Moscow Treaty

Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise to express my support for the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty, otherwise known as the Moscow Treaty, which was signed by President Bush and President Putin on May 24, 2002. This treaty is important because it signifies that Russia and the United States are committed to and cooperating on the reduction of nuclear weapons. It carries the weight of law and will remain in force for a decade. It is also important because it binds the United States and the Russian Federation to each reduce the number of operationally deployed strategic weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012.

Presently, the United States has approximately 6,000 nuclear weapons and the Russian Federation has almost 5,500 nuclear weapons. The Moscow Treaty is a step forward, reducing the danger of large numbers of operationally deployed nuclear weapons. This treaty is a good step, but it is only a small step. Much more must be done. Russia entered into negotiations seeking a legally binding document that would limit strategic nuclear warheads, and in their words "provide transparency and predictability" by containing definitions, and counting and elimination rules that resembled those in the START Treaties. Ultimately, Russia wanted to ensure that this process would be irreversible; in their words, that it would ensure the "irreversibility of the reduction of nuclear forces."

This administration, however, had different goals. Russia had to convince the United States to sign a legally binding document rather than a less formal exchange of letters. The United States rejected any limits and counting rules that would have required the elimination of delivery vehicles and warheads, stating that it wanted flexibility to reduce its forces at its own pace and to restore warheads to deployed forces if conditions warranted. So while this treaty changes the status of some operationally deployed warheads, it does not require the dismantling of a single weapon. Once this treaty is fully implemented, the United States will still have approximately 6,000 nuclear weapons. There will just be more weapons in storage. And similarly, the Russians could have approximately 5,500 nuclear weapons, but they would be nonoperational according to the lines of this treaty.

The treaty does not bind either party to any schedule for deactivation. It only requires that cuts be completed by December 31, 2012, the day the treaty expires. This means that either side can stop or even reverse the reduction process over the decade as long as both parties comply by the final date of the treaty.

The treaty does not specifically address the problems of tactical nuclear weapons or MIRV'd ICBMs. The number of Russian tactical nuclear weapons is believed to be between 8,000 and 15,000, while the United States has approximately 2,000. Russian tactical nuclear weapons are subject to fewer safeguards and are more prone to theft and proliferation. These are the proverbial suitcase weapons, often discussed in the press, which are the ones that are most mobile, most difficult to trace and detect. And the treaty does not deal with these weapons at all.

In addition, the Moscow Treaty effectively ends START II, which I will discuss in more detail later, which means that Russia will likely keep its weapons MIRV'd, meaning they will have multiple warheads on their weapons. Since MIRV'd weapons are fewer and more vulnerable, it increases the perceived need for a first strike.

Another shortcoming of the Moscow Treaty is that it includes no verification procedures. START I verification procedures will remain in place until 2009. But there was never agreement between the parties about which, if any, procedures could be used in the Moscow Treaty. Discussion of verification procedures is supposed to continue, but the administration recently stated: We have determined that specific additional transparency measures are not needed and will not be sought at this time.

I also believe the treaty withdrawal provisions are too lax. Parties can withdraw from the Moscow Treaty with 3-months notice without giving any reason. This means a party needs no compelling reason to stop complying with the terms of this treaty.

Finally, the terms of this treaty must be met by December 31, 2012, but that is the day the treaty expires. It is possible that it could be extended, but another agreement would have to be reached to do that. On the other hand, it could also lapse so the parties could raise the numbers of operationally deployed warheads above 2,200 on January 1, 2013. In effect, they could go through the term of the treaty without significant reductions, let the treaty lapse, and nothing would have been affected by the treaty. I hope certainly that doesn't happen.

I commend my colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar and Senator Biden. They have done a remarkable job of adding some detail to the treaty.

The resolution we are considering today contains two important conditions. The first condition requires a report and recommendation on how cooperative threat reduction assistance to the Russian Federation can best contribute to the efficient implementation of the treaty and maintain the security and accurate accounting of Russia's nuclear weapons and materiel. As I will discuss in detail later, the CTR program is the most effective tool to counter proliferation, and we must do all we can to maintain it.

Secondly, the resolution requires an annual implementation report which will include, among other items, a listing of strategic nuclear weapons force levels for both parties, a detailed description on strategic offensive reductions planned by each party for the current year, and how these reductions will be achieved, verification and transparency measures taken or proposed by each party, and actions taken or proposed to improve the implementation and effectiveness of the treaty.

There are also several nonbinding declarations, most of which request reports to Congress and encourage the President to continue to work to reduce nuclear weapons. These conditions and declarations make the treaty more substantial and, I believe, more effective.

