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Cross-posted at Heritage.org:

The current regime in Russia has a terrible record as a reliable partner, yet President Obama wants the nuclear treaty he negotiated with the Kremlin fast-tracked for Senate approval. That makes no sense. Here are 10 reasons why.

1. A Long History of Arms Control Violations:Russia repeatedly violated the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) all the way to its expiration in December 2009, as clearly stated in 2005 and 2010 State Department compliance reports. Specifically, Russia tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with Multiple Individually Targeted Re-entry Vehicles (warheads) while START was in force. Such activities, however, were explicitly banned.

2. The West Is Still Their #1 Threat: Russia regards the U.S. and NATO as its principal adversaries and configures its forces for large-scale conventional theater operations with them. The recent discovery of the Russian spy network inside the U.S. and their celebration upon return to Russia, courtesy of President Obama, indicates that Russia is set in a Cold War mentality.

3. Helping Iran and North Korea: According to U.S. intelligence, Russia violated nonproliferation agreements by providing ballistic missile technology to Iran and North Korea, which have continually threatened America and its allies.

4. Still Building a Nuclear Arsenal: Nearly 20 years after the end of the Cold War, Russia still designs, builds, and modernizes nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Russia’s new military doctrine maintains a low threshold for nuclear first strikes. In fact, Moscow plans to use tactical nuclear weapons in Europe if ever confronted with a conventional threat. In 2009, Russia conducted a military exercise that simulated a nuclear attack on Poland.

5. Not in Compliance on Other Treaties: The U.S. believes Russia to be in non-compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention. In 2009, the Strategic Posture Commission told Congress: “Russia is no longer in compliance with its PNI [Presidential Nuclear Initiatives] commitments.” Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons arsenal may be 10 times larger than that of the U.S.

6. No Regard for Georgia Independence: Russia has repeatedly broken its promises to withdraw military forces from Georgia and Moldova. When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, it rewrote the rules of post–World War II European security. It repudiated the Helsinki Pact of 1975, which recognized the security of European borders, and violated the sovereignty of a NATO aspirant and member of the Council of Europe.

7. Responds Offensively to Defensive Measures: In response to U.S. plans for a defensive missile shield in Europe to protect against Iranian missile threats, Moscow has repeatedly threatened to deploy Iskander short-range and nuclear-capable missiles to target U.S. allies in Eastern Europe. Reports show that the Baltic Fleet is armed with nuclear weapons that can be used against Europe.

8. Ties to Terrorist Organizations: Russia cultivates ties with terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah and provides military and diplomatic support for anti-American “rogue states” such as Syria, Iran, and Venezuela. Russia voted with the U.S. at the U.N. Security Council to pass sanctions on Iran—but only after working hard to water them down to practically nothing.

9. Natural Gas as a Political Weapon: The Kremlin uses its neighbors and Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas as a foreign policy tool to pressure states. In 2009, Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and to Europe by extension, causing the International Energy Agency to deem them an unreliable supplier.

10. An Authoritarian Regime: The current model of leadership under President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has become increasingly authoritarian. Despite numerous commitments under international law, the government has tightened controls on political life, civil society, and the media. Disruption of political opposition’s activities, restricting access to state-controlled TV, human right violations (such as the beating of demonstrators who “support” the Russian constitution), murder of journalists and anti-corruption activists, disappearance and torture, abuse of the legal system for monetary and political gain—all illustrate this negative trend.

Several months ago, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that in as little as five years, Iran may be capable of hitting the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile, with North Korea’s help.

Defense experts James Woolsey, a former director of Central Intelligence and a board member at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Rebeccah Heinrichs, an adjunct fellow at the same organization, discuss this threat in the Wall Street Journal:

“In March of that same year, Gen. Michael Maples, then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a Senate panel that Iran’s successful satellite launch ’shows progress in mastering the technology needed to produce ICBMs.’ Earlier this year Iran successfully orbited a second satellite with an ICBM-class ballistic missile.

“Gen. Maples is right. If you can launch a satellite into orbit you are very close to being able to hit a target half way around the world. That’s why the Soviet launch of Sputnik so shocked the U.S. intelligence community in 1957. When a country is the most active state sponsor of terrorism, and its leaders routinely endorse slogans like “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” we should take it seriously when they pursue the capabilities to make their dreams a reality.

