could intercept only ‘slow and low’ missiles, though nothing in the ABM Treaty required such design and testing limits. As a result, former Strategic Defense Initiative Director Henry F. Cooper confirmed later, ‘In the 1970s, no ballistic missile defense capability was given to [the developmental] SAM-D, now called Patriot.’

“So what’s wrong with shaving a little capability? … It ultimately costs lives.”

Unfortunately, the U.S. has a history of appeasing Russia when it comes to missile defense. Holmes provides several examples of our country intentionally downscaling missile defense capacity. The new START is a repeat of earlier restrictions on U.S. missile defense. While Russia is being honest about those restrictions, President Barack Obama and his administration deny them.

Last week we mentioned that the U.S. Senate was deliberating on whether to ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring said treaty approval “will turn on whether the Obama Administration’s commitment to modernizing the nuclear weapons infrastructure is adequate in the eyes of the Senate and will be sustained after ratification.” (Source)

If the administration provides no clear-cut answers, the Senate may request the negotiating records  between the two countries. The Heritage Foundation‘s Kim Holmes provides an update on those negotiations. From the Washington Times:

“The Obama administration’s drive to win Senate approval of the New START arms treaty with Russia has hit a speed bump. Several senators are asking to see the secret negotiating record from the administration’s official talks with Russia.

“Why? Because U.S. and Russian officials publicly disagree about what the treaty says. Senators have a right to know – before they consent to ratification of a treaty that affects national security – how those terms now at issue were handled during the negotiations.”

“The differences regarding missile defense are stark. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserts that the treaty links arms reduction to restraint on missile defense and that this linkage is legally binding. Russia, he says, can withdraw from the treaty if  ‘the U.S.’s build-up of its missile defense strategic potential in numbers and quality begins to considerably affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces.’”

One side claims there are no restrictions on our missile defense strategy, and the other side believes there are restrictions. Which is it?

“Only a careful review of the negotiating record can set the record straight,” Holmes writes. The president has undermined our defenses and emboldened a resurgent Russia for “the sake of just getting a treaty.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Kim Holmes wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times. An excerpt:

“President Obama’s nuclear-weapons policy is finally taking shape. We now have the text of his ‘New START’ treaty with Russia, the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and statements on fissile materials at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

“But as the policy picture comes into focus, most of what we see is troubling.

“For starters, there is this irritating habit of wanting moral credit for wishful thinking. Mr. Obama has said his ultimate goal is ‘a world without nuclear weapons.’ Nobody seriously believes this will happen, yet his administration solemnly links the treaty and the otherwise dour and serious NPR to this airy goal. With a wink and nod, they seem to think the masses (especially their supporters) will believe the hype, even though the experts know something very different.

“What the experts hope is that the new START treaty and the NPR will reduce the world’s reliance on nuclear weapons. But that laudable hope may be groundless, too.

“The administration says our greatest threats are Iran and terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons — not Russia. Yet, the new treaty will do nothing to convince Iran or other rogue states and terrorists to follow our disarmament lead. Not only that, it increases the centrality of nuclear weapons in the U.S.-Russian strategic balance, playing right into Russia’s desire to be our ‘peer’ competitor based largely on nuclear weapons.

“The biggest problem with the new treaty is how lopsided it is in Russia’s favor. Because of financial constraints and outdated nuclear systems, Russia’s nuclear arsenal was already going down, especially its aging launchers and delivery systems. It would have likely been forced to make the reductions codified in this treaty whether or not the U.S. reduced its weapons.”

 
The Heritage Foundation’s Kim Holmes wrote an article for the Washington Times in which he asks the question, “Why cut missile defense now?”

About the proposed $1.4 billion cut in the missile defense budget, Holmes writes:

“It’s being done in the name of ‘restructuring’ the missile-defense program. The administration is holding on to defenses against short-range missiles, while scaling back programs against long-range missiles – the kind North Korea and Iran recently tested.

“This makes no sense. Defenses against short-range missiles are all very fine, but they are not the missiles that most threaten the United States. That would be North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missiles tested April 5, which when fully deployed, could reach Alaska and California.

“One target of the cuts is the Airborne Laser (ABL), an energy-directed weapon placed on a modified Boeing 747-400. The ABL is intended to knock down a long-range missile shortly after it leaves the launchpad – the best time for an intercept because its warheads have not yet been deployed in space.”

Holmes also wonders why the Pentagon decided to turn its back on the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV), which would destroy missiles in space. Along with the Space Tracking and Surveillance System sensor program, the MKV could effectively neutralize our enemies’ abilities to succeed in causing mass destruction.

Holmes puts the missile defense cut in perspective:

“It would be understandable if we couldn’t afford missile defenses,” he writes. “But that is clearly not the case. The $1.4 billion cut from the missile defense budget is 0.04 percent of the overall proposed federal budget. It’s like a rounding error in an Obama bailout…The roughly $10 billion we spend annually on all of missile defense amounts to only 13 percent of what local, state and federal government agencies pay for ‘first responders.’”

President Barack Obama would do well to know that appeasement and “dialogue” didn’t stop North Korea from launching a rocket, and nothing short of comprehensive missile defense will protect the U.S. and its allies from rogue nations.

The Heritage Foundation blog also comments on Holmes’s op-ed.

 
The Heritage Foundation‘s Kim R. Holmes, Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, has a post up at National Review Online’s The Corner blog. He writes about the surprisingly short span of time it would take for our enemies to wipe out an American city with nuclear weapons: 33 minutes.

“Amazingly, some pundits say the threat of such attacks is farfetched, and our military can repel them anyway,” Holmes writes. “They are wrong. Though our capabilities have come a long way in eight years, they are not enough to protect all of America. It is morally wrong to suggest that the government should settle for protecting only some of us.”

As more countries acquire ballistic missiles, especially rogue countries like Iran and North Korea, the situation becomes even more dire. Holmes points out that most Americans understand the danger. Unfortunately, Barack Obama was been lukewarm on this issue. There seems to be no sense of urgency to build missile shields and to protect the homeland and our allies.

See our post from earlier this week, “33 Minutes on YouTube,” to view a two-minute trailer for a high-definition documentary titled, “33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age,” produced by the Heritage Foundation. The film will explain the history of missile defense, the present global nuclear threat, and what the U.S. must do to protect itself and the world.

As Holmes notes, we’ve tried and failed to negotiate away the missile threat. There’s a good reason Iran and North Korea are called “rogue” nations.