Soviet Russia

Arms control hasn’t got that 2 mins to nuclear midnight pressure it once had. Those of a certain age will recall that in the most frosty days of the Cold War, when large U.S. And Soviet nuclear arms depots were being played like dangerous chips in a winner-take-all poker game, there had been a hold-your-breath quality to the negotiation process that was totally stomach-churning. That old sense of nuclear fear is typically absent from today’s arms control talks ; but the stakes are easily as high if not higher in the early 21st century, given the facts of world terrorism and the growing risk that stray nuclear weapons could fall into the incorrect hands. Whether the arms cope with Russia claimed last Fri. by President Barack Obama is a significant step or just a bridge to possible future major steps and professionals’ opinion is split on that query the statement reminds us : Arms control is still a particularly massive deal. The arms control bargain that Obama asserted with fanfare in Washington last Fri. is about to be signed by Obama and his Russian opposite number, Dmitry Medvedev, in Prague on Apr eight.

The accord calls for reductions in the amount of utilized strategic warheads by virtually 1/3 and reduction of total launchers to eight hundred over the following one or two years. It has to be ratified by the Russian Parliament and by a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate.

The accord is difficult and technical. Administration strategists hope to have it sent to Capitol Hill by the end of Apr and ratified by the full Senate by year’s end.

Inspecting the contract in all its detail is the Senate’s constitutionally ordained duty of counsel and consent. But a second reason offered for possible Senate delay is more troubling. Lingering hard feelings over passage of medicare reform could leak into the arms control debate, some researchers say. We are hoping they do not. This latest arms agreement is founded on decades of hard-won bipartisan agreement by politicians and judiciary who did their homework and put aside differences to act in the nation’s interest. In case hesitant Republicans need reminding, this is a follow-on to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Contract ( START ) bartered with the USSR by President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

It also builds on earlier work by President Ronald Reagan, who imagined a world liberated of nuclear threat. Ratification should not be clouded by the vicious partisanship which has poisoned things in Washington recently. It’s worth recalling one high visibility bipartisan partnership in the Senate in the 1990s, that formed by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and previous Sen. Sam Nunn, a vet Left winger from Georgia.

The 2 were widely admired for both their level of knowledge on arms control and their willingness to work across the aisle to achieve ratification of arms control treaties that made the world a more safe place.