“A December 2009 missile launch proved Iran has already obtained the ability to reach Israel. Given President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s and other Iranian leaders’ millenarian fanaticism, it would be most imprudent to rely on nuclear deterrence alone to protect us. If Tehran were to achieve a nuclear missile capability, it could hold American cities hostage—unless, that is, the U.S. builds a robust and comprehensive ballistic missile defense.”

Philip Coyle, a missile defense skeptic and critic, was appointed by the president during a congressional recess to serve as associate director for the National Security and International Affairs in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Among other things, Coyle believes U.S. missile defense is unnecessary and doubts that rogue nations like Iran seek to attack the U.S. and its allies.

“In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles,” Coyle said last year.” He doubts Iran or North Korea would launch a missile attack against us.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote about Coyle in March at The Politico.

“President Barack Obama has nominated an anti-missile defense adviser who may soon receive congressional approval — and put Americans in danger…Russia and China, two countries with nuclear weapons and effective long range ballistic missiles, have helped Iran develop its missile program. Other countries that range from the hostile to the unreliable — for example, North Korea, Syria and Pakistan — also have ballistic missile programs.”

In his 2008 congressional hearing testimony, Coyle claimed that Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) isn’t effective enough to defend Europe and the U.S., but Heinrichs wrote that “a more complex version of GMD had completed a successful intercept test just months before. It is now the only system capable of defending the United States from long-range missiles.”

Despite threats from rogue states, the Obama administration has scaled back missile defense. In fact, some missile defense experts believe Obama compromised our nation’s security and our ability to defend ourselves in exchange for Russia signing the new START.

As Heinrichs said in her article, the new associate director for the National Security and International Affairs appears confident when it comes to rogues states acting rationally, but lacks confidence in his own country’s military leaders and engineers.

Former Governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post. He was some tough words for the president.

“Given President Obama’s glaring domestic policy missteps, it is understandable that the public has largely been blinded to his foreign policy failings…He castigated Israel at the United Nations but was silent about Hamas having launched 7,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip. His policy of ‘engagement’ with rogue nations has been met with North Korean nuclear tests, missile launches and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, while Iran has accelerated its nuclear program, funded terrorists and armed Hezbollah with long-range missiles. He acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.

“Despite all of this, the president’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia could be his worst foreign policy mistake yet. The treaty as submitted to the Senate should not be ratified.”

Like other proponents of strong and comprehensive missile defense, Romney believes START limits our missile strategy, despite the administration’s assurances to the contrary.

“Its preamble links strategic defense with strategic arsenal. It explicitly forbids the United States from converting intercontinental ballistic missile silos into missile defense sites. And Russia has expressly reserved the right to walk away from the treaty if it believes that the United States has significantly increased its missile defense capability.

“Hence, to preserve the treaty’s restrictions on Russia, America must effectively get Russia’s permission for any missile defense expansion. Moscow’s vehemence over our modest plans in Eastern Europe demonstrate that such permission would be extremely unlikely.”

Why did President Obama caved to an agreement that benefits mostly Russia? Why is the reasoning behind restricting the defense of our homeland?

“The treaty also gives far more to the Russians than to the United States. As drafted, it lets Russia escape the limit on its number of strategic nuclear warheads. Loopholes and lapses — presumably carefully crafted by Moscow — provide a path to entirely avoid the advertised warhead-reduction targets. For example, rail-based ICBMs and launchers are not mentioned. Similarly, multiple nuclear warheads that are mounted on bombers are effectively not counted. Unlike past treaty restrictions, ICBMs are not prohibited from bombers. This means that Russia is free to mount a nearly unlimited number of ICBMs on bombers — including MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) or multiple warheads — without tripping the treaty’s limits. These omissions would be consistent with Russia’s plans for a new heavy bomber and reports of growing interest in rail-mobile ICBMs.”

Read the full article at the Washington Post.

Henry Obering, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and former director of the Missile Defense Agency, and Rebeccah Heinrichs, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, co-authored an article for the Washington Times on President Barack Obama’s missile defense policy and the existing missile threat.

