Treaties seem to me to suppose the need for consensus and bilateral (or multilateral) approval and hence contrary to our ability to act unilaterally in our own interests. Again, I admit this is largely visceral, and I admit that it is not inconceivable that a treaty could be in our best interest. ~Red Phillips

I understand this reaction. I agree that treaties shouldn’t be entered into lightly, and they should only be entered into when they clearly serve the American interest. On the whole, I share this skepticism of most treaties, especially when they make policy decisions less accountable to the American public and when they invest international institutions with authority over matters that should be reserved to U.S. institutions. New START does neither of these things.

In this case, a bilateral agreement is necessary. The administration could try to reduce the nuclear arsenal unilaterally, but we all understand that this will never happen. As it was, there was strong resistance to the treaty when both sides were under the same restrictions, and any attempt to reduce the arsenal unilaterally would meet even stronger opposition on the grounds that it could put the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage. If reducing the number of deployed warheads is desirable, and I would hope that non-interventionists and conservative realists can largely agree that it is, there are good reasons why it needs to be done on a bilateral basis and confirmed through a negotiated agreement. There needs to be some reasonable confidence that the Russians are also staying within the same limits, and there has to be some mechanism for verifying compliance. The merits of the treaty are fairly straightforward, and I don’t think one has to be an “internationalist” to see them, which is why I continue to find opposition to it a bit mystifying.

Why did I spend so much time discussing the treaty? For one thing, opposition to the treaty was coming largely from all of the people complicit in the disasters of Bush-era foreign policy, including the poor handling of relations with Russia. When the alleged “expert” witnesses for the anti-treaty side were John Bolton and Richard Perle, it seemed to me that we were once again seeing the Republican position on a significant foreign policy issue defined by dangerous ideologues just as we had seen in the debate leading up to the war in Iraq, and as we have seen again and again in foreign policy debates over the last decade. On one side of the debate, there were most of the usual suspects that routinely try to stoke conflict, exaggerate threats, and demagogue national security issues, so why wouldn’t I oppose that side as intensely as I have been opposing them in the past?

We have seen the results of what the hawkish interventionists’ national security views are, and we know that they have damaged U.S. interests, and I was convinced that opposition to the treaty was in some respects a continuation of the reckless, hubristic approach to foreign policy that caused that damage. It was the fanatical opposition to it from most of the GOP and conservative movement leaders and the fundamentally dishonest arguments advanced in support of that opposition that made the treaty’s ratification seem to be particularly important. The treaty merited ratification, and its opponents deserved to be defeated, because they were recycling the very same ill-informed, reckless foreign policy views that have been prevailing on the right for over a decade. These are the same views that materially harmed American interests during the Bush years, and they are the views that non-interventionists on the right have generally been trying to combat at every turn for decades. If Robert Kagan wants to try to spin an outcome that most of his allies vigorously opposed, that has nothing to do with the importance of the treaty.

It did matter to me that anti-treaty figures in the GOP have generally been advocates of provocative, aggressive and confrontational policies towards Russia and towards many other states. Whatever their other political considerations were, there was certainly a desire on the part of some treaty opponents to sabotage improved U.S.-Russian relations. The U.S. should not seek improved relations with Russia for their own sake, but to advance concrete U.S. interests. This involves securing nuclear materials, promoting security cooperation against jihadism, countering nuclear proliferation through civilian nuclear cooperation (such as the recently-enacted 123 agreement), and further reducing our costly, unnecessary nuclear arsenal. Beyond this, cultivating good relations with other major powers should make it less likely that the U.S. will attempt to back proxies along their borders or pursue provocative policies that the other state will perceive as an attempt at hostile containment. Anyone who wants to scale back the warfare state and restore some sanity to U.S. foreign policy should be able to see the value of reducing tensions with other major powers.

Recognizing the limits of U.S. power also means that the U.S. will need to cooperate with other powers in some cases to secure American interests. Politically, the treaty’s failure would have undermined the thaw between Washington and Moscow, and it would have given great encouragement to those in the U.S. and Russia that desire and would benefit from renewed antagonism between our governments. Renewed antagonism would not serve American interests, it would become a new pretext for increased U.S. involvement in other nations’ affairs, and it would also destabilize eastern Europe and the Caucasus as hawkish interventionists pushed for escalating pressure against Russian “expansionism.” The treaty’s ratification doesn’t eliminate the danger of renewed antagonism in the future, but it does make it less likely, and that seems obviously desirable.