Because it works. Military.com’s Jamie McIntyre reports: Skeptics of missile defense should take note of Russia’s paranoia about the U.S. missile defense in Europe. There’s a reason for Russia’s unreasonable stand: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes something many in the U.S. scoff at, namely that the anti-??missile system probably works, and Russia has nothing like it. President Barack Obama’s desire to reduce the number of nukes is welcome. But he should not sacrifice U.S. missile defense capabilities in order to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, by prioritizing nuclear reductions over …
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he plans for Russia to respond to the fielding of missile defense systems by the United States by modernizing Russia’s nuclear force in order to overcome the defense. This is not surprising because Russian officials have been stating for some time that they plan to seek offensive nuclear capabilities to counter U.S. non-nuclear defenses and have been actively pursuing a nuclear modernization program. The Russian offensive nuclear response to the U.S. non-nuclear defensive program is grounded in Prime Minister Putin’s …
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent rant regarding missile defense and arms control shows that U.S. and Russian negotiators failed to meet the December 5th deadline to sign a new arms control treaty to replace the now-expired START Treaty, not because of technical difficulties, but because of a fundamental question: what both sides see as necessary to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations. The START follow-on negotiations were to result in a treaty reducing strategic nuclear arms that also would serve as the cornerstone of the new bilateral relationship. Putin has made it …
The Obama Administration is currently negotiating with Russia to establish a treaty to succeed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expired on December 5th. As the Heritage Foundation has documented, the Administration’s mishandling of strategic nuclear arms control discussions to date has resulted in a hasty and overambitious process that has threatened to circumvent the U.S. Senate’s role in treaty-making and undermine vital national interests. Yesterday, 40 Republican senators and one independent voiced their concerns about the process and pointed out how a START follow-on may threaten U.S. national …
Diplomacy and development have been major administration priorities as illustrated by the State Department’s first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) intended to provide the short-, medium-, and long-term blueprint for our diplomatic and development efforts. On December 14, 2009, Secretary Clinton gave democracy its due in a lecture at Georgetown University which stressed the parallels between democracy promotion and human rights: Our human rights agenda for the 21st century is to make human rights a realist, and the first step is to see human rights in a broad …
On November 12, General Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, said that Russia was seeking to overcome “a range of problems” in the negotiations on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on treaty. The Treaty will replace the current 1991 START Treaty that expires on December 5. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred to “obstacles” in the talks. The completion of the START follow on treaty is a major part of the administration’s effort to “reset” relations with Russia and is seen as a stepping stone in achieving …
EU elites have been lining up in euphoric droves to celebrate the passage of the Lisbon Treaty. Having fudged, connived, bullied and browbeaten the final hold-outs, the creation of an EU super-state will now take its greatest leap forward. Contrast the throngs of headlines over Lisbon’s passage with the EU’s response to Russia’s simulation of a nuclear attack on Poland. A Polish newspaper recently revealed that Moscow simulated a war game in which Russian armed forces invaded Poland and nuclear missiles were fired. Eerily similar to the propaganda methods adopted …
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Munich in March she presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a gift intended to symbolize the Obama administration’s desire to “push the reset button” on U.S. relations with Moscow. Problem is, the lettering on the little red button said “overload” (peregruzka), not “reset” (perezagruzka). This high level gaffe is just about the perfect symbol for how Obama’s Russian relation relaunch has gone. White House wordsmiths seem to also have forgotten that if you push the reset button, old software bugs get …
This week marks the one year anniversary of the president’s election to commander chief, but it seems more like an occasion for concern than for slapping high-fives. It is not hard to craft comparisons between Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office. Both entered office with high expectations; both vowed to change the tone in Washington and remake the world. Carter had a terrible sophomore slump. America’s enemies took stock of his foreign policy in his first year in office. The next year they exploited the weaknesses they found. …
For too long, the Iranian regime has played hide and seek with the U.S. and other countries regarding its nuclear weapons program. Last week, the House took a critical step to end this deadly game. Just days before the 30th anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs took up the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act. This bipartisan legislation, which Rep. Howard Berman, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I introduced, and which enjoys the support of well over 300 co-sponsors, targets one …
