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– Aviation Week reports that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is preparing to launch billions of dollars worth of missile defense projects, even as the MDA deals with contractors building parts that don’t hold up.

– The MDA awarded U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin awarded a $69.8 million contract to develop land-based version of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

– India seeks to develop laser-guided anti-ballistic missiles to combat incoming missiles. Earlier this year, India tested a missile interceptor defense shield, designed to detect and destroy incoming ballistic missiles, but the test failed after radar lost track of the Prithvi 2 target missile.

– Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly shared her opposition to the new START. An excerpt:

“The Russians are salivating at the thought that the New START proclaims their victory in their long-running battle to kill U.S. missile defenses. For decades, Russia’s primary goal was to stop the United States from building any anti-missile capability.

“Ronald Reagan’s adamant refusal to give up his Strategic Defense Initiative was the principal reason he won the Cold War (without firing a shot, as Margaret Thatcher said). But now Barack Obama is casually willing to abandon our right to build defensive weapons…New START doesn’t make nukes obsolete, it just tries to ensure that the U.S. and Russia have an equal capacity to destroy each other. Most important, New START does nothing whatever to protect us from a nuclear Iran or North Korea or Syria or even China.”

Henry Sokolski , executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C., has written an article for Armed Forces Journal on our current missile defense capabilities. An excerpt:

“In an effort to reduce U.S. military reliance on nuclear weapons, the Obama administration is emphasizing how much more America can rely on advanced non-nuclear weapons to defend its interests, allies and friends. There’s only one problem: The White House’s plans to deploy these forces — including new non-nuclear missile defenses and long-range conventional ballistic missiles — don’t quite add up.

“The missile defense system the Obama administration has advocated may be incapable of countering the missile threat the Pentagon is projecting. Meanwhile, the long-range conventional ballistic missile system it’s working on is unlikely to be able to reach anything but a mere handful of targets.

“None of this, however, is inevitable. Both programs can be enhanced, but only at the risk of upsetting America’s two largest potential rivals: China and Russia. Still, enhancing these programs will limit the harm either competitor might otherwise be able to inflict on the U.S. and its allies. More important, it would put the U.S. in a far better position to get Beijing and Moscow to agree to deep ground-based missile reductions and to cooperate on missile defenses, which, in turn, would make all parties far safer.

“This is conceivable if the U.S. had the right offensive and defensive programs in place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t yet.

“Take the administration’s missile defense efforts. The Pentagon announced last fall it was deploying the first fully tested version of a system known as the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) to neutralize Iran’s shorter range rockets. After 2018, it says it will begin deploying an entirely new variant to neutralize Iran’s intermediate and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. U.S. intelligence agencies last fall said Iran was most likely to deploy these sometime after 2020.

“This all seemed sound enough until Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in April that, with sufficient foreign assistance, Iran’s longest range rockets could fly by 2015 — five years earlier than originally projected. Some outside experts have doubted that the much ballyhooed advanced variant of the SM-3 — the SM-3 Block II B — could be effective against intercontinental ballistic missiles on any timeline. There has never been any question, though, of the Pentagon being able to field it before 2015. It can’t.”

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.

An excerpt of James Carafano’s post on new START verification from The Daily Caller:

“With concern over the arms control agreement President Obama signed with Russia growing, those pushing for ratification are devising increasingly far-fetched reasons why the Senate should rubber-stamp New START rather than give the treaty the serious and deliberate scrutiny a nuclear arms deal deserves. From the beginning, arguments for the treaty have sounded like scare tactics, an impression only reinforced by the recent allegations that New START will compromise national security.

“In his most recent effort to drum up support for the treaty, William Hartung asserted in the Daily Caller that, ‘without New START, there will be no verification system to help monitor what Russia is doing in the nuclear sphere. It doesn’t make sense to deprive our military of that critical information.’

“Hartung’s argument for the treaty of course runs completely counter to the narrative advanced by New START’s chief cheerleader Sen. John Kerry (D–MA) who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Kerry argues that the treaty should be signed because ‘relations with Moscow are far better‘ than they were during the Cold War. Well, time out: Which is it? We need the treaty because we trust the Russians? Or do we have to sign the treaty because we can’t trust the Russians?

“Hartung and Kerry need to get their stories straight.

