Obama Has Escaped a False START

The American president has kept his promise to the president of Russia.

Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the document that, by its own existence, allows the American leader to make a statement that the years of his presidency haven’t been in vain. It is the new Russian-American treaty on measures for further reduction and limitation of strategic and offensive arms.

Philip Crowley, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, earlier commented that the exchange of instruments of ratification for the new START treaty would take place on Feb. 5 in Munich during the meeting of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Conference on Security Policy. “Once this exchange occurs, the New START Treaty will enter into force,” emphasized Crowley.

Let us remind you that the new treaty replaces the START-1 treaty, which expired in December 2009. The new treaty reduces the current nuclear arsenals ceiling of the two leading nuclear powers of the planet down from 2200 to 1550 deployed warheads. Apart from that, the treaty re-establishes a monitoring system. Earlier, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who had signed the treaty this year on Jan. 28, characterized the treaty as “defining strategic cooperation, the balance of power in the short term.”

The American media, commenting on the completion of the START treaty ratification procedure, was generous with its words: “A key foreign policy goal of President Barack Obama has been achieved,” “A cornerstone to reset U.S. relations with Russia,” “The president has achieved one of his main goals,” these are the accolades proclaimed by the leading world media outlets, following the ceremony of signing the START treaty at the White House. Journalists were playing with the English abbreviation of the treaty name — START.

President Obama should be given credit for what he has done to make the ratification of the treaty come true. While between the presidents of Russia and the U.S., there was a complete agreement about the necessity of this treaty (Russian deputies had also demonstrated a readiness to ratify the agreed), the response of the U.S. Congress had troubled the American leader. Under various pretexts, the Republicans refused to grant their “approval” of the document. As a result, the American leader, in an attempt to keep his promise, compelled Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. to work “day and night” over the ratification issue. At the same time, the president himself had acceded to substantial concessions to his political opponents and personally called up those senators who kept on being resolute till the last moment. In the end, Obama managed to convince them that it is not only him who needs the START treaty, but the United States of America and Russia, as well as the whole world.

Experts say it is important but still merely a step heading toward transforming the planet into a world free of nuclear weapons. Having 1550 warheads makes both Russia and the U.S. capable of destroying every living creature on the planet several times over. Moreover, American senators managed to add some “salt” to the event by ratifying a resolution that has caused concern in Russia. The resolution proclaims that the START treaty does not apply to non-nuclear strategic arms that can be developed in the future. They also pointed at the connection between defensive and offensive arms as not legally binding. Naturally, it was taken into consideration in Moscow and their response later stressed that in case of violation of a single clause of the treaty by the American side, Washington will be the one to blame for a false START.