Obering and Heinrichs summarize the latest national security developments, such as President Barack Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review and the renewal of START. The Defense Intelligence Agency recently reported that in as little as five years, Iran may be capable of hitting the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile, with North Korea’s help.

An excerpt of the article:

“Although administration officials continue to insist that the treaty does not constrain U.S. missile defense, the Russians have unilaterally declared that they would withdraw if they thought American missile-defense capabilities threatened their strategic nuclear force. U.S. missile defense is not designed to defend against Russian missiles. Its purpose is to defend America and our allies against rogue states and terrorist proxies – the threats outlined in the DIA report.

“But even if we know this to be true, it doesn’t mean the Russians will agree. The ground-based European site posed no threat to Russia, but in spite of the preponderance of evidence, the Russians disagreed. This contributed to the Obama administration’s scrapping the plan and shifting to what is called the Phased Adaptive Approach. We have yet to see how the Russians will react to this plan – a plan that requires the deployment of sea- and land-based assets on or near land occupied by the former Soviet Union.”

While we made concessions to Russia, Iran and North Korea haven’t made concessions to anyone. Missile threats from these two rogue states are growing. Obering and Heinrichs remind us that President George Bush liberated the U.S. from the ban on deployment of integrated missile defenses, but they wonder whether Obama has re-attached the chains when he “reset” relations with Russia. Flexibility is important in the shifting climate.

Read the full article.

Last week we pointed you to an article written by James Carafano and Jena McNeill of the Heritage Foundation. They recommended that Congress establish March 23 as Electromagnetic Pulse Recognition Day, given the catastrophic effects of a nuclear weapon explosion in our atmosphere.

This explosion would interact with the planet’s magnetic fields, creating a pulse, which in turn would cause widespread damage, devastate the economy, and result in millions of deaths.

TIME magazine published a story on EMP and quoted Carafano’s and McNeill’s article. An excerpt:

“Maybe it’s America’s frontier heritage; moving west and constantly facing new bands of Indians, this nation has always seemed to have an exaggerated awareness of potential threats. The Cold War gave us warnings of missile and bomber gaps, later found to be largely mirages, that were supposedly leaving U.S. citizens vulnerable to Soviet attack. Fear of the supposed Soviet missile advantage spurred President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars initiative and the $100 billion Washington has spent preparing to counter incoming enemy missiles even as the Soviet Union disappeared. Then, 9/11 put us in the crosshairs of Islamic terrorists, calling into being a mushrooming homeland-security industrial complex. All very well, warn the sentinels at the Heritage Foundation, but what about the EMP threat?”

Note the magazine’s barely-contained sarcasm. An EMP attack is not a mirage. The threat is real. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea are improving ballistic missile capabilities and developing nuclear weapons, and both countries know about EMP’s effects.

America has a duty to protect its citizens, and as long as EMP attacks are possible, Congress should alert the public of the danger and shore up our defenses against it, even if it sounds like science fiction.

In his recent Washington Examiner column, the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano recounts the successful Airborne Laser (ABL) test that occurred earlier this month. Within two minutes of launching, the high-energy laser found its target and destroyed it.

“Not bad for a defensive weapon once ridiculed as science fiction,” Carafano writes. “Skeptics even persuaded the Obama administration to slot the airborne laser for the ninth circle of procurement hell — a pit for dead-end research and development programs. But this month’s dramatic success has put the critics on their heels…The Point Mugu exercise was what engineers call a ‘proof of principle’ test. They tested it. It is proven.”

Despite the ABL’s success, the Obama administration opted not to build a second test aircraft. Why? “It will argue laser missile defense makes no sense because the weapon’s range is limited to a few hundred kilometers. That would put the lumbering aircraft well within the range of air defense systems fielded by the likes of North Korea and Iran.”

But shorter-range Scud missiles, however, are threats that the ABL can counter. The former Soviet Union made these missiles, and today other countries make their own. Carafano notes that Iran’s Shahab-3 is an advanced Scud variant probably capable of traveling 1,000 kilometers and carrying a warhead.

“It couldn’t reach Washington from Tehran, but then, it wouldn’t have to. Iran could easily extend the missile’s reach simply by moving it to a commercial freighter and firing it from nearby using an improvised vertical launch tube disguised as cargo.”

