Okay okay, I'm done.
So we've been hearing some things about the new START treaty, same as the old START treaty, most recently from British reactionaries screaming “stab in the back” over US' agreement to disclose to Russia when we transfer a nuclear weapon into British (or French, or other) hands. I aim not merely to make light of their utterly puerile, cowardly prating, but to make at least some attempt at an opinion on the treaty overall.
Firstly, let me define what the treaty is: it is a fairly straightforward, bilateral agreement between the US and Russia (and no one else, as the term bilateral should already have told you) to limit, and verify limits on, offensive thermonuclear weapons and their various delivery systems. The treaty itself is only seventeen pages long; it doesn't spend a lot of time belaboring what a nuclear weapon or a delivery system is, or how limits are going to be set, kept, and verified. That is why the protocol, the agreed-upon procedures and details for implementing the treaty, is so much bigger than the treaty itself: roughly 10 times as long.
Now to get slightly technical: within the protocol are several categories of thermonuclear weapons; several categories of delivery systems, and a few kinds of basing and containment methods and exceptions (training and “maintenance,” or fixing-up, locations, and weapons which could be dual-purpose but are exempted once they are verified to preclude use as nuclear arms, such as bombers which can only deliver conventional weapons.) The details here are necessarily arcane, involved, and require the bulk (almost 80 pages) of the protocol, since details in general, are what the US and Russia agree to provide one another, on both their nuclear and non-nuclear arsenals, bases, and equipment, in the interest of useful inspection and verification of one another's compliance with the very short treaty.
I'm tempted to diverge now, into details of what comprises training, maintenance, deployment, and so on, but honestly, the definitions are fairly straightforward and well-explained in Part 1 (page 2) of the Protocol, so if it needs belaboring I'll be happy to in comments. Suffice to say, under the terms of disclosure, each nation must submit as part of its data dump, the locations of areas specifically designated for training and maintenance purposes, where active weapons may not be stored, but where weapons similar to or modifiable to deployable specs are permitted to be used for training, or fixed back to an operational status: weapons for training and undergoing maintenance don't count toward the limit. Submarines and aircraft capable of launching non-nuclear but not nuclear weapons, are not counted toward the limit, and are only inspectable to verify that they are in absolutely exclusive fact, conventional weapons.
Much of this treaty is based on the simple principle that Reagan well defined as, “trust, but verify.” Almost half of the protocol defines what information Russia will receive from the US, and what information Russia will volunteer to the US. Another twenty percent or so defines inspection and verification procedures: how, when, and where inspection teams may enter the other country, how they must be accommodated by the host nation, and how much notice (none) they must give for an inspection visit to a specific location within the host nation. This segment of the protocol is, to my mind, more critical than the declaration agreement, which mainly comprises the “trust” half (and Part 2 of the protocol); inspections comprise the “verify” half, and as such, need to be virtually unrestricted, and under this protocol, all of us should be happy to know, they are.
Without characterizing the reporters who complained that compliance with the treaty would weaken the defense of England by declaring to Russia when the US transfers a nuclear weapon out of its “deployed/deployable” inventory, so that we can nuclearize a bomber, deploy a warhead on a submarine, or move a launcher from a training/maintenance status to active deployment, I will say this: when the US declares transfers of nuclear weapons that we manufacture, and other nations (Britain or France, basically) buy, we maintain a stronger defense than if we kept that secret from Russia, and kept the transferred weapon “on the books” here in the US. I conclude that it is a good treaty, if a bit overdue (2009 would have been more timely, so the previous START didn't wear out before the new one could take effect) and one that should be no more difficult to implement or verify than the previous bilateral arms-limitation agreements between Russia and the US. If anything, this treaty is more straightforward and easier to implement than the previous START, and thus adds a greater degree of confidence that our counterparts will actually comply, not merely by making the verification section more explicit, but by making it technically more feasible to comply, which is not always the case.
Firstly, let me define what the treaty is: it is a fairly straightforward, bilateral agreement between the US and Russia (and no one else, as the term bilateral should already have told you) to limit, and verify limits on, offensive thermonuclear weapons and their various delivery systems. The treaty itself is only seventeen pages long; it doesn't spend a lot of time belaboring what a nuclear weapon or a delivery system is, or how limits are going to be set, kept, and verified. That is why the protocol, the agreed-upon procedures and details for implementing the treaty, is so much bigger than the treaty itself: roughly 10 times as long.
Now to get slightly technical: within the protocol are several categories of thermonuclear weapons; several categories of delivery systems, and a few kinds of basing and containment methods and exceptions (training and “maintenance,” or fixing-up, locations, and weapons which could be dual-purpose but are exempted once they are verified to preclude use as nuclear arms, such as bombers which can only deliver conventional weapons.) The details here are necessarily arcane, involved, and require the bulk (almost 80 pages) of the protocol, since details in general, are what the US and Russia agree to provide one another, on both their nuclear and non-nuclear arsenals, bases, and equipment, in the interest of useful inspection and verification of one another's compliance with the very short treaty.
I'm tempted to diverge now, into details of what comprises training, maintenance, deployment, and so on, but honestly, the definitions are fairly straightforward and well-explained in Part 1 (page 2) of the Protocol, so if it needs belaboring I'll be happy to in comments. Suffice to say, under the terms of disclosure, each nation must submit as part of its data dump, the locations of areas specifically designated for training and maintenance purposes, where active weapons may not be stored, but where weapons similar to or modifiable to deployable specs are permitted to be used for training, or fixed back to an operational status: weapons for training and undergoing maintenance don't count toward the limit. Submarines and aircraft capable of launching non-nuclear but not nuclear weapons, are not counted toward the limit, and are only inspectable to verify that they are in absolutely exclusive fact, conventional weapons.
Much of this treaty is based on the simple principle that Reagan well defined as, “trust, but verify.” Almost half of the protocol defines what information Russia will receive from the US, and what information Russia will volunteer to the US. Another twenty percent or so defines inspection and verification procedures: how, when, and where inspection teams may enter the other country, how they must be accommodated by the host nation, and how much notice (none) they must give for an inspection visit to a specific location within the host nation. This segment of the protocol is, to my mind, more critical than the declaration agreement, which mainly comprises the “trust” half (and Part 2 of the protocol); inspections comprise the “verify” half, and as such, need to be virtually unrestricted, and under this protocol, all of us should be happy to know, they are.
Without characterizing the reporters who complained that compliance with the treaty would weaken the defense of England by declaring to Russia when the US transfers a nuclear weapon out of its “deployed/deployable” inventory, so that we can nuclearize a bomber, deploy a warhead on a submarine, or move a launcher from a training/maintenance status to active deployment, I will say this: when the US declares transfers of nuclear weapons that we manufacture, and other nations (Britain or France, basically) buy, we maintain a stronger defense than if we kept that secret from Russia, and kept the transferred weapon “on the books” here in the US. I conclude that it is a good treaty, if a bit overdue (2009 would have been more timely, so the previous START didn't wear out before the new one could take effect) and one that should be no more difficult to implement or verify than the previous bilateral arms-limitation agreements between Russia and the US. If anything, this treaty is more straightforward and easier to implement than the previous START, and thus adds a greater degree of confidence that our counterparts will actually comply, not merely by making the verification section more explicit, but by making it technically more feasible to comply, which is not always the case.