PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
13 January 2009
Hillary Clinton, Senators Seek U.S.-Russia Effort on Arms Control
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty negotiations called a priority
Washington — If confirmed by the Senate, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will work with Russia to extend a nuclear arms agreement set to expire later this year.
Clinton’s comments, made during her confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 13, were echoed by the committee chairman, Senator John Kerry, and Senator Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the panel.
“While defending against the threat of terrorism, we will also seize the parallel opportunity to get America back in the business of engaging other nations to reduce nuclear stockpiles,” Clinton said. “We will seek agreements with Russia to secure further reductions in weapons under START.”
START I — the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — is a bilateral agreement between the United States and the former Soviet Union, signed July 31, 1991, that limits each to no more than 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads and limits the number of delivery vehicles — such as bombers and land-based and submarine-based missiles — to 1,600 each. The treaty is set to expire December 5, 2009.
Clinton said she is strongly committed to the START negotiations and will seek to bring back into the State Department arms control and nonproliferation experts.
“We want Russia to know that we are serious,” she said.
In opening remarks, Kerry urged the nominee to “re-engage with Russia” on nuclear security.
“In the age of catastrophic terrorism, it is also urgent … that we restore America's leadership on nonproliferation,” Kerry said. “It is my hope that we will embrace deep, reciprocal cuts in our nuclear arsenals. … Consistent with our security needs, I believe we should set a goal of no more than 1,000 deployed warheads, and that goal should be just the beginning. We should also lay the groundwork for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”
Lugar called START the “conceptual underpinning” of the U.S. strategic relationship with Russia. Failure to extend it, he said, “will be seen as weakening the international nonproliferation regime.” Lugar is considered among the most knowledgeable members of Congress on arms control and nonproliferation issues.
Clinton also said she plans to work with the committee on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions either in the air or underground, and to revive negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty that would ban further production of weapons-grade plutonium or uranium, which are integral components of nuclear weapons.
In his remarks, Lugar urged Clinton to give energy security a much higher priority, citing the recent decision by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to cut off natural gas supplies routed through Ukraine to Europe.
“This dispute is only the most recent example of how energy vulnerability constrains our foreign policy options around the world, limiting effectiveness in some cases and forcing our hand in others,” Lugar said.