Is this something worth worrying about? Please post a comment at the Washington Examiner.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has released its Ballistic Missile Defense Review, conducted from March 2009 through January 2010. Download the 61-page report in PDF.

In assessing the ballistic missile threat around the world, DOD found the threat to be growing. As technology improves, missiles are becoming more accurate and farther-reaching. Ballistic missile systems are also more flexible and mobile. These trends are particularly disturbing as rogue states continue developing long-range weapons and nuclear capability. Last year, Iran test-fired the long-range Sajjil-2 missile, capable of reaching Israel and Southern Europe. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) have a longer range than the Sajjil.

“There is some uncertainty about when and how this type of [ICBM] threat to the U.S. homeland will mature,” states the report, “but there is no uncertainty about the existence of regional threats. They are clear and present. The threat from short-range, medium-range, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs, MRBMs, and IRBMs) in regions where the United States deploys forces and maintains security relationships is growing at a particularly rapid pace.”

DOD’s recommended priorities for the U.S. include testing new capabilities before deployment, testing under realistic operational conditions, and adapting as threats shift.

DOD contends that the Ground-based Midcourse Defense presently protects the U.S. against ICBM attacks from Iran and North Korea. To maintain this “advantageous position” as the threat grows, DOD says the U.S. will:

“Maintain readiness and continue to develop existing operational capabilities at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

“Complete the second field of 14 silos at Fort Greely to hedge against the possibility that additional deployments become necessary.

“Deploy new sensors in Europe to improve cueing for missiles launched at the United States by Iran or other potential adversaries in the Middle East.

“Invest in further development of the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) for future land-based deployment as the ICBM threat matures.

“Increase investments in sensors and early-intercept kill systems to help defeat missile defense countermeasures.

“Pursue a number of new GMD system enhancements, develop next generation missile defense capabilities, and advance other hedging strategies including continued development and assessment of a two-stage ground-based interceptor.”

Some experts question the report’s conclusions. For example, the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring believes the threat to the homeland could well be more imminent, which leaves the U.S. vulnerable to strategic surprises and risks the lives of millions of Americans. Our solutions and strategies should be more immediate rather than future oriented.

Next month, the U.S. will simulate an Iranian attack to test its missile defense systems. The long-range “attack” missile would be fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and a missile fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base would intercept it.

The Missile Defense Agency’s Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly said the test will be different from a simulated North Korean attack, which would be slower and less direct.

“Previously, we have been testing the GMD system against a North Korean-type scenario…This next test … is more of a head-on shot like you would use defending against an Iranian shot into the United States. So that’s the first time that we’re now testing in a different scenario.”

In September, President Barack Obama dropped plans to build missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, claiming he wanted to focus on proven and cost-effective technology that will aid in defending against Iran’s shorter-range missiles rather than long-range. The decision was seen as a move to placate Russia.

“The development of that (Iranian) long-range threat has been slower than what was originally estimated, and the pace of the medium-range missiles is dramatically higher,” O’Reilly said.

Next month’s simulated attack will cost about $150 million

(Source: Reuters)

 
Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is seeking funds for a missile defense project in Hawaii. He wants $68.5 million from last year’s budget to build an Aegis Ashore test facility, bypassing the defense authorizers. (Source)

One of the defense authorizers, Senator John McCain, tried to block Inouye’s request by introducing an amendment that would require formal approval. We’ve blogged about reports that North Korea possess a long-range missile capable of reaching Hawaii. The U.S. has been testing the Theater High-Altitude Area Defenses in Hawaii in preparation for a Taepodong-2 attack. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) seeks to use funds that were intended for missile defense shields in Poland and the Czech Republic for the project in Hawaii.

An excerpt:

“[MDA Lt. Gen. Patrick] O’Reilly called the establishment of the Aegis Ashore facility in Hawaii a ‘priority.’ The test facility could also provide an operational ballistic missile defense capability when needed, O’Reilly argued. The test launcher could provide continuous protection for the region, he added…Japanese intelligence officials have warned that North Korea could launch a long-range ballistic missile toward the Hawaiian islands, which are roughly 4,500 miles away, but U.S. intelligence analysts do not believe that North Korea has the ability to hit Hawaii.”