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“THE TREATY ON STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE REDUCTIONS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S3113-S3115 on March 5, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE TREATY ON STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE REDUCTIONS
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I understand that the remaining time is Republican time. I am going to go ahead and start making some comments. We are doing some checking. Maybe I will ask unanimous consent to get some time for my colleague from Oregon. In the meantime, I will go ahead and start my comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. ALLARD. I thank the Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to add my thoughts to this body's consideration of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, otherwise known as the Moscow Treaty. My understanding is that this afternoon it will be brought before the Senate. We are at a pivotal moment in our country's history. In many ways, the Senate's advise and consent to this treaty will mark the end of an era of hostility and the beginning of an age of cooperation.
It is more than a document; it is a signal to the world that the United States and Russia have moved beyond a relationship of conflict and brinkmanship to a relationship of mutual respect and shared values.
We all remember the super-power rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lasted over 45 years. I believe it is important for this debate to recall the tension and hostility that accompanies that time so that we may fully appreciate what this treaty symbolizes for the future of U.S.-Russian relations.
In 1947, a little-known foreign service officer named George Kennan under the pseudonym `X' wrote an essay that was published in Foreign Affairs journal that was to define our approach to the Soviet Union for the next fifty years. In his essay, he described the Soviet ideology as the belief in the ``basic badness of capitalism, in the inevitability of its destruction, in the obligation of the proletariat to assist in that destruction and to take power into its own hands.''
This ideological bent would manifest itself, Mr. Kennan predicted, in an ``innate antagonism'' between the Soviet Union and Western world. He said that we should expect secretiveness, a lack of frankness, duplicity, a wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness of purpose. Mr. Kennan warned us that the Soviet government might sign documents that might indicate a deviation from this ideology, but that we should regard such actions as a ``tactical maneuver permissible in dealing with the enemy (who is without honor) and should be taken in the spirit of caveat emptor''. As we discovered in the decades following, Mr. Kennan was right.
The Soviet Union did indeed devote itself to exporting its ideology around the world. Its foreign policy was marked by antagonistic rhetoric and provocative actions. It signed arms control agreements and then violated them. The Soviet Union invaded its neighbors, launched proxy wars, and encouraged revolution and instability. It repeatedly proved capable of exploiting weakness and political divisions. And it was successful at taking advantage of geopolitical realities. As a result, Angola, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Granada, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Greece, and Turkey all become Cold War battlegrounds.
For the most part, the United States followed Mr. Kennan's advice. We strove to contain Soviet expansionist tendencies. We forced back Soviet advances. We were firm. We were patient. And, in 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union, our patience paid off.
It is important that we recognize that the Russia of today is nothing like the Soviet Union of yesterday. Under the leadership of President Putin, economic and political reforms are being enacted. Russia is no longer bound by a defunct ideology. The country has stepped away from its past and has worked with sincerity to help resolve many of the challenges facing the international community.
Russia has also sought to improve its relationship with the Western world. It went eventually along with inclusion of the Baltic states into the NATO Alliance, despite harboring deep concerns. Russia accepted our withdrawal from the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty. After September 11, Russia assisted the United States in the war against terrorism by sharing intelligence information and raising no objection to the stationing of U.S. troops in the former Soviet states in Central Asia. Once inconceivable, it is now possible to imagine Russia joining the World Trade Organization and even NATO in the near future.
Another sign of improved relations between the U.S. and Russia is the treaty currently before us. The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions is much different from arms control treaties agreed to during the Cold War. The text of treaty epitomizes this new relationship. Both parties pledge to:
Embark upon the path of new relations for a new century and committed the goal of strengthening their relationship through cooperation and friendship.
Believe that new global challenges and threats require the building of a qualitatively new foundation for strategic relations between the Parties.
Desire to establish a genuine partnership based on the principles of mutual security, cooperation, trust, openness, and predictability.
The Joint Declaration by Presidents Bush and Putin that accompanied the treaty further expounds upon this new relationship. Let me read a couple of pertinent sections from that declaration:
We are achieving a new strategic relationship. The era in which the United States and Russia saw each other as an enemy or strategic threat has ended. We are partners and we will cooperate to advance stability, security, and economic integration, and to jointly global challenges and to help resolve regional conflicts.
We will respect the essential values of democracy, human rights, free speech and free media,tolerance, the rule of law, and economic opportunity.
We recognize that the security, prosperity, and future hopes of our peoples rest on a benign security environment, the advancement of political and economic freedoms, and international cooperation.
What is most notable about the Moscow Treaty as submitted to this body is the absence of certain provisions that normally marked Cold War era arms control treaties. Those provisions were based on distrust and antagonism. Instead, this treaty utilizes confidence-building measures based on trust and friendship.
For instance, the treaty does not establish interim warhead reduction goals or provide a detailed schedule for the reductions. The absence of such goals or schedules gives both sides flexibility over the next nine years to reduce their warheads at a pace of their own choosing.
Another missing element is precise counting rules. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 provided such complex counting rules that it frequently resulted in overcounting and undercounting. Minor disparities in deployed and ``counting'' forces are no longer a significant issue given the confidence building measures included in the treaty and our positive relationship with Russia.