“I would actually agree with Hartung that we ought to worry about what the Russians are doing. We have lots of reasons not to trust them—particularly regarding nuclear issues. The Russians primary interests in pursuing New START are to limit U.S. missile defenses and solidify their position as domineering nuclear power. How does trying to help them achieve their ends improve our national security? In fact, helping Russia become a more domineering nuclear power is a much more significant national security threat than a temporary lapse in the verification regime.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Marion Smith wrote a Backgrounder titled, Remember the Jay Treaty: START Behaving Like Senators. Missile defense experts and others are concerned whether President Barack Obama compromised away our security when the U.S. and Russia negotiated the treaty. Several have called for the START negotiating record, which would set the record straight.

“There are well-founded concerns over the provisions in the New START Treaty and their implications for U.S. security.[2] Some Senators were surprised by reference to defensive anti-missile weapons in the treaty, since New START is supposed to address only offensive nuclear weapons. The implications of this treaty could affect the ability of the U.S. to deploy defensive missile systems and points to larger security issues that also involve potential threats emanating from Iran and North Korea. In an effort to better understand the provisions of this bilateral agreement, six Republican Senators formally requested the negotiating record of the New START Treaty from the Obama Administration on May 6, 2010.[3]

“At present, however, the Obama Administration and the Democrat Members of the Foreign Relations Committee have withheld access to this vital information. This denial is tantamount to refusing the Senate an honest debate and undermines the Senate’s role in providing advice and consent. For many on the Left, however, the lack of debate is not a problem since the virtues of arms control are assumed and any debate is viewed as divisive partisanship. But Senators and the American people should not accept this misunderstanding of the Senate’s function. Policy arguments are not disruptive to the legislative process; informed debate is essential to deliberation.”

Smith compares the present dilemma facing the Senate with that facing the Senate after the Revolutionary War. The Jay Treaty of 1794 addressed territorial disputes between the U.S. and Britain.

“The ratification of the Jay Treaty was an early test of separation of powers and of the Senate’s constitutionally mandated role in U.S. foreign policy…Although the Constitution grants the President the power to negotiate treaties and possess privileged diplomatic information, Jay also acknowledged that sometimes ‘useful intelligence’ pertaining to a treaty under consideration could be vital to the Senate’s function.[10] In keeping with this understanding, Washington had submitted to the Senate ‘all the papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain” when Jay’s Treaty was ‘communicated for their consideration and advice.‘ [11] This privileged information provided the facts for the congressional debate that preceded a vote.”

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.

According to a Washington Post story published last week, the State Department reported that Russia is violating international chemical and biological weapons pacts. An excerpt:

“The new compliance report, obtained by the Washington Post, says that several issues raised in the 2005 version have been resolved, on subjects such as the movement of Russian road-mobile missiles and inspection of reentry vehicles. But the report may nonetheless fuel the debate over the new treaty, because it says a number of other compliance issues remained unresolved when the treaty expired last December. The unclassified version of the report does not identify them. To pass, the treaty will need at least eight Republican votes plus those of all 57 Democrats and the two independents. Most Republicans haven’t yet indicated which way they will go. In recent weeks, the battle over the treaty has intensified, with the Heritage Foundation launching a nationwide campaign against it, and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney branding it Obama’s ‘worst foreign policy mistake.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring comment on the issue:

“The State Department is sorely upset about July 28 headlines in the Washington Post and the Washington Times about a recent Department report on Russian noncompliance with several existing and past arms control treaties and how the Russian record could derail Senate approval of the new arms control treaty with Russia , which is called New START. It seems, however, that the State Department cannot keep its story straight.

“According to a report in Foreign Policy’s online journal “The Cable,” Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller asserts that Russian non-compliance with New START’s predecessor treaty, simply called START, was about minor technical issues.  On the other hand, a State Department official speaking off the record is quoted as saying, “As far as State is concerned, cheating in any form would be a huge issue… so it absolutely would be something we would take very seriously.”

“So which is it?”

Earlier this month, Paula DeSutter, former assistant secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation at the State Department, wrote a piece for the Heritage Foundation, in which she discussed the weaker verification regime in the new START, in contrast to the original treaty. The former Soviet Union has violated agreements before, and START will be no different.

