Issue Briefs

Volume 1, Number 23

Over the past few months, newspapers across the United States have published editorials and op-eds in support of U.S. Senate ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, New START. On Sept. 16, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-4 to send the treaty to the full Senate. This issue brief catalogues the wide and growing support for New START from all regions of the country.

Volume 1, Number 22

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to vote on New START Sept. 16. Over the last few weeks, newspapers across the country have published editorials and op-eds in support of U.S. Senate ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, New START. This issue brief highlights the broad editorial support for New START from all regions of the United States.

Volume 1, Number 21

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed in April by the United States and Russia, is scheduled for a Thursday vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Over the last five months, the Senate has held 21 hearings and briefings and built a formidable, bipartisan case for New START. This Issue Brief highlights the reasons why New START deserves prompt Senate approval and briefly addresses several of the questions raised by treaty skeptics.

Volume 1, Number 20

For the first time in more than 20 years, the United States cannot "look under the hood" and conduct direct, on-site inspections of thousands of nuclear weapons in Russia.  This unprecedented strategic blackout began when the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I, expired last December--278 days ago.

Volume 1, Number 19

In response to new expressions of urgency by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the need for ratifying the New START agreement, Paula DeSutter, George W. Bush's assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance, tries to attack the adequacy of that treaty’s verification provisions.  DeSutter's latest jabs not only miss the mark, but achieve new heights of chutzpah given her role in the Bush administration's failure to utilize earlier opportunities to maintain and update the U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear weapons verification regime.

Volume 1, Number 18

Comments by senior U.S. officials in 2010 have continued to endorse the principal conclusions of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities." This may come as a surprise for those accustomed to seeing that earlier document described by pundits and journalists as "flawed," or "erroneous." In fact, from the moment the NIE's sanitized Key Judgments were released in late November 2007, the estimate has been subject to virulent criticism, particularly by those who regret that it did not provide justification for a preventive attack on Iran's nuclear program.

Volume 1, Issue 17

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) promises to modestly reduce the still enormous number of deployed U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads--from more than 2,000 to 1,550 or less each--on no more than 700 delivery systems. Approval of New START would open the way to reductions in other types of nuclear weapons, including tactical nuclear bombs, which are a target for terrorists.

Volume 1, Number 16

The first nuclear bomb detonation in July 1945 and the surprise attacks on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year ignited a global debate about the role, the morality, and the control of nuclear weapons that continues to this day.

Volume 1, Number 15

The July 2010 U.S. State Department report Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements found that Russia was in compliance with the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired last December.  According to a senior  State Department official who testified before the Senate last week, this fact should reassure the Senate that Russia would comply with New START. New START's ratification and entry-into-force would provide the United States with the means to verify Russian compliance with the new treaty's lower ceilings for strategic deployed warheads and delivery systems.

Volume 1, Number 14

The signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia in April was an important step toward reducing the dangers posed by Cold War-era nuclear weapons, but the potential benefits to U.S. security can only be realized if the treaty is ratified.