How Smart is START?

By William L. Garvin

In the land of unicorns, rainbows, and lollipops, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is regarded as a historic act of presidential brilliance. Any day now, North Korea will begin beating its nuclear swords into plowshares, Iran will open its nuclear facilities to Atomic Energy Commission inspections, human rights abuses in Russia and China will cease, and Jews and Christians will freely walk the streets of Mecca. All we are saying is give peace a chance! It’s the New World Order…”we are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”

Those of us who harbor no such fantasies have a more reserved view of START in both form and substance. There is no denying the historical nature of the treaty since it is the only one that has ever been ratified by a Lame Duck congress. The Democrat Senate felt it necessary to rush the vote through with minimal debate before the Christmas recess. Why? The Russians have until the end of January to provide their imprimatur. The Senate must have adopted the Nancy Pelosi strategy: “We have to pass this bill so we can find out what’s in it away from the fog of controversy.” After all it’s only our national defense that’s at risk here.

A second red flag was when a Russian underling threatened to render the treaty null and void if “a single word” was changed. When this sort of brinksmanship plays out in negotiations, you can be pretty sure that someone is being snookered. It’s also unclear as to how the Russian Bear gained sufficient gravitas to think they can set the framework for any debate on how the United States chooses to defend herself! Russia should have absolutely no role in how we determine the appropriate means of our self defense!

An obvious concern is that President Obama says the treaty does not cover defensive missile systems and President Medvedev says it does. If you don’t know what it says, you shouldn’t sign it. This continues to be a foreign concept to our Congress. President Obama sent a letter to the Senate telling them that their fears were unfounded and they naively bought it. Obviously they have forgotten the Executive Order that he signed that said ObamaCare would never cover abortions. That assurance has been proven not to be worth the paper on which it was written.
Keep in mind that the President already scuttled the missile defense system located in Poland and the Czech Republic because of Russian concerns. The replacement systems have been slow in implementation and plagued by accuracy problems. Also keep in mind that the United States has many more global defense responsibilities for our allies than does Russia. Unless Russia is ready to assume some of the deterrent responsibilities in regard to nations such as Iran and North Korea, why should the U.S. step down to a tit for tat level? Of course, Russia has been either uninterested or ineffective in pressuring North Korea and has been a steady weapons trading partner with Iran. A final note on treaty substance is that it fails to address the easily transportable tactical nuclear weapons where experts estimate that Russia has a ten-to-one superiority over the United States.

Let’s also not forget our southern hemisphere, which many military strategists regard as the “soft underbelly” of the United States. Much has already been made of our Swiss cheese border with Mexico. A more ominous concern is that Iran has established a “joint training center” in Venezuela and is training security forces there. Russia has supplied 1,800 anti-aircraft missiles as well as other types of missiles (range up to 185 miles) to Venezuela and has also agreed to supply them with Russian tanks. Certainly Russia is insuring that none of these armaments pass through their intermediary to Iran. Iran has said they will supply Venezuela with longer range ground to ground missiles with atomic warhead capability. Such missiles can easily reach the United States. Concurrently, Iran is mining uranium in their “host” country.

You can bet that when Hugo and the Imams (not to be confused with a 1950’s DoWop group of the same name) make their next move, they won’t be riding unicorns and they won’t be lobbing lollipops! They’ll be kicking the rear ends of a bunch of jackwagons in Namby-Pamby Land who are busy dancing around the Maypole of their New World Order. This month both Venezuela and the United States have cancelled the visas for each other’s ambassadors but who would know? This is highly reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis except for the lack of Presidential resolve in the White House and the refusal of the media to keep the public informed. Wake up, America!