Washington " The New START treaty not only represents a commitment by the United States and Russia toward nuclear disarmament, but also strengthens the reset between Washington and Moscow “that is helping us to address the most urgent proliferation threats we face in Iran and North Korea,” National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon says.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington — The New START treaty not only represents a commitment by the United States and Russia toward nuclear disarmament, but also strengthens the reset between Washington and Moscow “that is helping us to address the most urgent proliferation threats we face in Iran and North Korea,” National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon says.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( START ), signed April 8, 2010, by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, marks the first major arms reduction pact since the last days of the Cold War.
Keynoting the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference meeting in Washington on March 29, Donilon outlined the next steps to establish missile-defense cooperation.
Referencing President Obama’s vision for achieving the “peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” in a speech the president delivered in Prague in 2009, Donilon presented the Obama administration’s plans to advance each of the four dimensions of the president’s agenda.
To reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons, the United States recently exchanged data with Russia on nuclear facilities under the auspices of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the treaty’s implementing body, currently meeting in Geneva. On-site inspections conducted under the treaty will soon follow. Once the treaty is fully implemented, Donilon said, it will mark the lowest number of deployed nuclear warheads since the 1950s, the first full decade of the nuclear age.
The administration’s next agreement with Russia should include nondeployed and nonstrategic nuclear weapons, Donilon said. “A priority will be to address tactical nuclear weapons.” No previous arms control agreement has included such provisions.
“We are ready to begin discussions soon with Russia on transparency and confidence-building measures that could provide the basis for creative verification measures in the next round of U.S.-Russia nuclear arms reductions,” Donilon said.
To ensure a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal that will facilitate arms reductions, the Obama administration intends to invest $85 billion in the nation’s nuclear infrastructure over the next 10 years, Donilon said. “If Congress approves the president’s funding program for the nuclear complex, it allows us to reduce the size of our nuclear stockpile because we will be able to maintain a robust hedge against technical problems with a much smaller reserve force,” Donilon said, adding that the arsenal is “necessary to defend the U.S. and our allies and partners for as long as nuclear weapons exist.”
Paralleling the Russia discussions, President Obama is committed to deploying an effective missile-defense system to defend the United States and its allies against threats from such countries as Iran and North Korea, Donilon said. He cited the Phased Adaptive Approach, which provides a more effective and timely response to missile threats, an approach embraced by NATO at the Lisbon summit in November 2010, and widely regarded as a substantial improvement over the prior program, according to Donilon.
To advance the second element of the president’s Prague agenda — nonproliferation — the administration is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure inspections and verifications, while tightening international sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
The administration is committed to working with both political parties in the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ( CTBT ). Ratification would serve America’s national security interests by strengthening the legal and political barriers to a resumption of nuclear testing, “which would fuel the nuclear buildup in Asia,” Donilon said.
Donilon also cited President Obama’s support for a new international treaty, the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty ( FMCT ), designed to verifiably end the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons.
To meet the third element of the Prague agenda, preventing nuclear terrorism by strengthening international cooperation on nuclear security, the administration has set a global work plan to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. An interim goal is to demonstrate significant progress by the next Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012.
The fourth element of President Obama’s Prague agenda is to develop new mechanisms to support the growth of safe and secure nuclear power in ways that reduce the spread of dangerous technologies. Citing the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident in Japan, Donilon called for all nations with nuclear energy programs to ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants and safe storage of nuclear waste.
The administration is working with the international community to meet the increased demand for low-carbon sources of electricity and access peaceful nuclear power without increasing the risks of proliferation, Donilon said.
( This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov )
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