Today’s Washington Post cites a State Department report that contends Russia is indeed violating international chemical and biological weapons pacts. The U.S. Senate will decide whether to ratify START, and seven Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee request the report. An excerpt:

“The new compliance report, obtained by the Washington Post, says that several issues raised in the 2005 version have been resolved, on subjects such as the movement of Russian road-mobile missiles and inspection of reentry vehicles. But the report may nonetheless fuel the debate over the new treaty, because it says a number of other compliance issues remained unresolved when the treaty expired last December. The unclassified version of the report does not identify them. To pass, the treaty will need at least eight Republican votes plus those of all 57 Democrats and the two independents. Most Republicans haven’t yet indicated which way they will go. In recent weeks, the battle over the treaty has intensified, with the Heritage Foundation launching a nationwide campaign against it, and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney branding it Obama’s ‘worst foreign policy mistake.”

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post earlier this month, and he’s received a number of responses. At National Review Online, he responds to Senator Richard Lugar’s criticism of his article, which Romney says “deserves further discussion

Romney lays out eight problems with new START. An excerpt:

“1. New START does limit U.S. missile-defense options. First, New START’s preamble not only references missile defense, it accedes to Russia’s insistence that there is an interrelationship between strategic offensive weapons and missile defense. While the Bush administration steadfastly refused to accept this Russian position, the Obama administration bows to it. The statement of interrelationship in the preamble, in addition to the specific missile-defense measures in the body of the treaty, amount to a major concession to Russia.

“The treaty’s advocates dismiss the preamble reference as non-binding. But the significance of including missile-defense provisions in an offensive-weapons treaty is not lost on either signatory. Further, the Russians assert that the preamble does indeed constitute a binding limit on our missile-defense program, both in their Unilateral Statement and in subsequent public statements. Gen. Yevgeniy Buzinskiy, who served as the chief of the International Treaty Directorate in the Russian Ministry of Defense during the treaty’s negotiations, insists that any increase in our ABM system could be claimed as a breach of the treaty. Such ambiguity and pressure, and fear of being accused of violating the treaty, could strongly restrain American presidents from aggressively developing and deploying missile defense. The 1972 ABM Treaty provides historical precedent for such a chilling effect: Fearful that U.S. theater-missile-defense systems would be viewed as violating the treaty, we pulled back from realizing the full potential of such systems.

“Further, the treaty prohibits our conversion of ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers for the launching of defensive interceptors. Such conversions may well not be part of the Obama administration’s current plans, but they could surely be part of a subsequent administration’s. Past missile-defense agency directors and naval planners have objected to precluding SLBM-launcher conversions, capable as they could be of defending America and our allies from diverse and undisclosed locations. Such conversions were prohibited by the ABM Treaty during the Cold War — a treaty from which we have withdrawn — but the Obama administration is consenting to their renewed prohibition by New START. Under its terms, there could be an average of four or more SLBM tubes on each of our strategic submarines that no longer contain ballistic missiles but may not be converted for defensive interceptors, and so are empty.”

Several START critics have written about their concerns over the verification regime in the new treaty. For instance, Paula DeSutter, former assistant secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation at the State Department discussed the weaker verifications regime in new START at the Heritage Foundation. Russia will take advantage of the weaknesses, and the consequences of Russia trying to get around verification will put the U.S. in danger.

Greg Randolph Lawson writes about the issue at Atlantic Community, a non-partisan and non-profit foreign policy organization. He suggests, among other things, that the U.S. Senate should reauthorize START I, with its more effective verification regime, and limits on nuclear weapons established by the 2002 SORT Treaty. An excerpt:

“The admittedly conservative Heritage Foundation found a series of problems with the new verification mechanisms including the mothballing of exchange of telemetry data and a reduction in the number of inspections.

“While it is true that in the absence of a new START Treaty, there would be no mechanism in place to exchange any information about what nuclear arms and delivery systems are deployed between Russia and the US; the troublesome lack of a fully effective verification regime, much more so than the hyperbolic fretting about missile defense, is a problem that should not be ignored just to get ’something’ in place.

“There is good reason to believe that Russia’s reliance on nuclear weapons will increase over time irrespective of this treaty. As Russia’s conventional military projection capabilities potentially decline, it will likely feel a need to compensate with what is still the ultimate equalizer. Indeed, its need for nuclear weapons will probably have less to do with its fears of an encroaching ‘West’ and more to do with an encroaching ‘East,’ as China continues to grow even during a time period where Russia’s demography may not be as sustainable as in the past. If this occurs, a lack of appropriate verification mechanisms could easily open the door to cheating. In turn, this would obviate the intended goal of the treaty in the first place.”