U.S. Senate votes on START

The Obama administration is optimistic the New START treaty, a quid-pro-quo agreement with Russia to reduce both countries' deployed nuclear weapons, will be ratified by the U.S. Senate before the winter recess.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have defeated Republican attempts to amend the treaty and are confident they will get the nine Republican votes needed to meet the two-thirds majority requirement for ratification.

The treaty, which was signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague last April, will gradually lower the amount of deployed strategic nuclear weapons the former Cold War adversaries can posses to 1,550 each over seven years. It's a central component of Obama's diplomatic mission to "reset" relations with Russia and would represent an important legislative victory for the U.S. president. A Senate vote appeared imminent as of press time Dec. 21.

Senate Republicans had taken issue with certain parts of the treaty and attempted to amend the agreement to include a stricter inspection regime and a larger number of deployed missiles and tactical nuclear weapons. The proposed changes were seen as "poison pill" amendments by proponents of nuclear de-proliferation who cautioned that changes to the treaty signed in April could provoke the Russians to pull out.

In a statement to Russian journalists Dec. 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the treaty "cannot be opened up and become the subject of new negotiations."

Vít Střítecký, of the Institute for International Relations in Prague, said the treaty is far from perfect but is still a step in the right direction.

"It's important that the process continues, not that we should look at these agreements like they'll solve everything," said Střítecký, who supports the treaty, but cautioned that if the two nuclear superpowers continue to reduce their atomic armory as emerging powers like China increase theirs, future negotiations may need to be multilateral.

As stipulated by the Russians, stockpiles are not included in the treaty, an omission Střitecký says is less a practical concern than a question about Russia's reliability as a partner, since most of the weapons are too antiquated to present a threat.

"The important thing is that the world powers at least try to negotiate," he said.

Emily Thompson can be reached at
ethompson@praguepost.com