I will support this treaty strengthened by this resolution. I want to say to the administration, however, that this is simply not enough. The rise of rogue nations and rogue nonstate actors, has made the threat of proliferation even more urgent. One of the legacies of the cold war is the abundance of nuclear weapons and fissionable material that is no longer under the clear control of the Russian Federation or other former states of the Soviet Union. Moreover, many of these nuclear weapons are housed in nations which are struggling economically and are susceptible to offers from rogue actors to acquire these materials.

As Graham Allison of Harvard, former dean at the Kennedy School, stated:

The single largest threat to American lives and liberties going forward for the next decade is terrorism, particularly terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. The one that I have been most concerned about is loose nukes.

We must do everything possible to counter proliferation through protection, containment, and interdiction. In 1991, former Senator Sam Nunn and Chairman RICHARD LUGAR recognized the risk presented by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. They created—history will record this—one of the most important initiatives that has been seen in this Senate, in this country in many years; that is, the counterproliferation program, the cooperative threat reduction program.

The programs they established in the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense, have had significant success in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Through these programs, the United States has secured tons of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union; helped deactivate, dismantle, or destroy thousands of Russian nuclear weapons and delivery systems; and helped provide employment for hundreds of Russian scientists and engineers with expertise in building nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, who otherwise might be tempted to sell their expertise to unfriendly nations or terrorist organizations. This is an extraordinary accomplishment, but so much needs to be done in addition.

Even though only about $1 billion of the $400 billion defense budget is annually allocated to support these programs, they have been among the most successful of all nonproliferation efforts undertaken by this country. Given the success of the programs, it is difficult to understand why securing adequate funding has been a significant challenge in the Bush administration.

I also want to add my voice to those of my many colleagues who believe the United States and the international community are capable of doing, and must do, much more in this regard. Let me quote once again from the expert, Senator Lugar, who in his article in the December 2002 issue of Arms Control Today, said:

It is critical that the United States lead in establishing a global coalition capable of exerting pressure on states to cooperate with the safeguarding, accounting, and (where possible) destruction of weapons and materials of mass destruction. Given that a war is being contemplated with Iraq over the question of their weapons programs, it is reasonable to ask why more is not being done on a global scale to control other proliferation risks.

I agree with the chairman. I also agree with his statement:

We must not only accelerate dismantlement efforts in Russia, we must broaden our capability to address proliferation risks elsewhere and build a global coalition to support such efforts.

Clearly, undeniably, there is a lot of work to be done in these programs, not the least of which is to make up for time lost to these programs over the past 2 years.

The Bush administration put most of the nonproliferation programs on hold during fiscal year 2001, in order to conduct a review to determine the validity of the programs. Luckily, most of the programs survived the review, and some were even strengthened; but little progress was made as very little work was done during this yearlong review.

Then, at the completion of the review, the fiscal year 2002, and all previous years, funds for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program were frozen for over a year because the Bush administration failed to make the required certification to spend the money.

Just recently, these funds have been released as a result of waiver authority included in the fiscal year 2003 Defense Authorization Act. This is waiver authority that the Republicans in the other body wanted to severely restrict and limit to 1 year, but luckily, in the end, the Senate was able to prevail and provide an unrestricted waiver for 3 years.

These two events, the program review and the inability to certify, effectively stopped the Nunn-Lugar programs for approximately 2 years. The effectiveness of some of these programs has clearly been inhibited, if not damaged. The challenge now is to work to regain and then increase their effectiveness.

The sheer magnitude of the problem of proliferation dictates that we must find an international consensus and work through multilateral arrangements.

Despite the bureaucracy and delay that accompanies international cooperation, I believe it is necessary, especially in the area of arms control regimes, to have a multilateral approach.

A report by the Rand Corporation to the then-President-elect Bush pointed out:

Without our democratic allies, many emerging global issues will likely prove to be beyond our ability to manage, but together with them, the United States will gain unparalleled ability to respond to tomorrow's demands and shape the future.
Regrettably, the Bush administration has demonstrated a distrust of international organizations.

Since President Bush took office, the administration has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty and walked away from meaningful negotiations concerning START II.

Indeed, in the preamble and article 2 of the Moscow Treaty, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is referred to as START, not START I. START II is evident only in its absence from this treaty.

Assistant Secretary of Defense J. D. Crouch has said:

I think we have sort of moved beyond START II.

Many Russian officials have recognized what appears to be the inevitability of this and indicated they are considering START II dead—meaning that Russia is no longer obligated to eliminate its MIRV'd ICBMs.

We must recognize that in many areas, including arms control, the United States cannot go it alone, and we have to not only encourage but actively work to create an international coalition, particularly with respect to proliferation of these weapons and nuclear materials.