It should be noted that the Moscow Treaty does continue the START I verification regime, which permits on site inspections and continuous monitoring. The Moscow treaty also creates a new Bilateral Implementation Commission that will be used to any raise concerns that might arise about treaty compliance and transparency. These measures, plus our own technical means, will provide the U.S. government with significant confidence that it can monitor Russia's activities.
The Moscow Treaty is similar to previous arms control agreements in one significant way: it does not require the dismantlement of warheads. Neither Russia nor the United States sought the dismantlement for two reasons. First, the dismantlement in the past has been considered inherently unverifiable. There is no established process for dismantling warheads that can provide assurance to each party.
Second, the U.S. intends to keep some warheads in ``ready reserve.'' Such a reserve is essential if we are to retain the capability to respond to changes in the security environment and quickly replace dysfunctional warheads.
I also think it is instructive to look at the process by which the Moscow Treaty was put together and how different these negotiations were from negotiations that occurred during the cold war. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld remarked on the difference during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last July. Here is what he said:
. . . it's significant that while we consulted closely and engaged in a process that had been open and transparent, we did not engage in lengthy adversarial negotiations in which U.S. and Russia would keep thousands of warheads that we didn't need, as bargaining chips. We did not establish standing negotiating teams in Geneva with armies of arms control aficionados ready to do battle over every colon and every comma. . . . An illustration of how far we have come is the START treaty. . . . It is 700 pages long, and it took nine years to negotiate. . . . The Moscow treaty . . . is three pages long and it took five or six months to negotiate.
Let's take a few moments to review some of the Moscow treaty's provisions. The treaty requires the reduction of strategic nuclear warheads by each party to a level of 1,700-2,200 by the end of 2012. Each side currently has about 6,000 warheads. This treaty means a reduction of over 8,000 nuclear warheads.
The treaty allows both parties to restructure their offensive forces as each sees fit, within the prescribed numerical limit. This provision gives each flexibility to meet the deadline and permit each party to determine for itself the composition and structure of its strategic offensive arms.
The Treaty mandates that the parties will meet at least twice a year as part of a Bilateral Implementations Commission.
The Treaty allows each party, in exercising national sovereignty, the ability to withdraw from the treaty upon three months written notice.
As you can see, the treaty is simple, straight-forward, and gives each party maximum flexibility.
Last summer, the Senate Armed Services Committee held two important hearings on the national security implications of the treaty. Witnesses included: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers; Combatant Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral James Ellis; and Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy, Dr. Everet H. Beckner. The witnesses at the Committee hearings unanimously supported ratification of the Moscow Treaty. The Chairman of the Joint chiefs, General Myers said,
The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I all support the Moscow Treaty. We believe it provides for the long-term security interests of our nation. We also believe that it preserves our flexibility in an uncretain strategic environment.
Admiral Ellis added that,
This treaty allows me, as the Commander of the nation's Strategic Forces, the latitude to structure our strategic forces to better support the national security pillars of assuring our allies, dissuading those who might wish us ill, deterring potential adversaries and, if necessary, defending the nation. . . . [I]n my judgment, this treaty provides me the ability to prudently meet those national security needs and to provide a range of deterrent options to the Secretary and the President for their consideration should the need arise. . . .
I believe it is important to recognize the flexibility that this treaty gives the United States. While the U.S. nuclear stockpile may contain a large number of warheads, we only have six types of warheads, and none of these have been tested in over a decade. The average age of warheads in the U.S. stockpile is approaching 20 years--and some warheads are much older. Despite the improved effectiveness of the stockpile stewardship program, problems in the stockpile do occur. Having the responsive reserve, as envisioned by the administration, enables us to address problems in the stockpile without compromising our national security interests. This treaty is simple, flexible, and makes sense. It is a signal that the hostility of the cold war has been buried and forgotten. It has been 12 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and clearly it is time to move one.
As we consider this treaty, we should also keep the future in mind. I share Secretary Rumsfeld's vision for future negotiations with Russia as he described it at July 26 Armed Services Committee hearing. He said,
We are working towards the day when the relationship between our two countries is such that no arms control treaties will be necessary. that's how normal countries deal with each other. The United States and Britain both have nuclear weapons, yet we do not spend hundreds of hours negotiating the fine details of mutual reductions in our offensive systems. We do not feel the need to preserve the balance of terror between us. It would be a worthy goal for our relationship with Russia to evolve along that path.
I could not agree more with the Defense Secretary's vision. Russia and the United States are no longer adversaries and therefore should not treat each other as such.
I understand that my good friend, Senator John Warner, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has written to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressing his strong support for the Moscow treaty. I join him in that support. I believe the Senate should provide its advice and consent to the ratification of the treaty with no further changes or additional conditions to the resolution of ratification.
Some of my colleagues may offer well-intentioned amendments that might attempt to add reservations, understandings, or declarations. I appreciate their desire to amend the treaty, but I think we should keep in mind that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved this treaty without amendment, and the resolution of ratification before us today has only tow modest conditions. The President has indicated his opposition to any amendment to the resolution. Therefore, I encourage my colleagues to oppose all amendments. I believe it would be best for our nation security interests if this treaty remained unencumbered by items that will complicate the treaty and reduce our flexibility.
Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity to share my views on this important treaty. I look forward to a healthy debate on this issue. I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes on the time the Democrats have with respect to the Estrada nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WYDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for your courtesy earlier in the morning.
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