Let’s get back to work with Russia: We need New START treaty in force

The lack of regular data exchanges and on-site verification measures means our understanding of Russian missile and bomber forces will diminish over time. As Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, has said: “Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and activities, and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy would be more complex and more costly. Without such a regime, we would unfortunately be left to use worst-case analyses regarding our own force requirements.”

For more than 20 years, the right of our weapons inspectors to confirm the validity of Russian-provided data by conducting short-notice on-site inspections of nuclear weapons facilities has been at the core of verification regimes in treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation. 

President Reagan famously challenged the Soviets to “trust but verify.”
His concept for a strong verification regime that includes on-site
inspections was first implemented in July 1988 under the treaty between
the United States and the U.S.S.R. on the elimination of their
intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles (the INF Treaty).  

Once
New START enters into force, we will — after a year-long hiatus —
receive extensive declarations from Russia every six months of the
number, type and location of all the strategic offensive forces under
the treaty. What’s more, New START calls for an unprecedented level of
information about those forces because, under New START, a unique
identifying number will be assigned to each missile and bomber, which
will allow the U.S. to follow that item through its life. And under the
terms of the treaty, Russia will provide prompt updates to that data so
the U.S. can understand activities in Russia’s forces and keep track of
Russia’s compliance with the treaty’s central limits.  

On-site
inspections are a vital complement to the data the U.S. will receive
under New START. They provide the “boots on the ground” presence to
confirm the validity of Russian data declarations, thus helping to
verify compliance with treaty obligations, as well as adding to our
confidence and knowledge regarding Russian strategic forces located at
those facilities. Under New START, the United States will have the right
to conduct 18 on-site inspections of Russian strategic weapons
facilities annually. Without the treaty, there will be zero inspections —
just as there are zero today and just as there have been zero for
almost a year now.  

For these reasons, Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper has said that as far as the treaty is
concerned, “the sooner, the better.” 

Data exchanges and on-site
inspections work together with other verification means to ensure
compliance with treaty obligations. Our satellites and other methods,
known as National Technical Means (NTM) of verification, a comprehensive
data exchange, regular notifications to update that exchange and
on-site inspections combine to enable us to observe and evaluate Russian
activities. Without New START, we have been left with NTM alone to give
us insight into Russian nuclear forces — a situation we have not faced
since on-site inspections began in the late 1980s.

The New START
treaty data exchanges will provide us a much more detailed picture of
Russian strategic forces than we were able to obtain from earlier
exchanges and the inspections will give us crucial opportunities to
confirm the validity of that data. In part, this is thanks to our
weapons inspectors, who gained a strong body of knowledge and experience
about conducting on-site inspections efficiently and effectively under
START and the INF Treaty; they also learned how to improve them. They
brought that experience to the negotiating table in Geneva, creating new
approaches. 

For the first time, we will receive data about
actual re-entry vehicle (warhead) loadings on Russia’s missiles and
bombers and on-site inspection procedures under New START will allow the
United States to confirm the actual number of warheads on any randomly
selected Russian ICBM and SLBM. This verification task and inspection
right did not exist under START.  

New START verification measures
are adapted to the requirements of this treaty, while also being
simpler, less operationally disruptive and less costly to implement than
the original START verification measures. These new provisions were
developed with the concerns and perspectives of the U.S. Department of
Defense in mind.  

New START is a continuation of the
international arms control and nonproliferation framework that the
United States has worked hard to foster and strengthen for the last 50
years. It preserves the United States’s ability to maintain the strong,
credible nuclear deterrent that is a key element of U.S. national
security and the security of U.S. allies and friends. The time is now to
ratify it.

Gottemoeller is the assistant secretary of State
for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance and is the chief
negotiator of the New START treaty.