Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review Delayed Yet Again. A post START Arms Control Connection?
Many in the US arms control community often display an, I admit its very infectious, over the top fascination with the technical details of arms control. I love reading about the third stage boosters of an ICBM too, but let's not forget that arms control is an inherently political process.
Both the post START arms control treaty and the US Nuclear Posture Review continue to be delayed. In fact the NPR is now delayed yet again.
...The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), originally scheduled to be released with the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and FY11 Budget on February 1, has been further delayed.
Now, the NPR is expected in early March, but a week or two after the previously announced March 1 deadline.
Josh Rogin the delay a couple days ago, citing a speech by Ellen Tauscher:
"Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher said in a speech Wednesday that the NPR is expected to come out in early March, a little later than the March 1 deadline previously announced and much later than the original Dec. 1 deadline."
Whether a "little later" means later in the first week of March or into the second or third week is unclear....
The delays in these two processes have tended to track each other.
This invites conjecture, even though, of course, correlation does not imply causation. Given that this is a blog, let us nonetheless conjecture.
It has generally been supposed that the delays to post START have been due to such technical details as verification and the sharing of telemetry data (in relation to missile tests). Personally I have never really bought that. It's true that the latest round of talks, so various public comments inform us, have been devoted to ironing out these issues.
However, if there are niggles in arms control talks between Russia and the US then we should attribute this to niggles in the political relationship between Moscow and Washington. I have always felt that the real issue here is Ballistic Missile Defence and Prompt Global Strike.
A Russian official has been cited as claiming as much in a very recent AP report
...A Russian official said Friday that U.S. plans for a revamped missile defense system in Romania are stalling talks on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency that Washington's plans "in the most immediate sense" are "influencing" Russian-U.S. negotiations on a replacement to a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expired in 2009...
Haggling on verification and telemetry does not necessarily mean that verification is behind any go slow during negotiations.
According to the Obama-Medvedev parameters a statement on the link between BMD and arms control, but also Prompt Global Strike, should be an outcome of the whole process. Noises about extending BMD into Romania and Bulgaria I am sure aren't going down well in Moscow.
On Prompt Global Strike, we are not in a position to say much. This has tended to slip under our radar. But I did notice a reference to it in Joe Biden's speech at the National Defense University. The speech was pretty light on. He did state, though
...Capabilities like an adaptive missile defense shield, conventional warheads with worldwide reach, and others that we are developing enable us to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, as other nuclear powers join us in drawing down. With these modern capabilities, even with deep nuclear reductions, we will remain undeniably strong...
Prompt Global Strike is another Bush era strategic development that you can pencil in for the Obama administration.
Now you would notice in the speech the line that Brand Obama seems to be developing. It seems that the tangible evidence to be offered for Obama's "going to zero" rhetoric is going to be strategic arms control and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Nothing new there. That's how Clinton got indefinite extension of the NPT up. Recall that the CTBT was used to deflect calls from the non-aligned movement for the nuclear weapon states to make good on their abolition obligations under the NPT.
Perhaps Moscow calculates that this gives it leverage. Perhaps Obama would like the NPR to explicitly point to a completed post START arms control accord as tangible evidence for "going to zero". This Moscow figures might be important for Obama, especially given the growing mismatch between his rhetoric and his actions. He needs a successful, especially after Copenhagen, NPT Rev Con.
Given this Moscow probably is playing hard ball to try and extract concessions on BMD,hence the delay in the post START accord which then feeds into a delay in the NPR.
As I have stated previously Obama has adopted the open architecture provision of Bush's BMD policy. That's the problem.
Under this approach the damn thing can be extended into Romania one day, Bulgaria the next and God knows where else after that.
Of course, Iran might also be an issue. Moscow likes arms control because it enables Russia to maintain strategic parity on the cheap. Washington knows this, and Obama is hell bent on going hard against Tehran. Multilateral sanctions require Russia's support. Perhaps Iran should be thrown into the mix too.
Or, maybe, Russia's new military doctrine caught Pentagon hardliners on the hop, requiring last minute revisions?
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Marko is also interested in philosophy, especially the theory of knowledge, and science, especially physics, and considers himself to work within the naturalist and enlightenment tradition. He is writing a book on nuclear terrorism.