Politicsdaily.com
Chief Military Correspondent
It's not in the flowery language or the fine print of the new U.S.-Russian arms-reduction treaty awaiting Senate ratification. But there's an interesting hedge built in to the new START treaty: If we think the Russians are cheating, we can respond quicker than they can.
It's called the "Upload Option,'' and it seems to answer treaty critics who fret that somehow or other those cunning Russians will find a way around the limits on bombs and missile warheads and surprise us with sudden nuclear war-fighting dominance.
The treaty, signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last April, requires the two sides to cut their nuclear forces within seven years to 700 missiles and heavy bombers, with a limit of 1,550 warheads deployed on those weapons -- still more than enough to blow civilization to smithereens.
There are an estimated 23,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, from North Korea to France, China and Pakistan. But the United States and Russia have by far the biggest arsenals (United States: about 10,000 of all kinds, including operational, reserve and stored warheads. Russia: about 14,000).
It's the balance of weapons, the balance of threats, that according to nuclear doctrine helps to keep the Washington-Moscow relationship stable. And that depends on each side being sure the other is not cheating.
To prevent the Americans from duping them, a team of 10 Russians will arrive in San Francisco or Washington soon -- if the Senate ratifies the treaty -- having given a day's notice, but NOT saying where they want to go. Within four hours, they'll announce they want to inspect, say, for example, the Minuteman missile silos at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D. And off they'll go with a Defense Department escort, poking under the nose cone of a missile, counting the warheads (there should be three maximum).
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