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Alarmism Won’t Save START

For most of the last two weeks, I have been arguing for START ratification, and I have been insisting that ratification will boost American and allied security. One of the advantages that treaty supporters have had is that arguments in support of the treaty have generally been well-grounded in reality. It is therefore remarkably unhelpful […]

For most of the last two weeks, I have been arguing for START ratification, and I have been insisting that ratification will boost American and allied security. One of the advantages that treaty supporters have had is that arguments in support of the treaty have generally been well-grounded in reality. It is therefore remarkably unhelpful to have advocates of the treaty say ridiculous things like this:

So quick approval of this treaty goes beyond questions of national security. It’s about national survival. The terrorist attacks nine years ago were unspeakable, but America could withstand more Sept. 11’s. It can’t survive one major nuclear attack.

God willing, we will never have to test the limits of American endurance, but can Harrop actually be serious? Besides being almost comically alarmist, Harrop’s claim betrays an amazing lack of confidence in the nation’s ability to survive even one catastrophic attack. Something that ties together the worst hawkish opponents of the treaty with its most alarmist defenders is the largely irrational fear they have of North Korea, as if these states are going to hand off weapons they have spent years developing at enormous cost and risk retaliation from the U.S. in the event one of them is used. The far greater dangers are unsecured nuclear materials in Russia that might be stolen or sold. Failure to ratify potentially jeopardizes cooperation in securing those materials, and it makes it impossible to negotiate the reduction or elimination of tactical nuclear weapons. Obviously, we have a very real security interest in both of these things, and both are at risk if the treaty goes down, but the petty fearmongering of some treaty advocates is absurd and harmful to the already-poor prospects for ratification. Neither North Korea nor Iran is going to subject the U.S. to a “nuclear holocaust,” and it is reckless and foolish to say so. This isn’t going to make treaty skeptics more likely to support the treaty; it will simply prove to them that the administration has not been “doing enough” on these other fronts, and that its preoccupation with arms control is a waste of time.

It’s certainly true that failing to ratify this treaty is harmful to U.S. interests, and in combination with the Wikileaks debacle it will make the conduct of foreign policy extremely difficult for the rest of Obama’s term and beyond. It is shameful to pursue partisan advantage at expense of the national interest, but it is nonsense to describe this as treason, which is effectively what Harrop says Kyl has committed. If this is what supporters of the treaty are reduced to arguing to get a hearing at this stage, the treaty is in even worse condition than I thought.

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