I am also concerned that recent actions by the United States seems to indicate that while we talk about nonproliferation in principle, in practice we seem to be somewhat ambivalent. This is exacerbated when it appears that the U.S. is increasing the importance of nuclear weapons in our defense policy.

While the nonproliferation programs were being held up, the administration was working on a new nuclear posture review that would put more emphasis on nuclear weapons. The December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review laid out a framework which includes maintaining the current size of the nuclear weapons stockpile, not reducing it; blurring the distinction between nuclear offensive strike and conventional offensive strike; introducing the notion that new nuclear weapons might be needed to meet changing security requirements; holding open the possibility of resuming nuclear weapons testing, either to develop nuclear weapons, or to maintain the current stockpile; supporting a robust nuclear weapons complex, not just to implement the stockpile stewardship program, but to manufacture hundreds of new plutonium pits per year, and to be able to design a new weapon if needed; and increase "test readiness"—the level of readiness to conduct a nuclear weapons test, reducing that time period from 36 months to 18 months, essentially leaning further forward to the possibility of resuming nuclear tests. In addition, the Bush administration sought $15.5 million in its fiscal year 2003 request for a robust nuclear earth penetrator to use against hardened and deeply buried targets. This RNEP would modify an existing nuclear weapon with yields up to a megaton. Despite the fact that the fiscal year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act requires a report of the plan for this weapon before funds are released, there is an additional $15 million requested for this program in the fiscal year 2004 budget, indicating that the administration is still determined to try to develop this new variety of nuclear weapon.

There has also been a renewed interest in the development of small nuclear weapons. Even though there is clearly no military requirement for such a weapon, again in its fiscal year 2004 legislative proposal, the Department of Defense seeks the total repeal of a current ban on research and development that could lead to production of a low-yield nuclear weapon.

DOD states that this law, in their words, "has negatively affected U.S. Government efforts to support the national strategy to counter weapons of mass destruction and undercuts efforts that could strengthen our ability to deter, or respond to, new or emerging threats."

Frankly, this adds up to a very disturbing path of legitimizing the use of nuclear weapons in a world in which we are dramatically concerned with the possibility that Iraq is attempting to obtain nuclear weapons, a world in which the North Koreans are beginning to flaunt their ability to produce nuclear weapons, in which India and Pakistan are on the brink of conflict with nuclear weapons. The idea that we are lowering our own threshold to deploy, to use, to consider in our doctrine the use of nuclear weapons is, I think, an unfortunate and very dangerous approach. These continued efforts, both in the posture review, in requests for new weapons, in requests to investigate and do research on new types of nuclear weapons, and this legitimacy for the use of nuclear weapons, will have profound and detrimental consequences throughout the world.

It is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to urge other nations to forswear the development and use of nuclear weapons if we are so routinely talking about the development and use of nuclear weapons. This is a very disturbing development.

We have to look at nonproliferation as part of our overall defense policy. Advocating new or usable nuclear weapons destroys, inhibits, and damages the credibility of the United States as we seek to restrain the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. I hope that message comes through in not only today's discussions, but in this treaty.

I am also concerned with another aspect of the current situation. We are talking about our approach to Iraq as a need to disarm Saddam before he acquires nuclear weapons. Yet we have moved rather gingerly and pushed over to the United Nations the problem of North Korea which is on the verge of beginning to operate its reprocessing facilities, with the capability of building nuclear devices within months, if not weeks.

I think this leads many people, and not just those who follow these policy debates but most ordinary Americans, to wonder what is the difference. Why is the situation in Iraq so compelling, even though there is little evidence that Saddam is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon, that we engage in a military conflict, while, on the other hand, when there is glaring evidence of the ability of the North Koreans to produce such a weapon, we have moved this along into the category of not a crisis, something the U.N. can handle? That intellectual dilemma is puzzling many people throughout this country.

I believe there is a crisis in North Korea, and I believe it is a crisis that requires the prompt attention of the President. If one looks at the strategic vision we have to embrace, it can perhaps be divided into several major tasks.

The first is to preempt terrorists and, indeed, we saw this week an effective use of our military and intelligence forces and our allies in Pakistan. Then we have to interdict, contain, and stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The North Koreans, in my mind, pose a much more difficult challenge to us than the Iraqis at the moment. Not only are they on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon because they have the nuclear material, they also have a history of selling anything to anyone because their major cash crop is selling weapons to anyone who will buy them.

We are here today to conclude a very small but a very important step forward with the support of the Moscow Treaty, but we have much more to do when it comes to particularly supporting efforts by our country in an international coalition to preempt, to interdict, to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and I think to reexamine carefully and thoroughly the new emphasis we are putting on the development and use of nuclear weapons in our inventory.

I believe we will regret the day we give legitimacy to the potential use of nuclear weapons by any power, including the United States.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.